About Me
I’m a 30 year old Brit who has relocated to the mountains in between Kraków and Zakopane. I build websites and do Internet marketing for a living from home. I have a Polish wife and have just become a Daddy! If you are an expat in Poland let me know you exist – drop a comment! If you are interested in being interviewed for my series of podcasts please get in contact.
Hi just finsihed reading some of your site. My name is Sean from Dunstable in the UK I have spent some time in Poland as my girlfriend is Polish and we have one son called Krzysztof just born in October of last year. I’ve just come back from Spending xmas in Poland and my girlfriend is very keen on moving back there. I am also working in IT in UK and previously Ireland. I am mainly working in Software development using the java platform my other interests are web application development and PHP. My Girlfriend is moving back with Krzysztof soon but I am staying on for a little while longer here. I am slightly nerved about looking for work in Poland and could use some advise from yourself. My Polish is still a little shaky but I am open to learning more and making more of an effort. I can understand alot more than I can speak. I am very familair with Polish culture as I spent some time there in 2007 and travelled around lots of cities and towns. We are interested in Buying a house there as we have almost all of the money but I am nervous about the job situation and making that commitment. Our money is already in Zloty in BGZ bank but we still need to take a small morgage to buy the kind of house we want. I would like to hear from you and maybe get in touch with you when I come over next time.
Look forward to hearing from you.
regards
Sean
Hello.
I am so pleased that I have come across your website. I am from Scotland and have a Polish wife. We have a house in Scotland and in Poland and therefore have been through a few of the difficulties that you mention here. However, as I read through I realise that I have just scratched the surface of the hoops to jump through. As I am an IT contractor with all my work so far in the UK I have not entered into the registration maze and am a bit reluctant to start until I am the point of starting work in Poland. By registering in Poland what does this mean to tax and residency in the UK or does it not affect it at all?
It is great to see that I am not alone in the situation and take comfort in the knowledge that there are others out there that can help. The worst thing for me is the lack of control that I feel in Poland as I am unable to get the information myself as my Polish is still not great.
Look forward to hearing from you and adding any helpful information I have about any of your blogs.
Regards
Martin
Hi Martin
When you mean ‘registering’ in Poland do you mean registering a company or registering yourself at a residence (zameldowanie)?
Neither affect your residency status for tax purposes directly. Residency is mainly affected by how much time you spend in either country and where your main ‘ties’ are – see here: http://www.britishinpoland.com/blog/2008/09/am-i-now-a-uk-or-poland-resident-for-tax-purposes/
Cheers.
Ben
Hi,
I have just started contracting in the Telecommunications industry in Poland and I want to get setup to pay Tax here.
I am not paying Tax anymore and am exempt from from paying in Ireland now so I solely want to setup in Poland.
I have an umbrella company doing all my tax, invoicing etc, and they need me to setup as ’self-employer contractor’ here in Pland.
So my questions is what is the first step, it looks like its GET A NIP ?
To start I need a NIP but you say that NIP-3 is for and it states that the last 2 pages are about ‘ my company’ but I think im not setting up a company so can you clarify for me ?
Remeber – I want to be setup as ’self-employer contractor’.
Regards & Thanks,
Eoin.
You should confirm with them what that is in Polish – I suspect they want you to set up a regular self-employed company which is “działalność gospodarcza” which is a form of company where you are the legal entity.
Hi! Ben,
An English friend of mine living in Chelmno came across your web-site whilst looking for something else. He immediately telephoned me and gave me the site address. I spent a couple of hours last night reading your site and I can definately identify with the problems you have had, particularly in respect of bureaucracy. I came here with a Landrover Discovery from England, and guess what, that’s right, I could not register it because it was right hand drive. I therefore bought a vehicle here and returned to England to sell the Landrover. It took four visits to the registration office before I had everything I needed to get the new registration plates. Three of these occasions we had to wait between one hour and two hours. This was very frustrating.
I moved here three years last November although I had visited Poland quite a number of times before moving. I have (had) a Polish father and therefore did not have too much difficulty in obtaining my “Dowod Osobisty”. It took just two and a half months although I had been told by one bureaucrat that I would have to live here ten years before I could apply and even then it was unlikely that I would obtain Polish Nationality.
That showed him!!!
I am sixty one years old and am retired from my career in England. I live in a small village about forty kilometers north of Bydgoszcz and in August last year I married a Polish woman whom I first met 20 years ago. We have a 14 year old son and a 12 year old daughter. We are in the final stages of building a new house very close to Jezioro Koronowskie. It is in a beautiful area and yes like you I love being here in Poland. What do I miss? Meeting up with friends and going to the pub for a meal and two or three pints. There are no pubs or good bars anywhere around here. I also miss my family although my sister and her husband were here for the wedding last summer.
There are quite a few experiences I could talk about, some involving bureaucratic nonsence, others due to language difficulties, problems with building contractors and so on but maybe some other time. It would be nice to hear from you either by telephone or e mail.
Kindest regards,
Alex.
Hi,
I just came across your site because I was looking for some info on how to get a NIP (fortunatly I already got pesel which was a nightmare :)).
I would like to ask you if you had or have any kind of Polish lessons or know some good institute to teach Polish to foreigners.
Thank you for the cool blog you have with really useful stuff.
Regards from a Portuguese in Poland,
Hugo
Hi, In about 4 weeks my Polish wife and I will be leaving England and moving to a smallholding that we have bought (in her name) In the Podkarpacie region. (yep we are retired 52 and 49) and want some peace and quiet in the country. We are both accomplished administrators and my wife has experience of the bureaucracy, so we have had everything translated in advance, have bought LHD vehicles (which are very capable off road – Unimog and Steyr Pinzgauer) I was a soldier for 15 years and have lived in Germany for 7 years in the past, have no reason to be homesick for this Decadent, ungoverned slime pit, (If you haven,t lived in suburban UK lately you won,t know that law and order is breaking down year by year and if we had stayed, 15 years down the line this house would have had to become a fortress) We are so grateful for this site, because it doesn,t matter how well sewn up you think you have everything, there is always something you missed. Thank you once again. Stephen and Dorota Cooper (we will bring an update to the site when we are settled in)