Job Discussion Forums

[philip29]

hi everyone,

i'm a canadian citizen and have been over here teaching in poland since the start of november. i entered poland on the standard 90-day tourist stamp that you recieve at the airport, and the school i'm working for said they would work on the paperwork once i got here. in the past they dealt with native speakers through millenium, which from what i've heard and read is terrible. but it's been over two months now and still no action. my job is great, the pay, students, etc., but it seems very hard for the staff to find any definite information about visas, and they are happy right now to just pay me cash, and would continue to do so till i plan on leaving in summer, and claim i can just cross over the border and enter again and have another 90 days to stay. i'm not sure what to think about this, i have heard of people working this way for a long time with no problems, but have also heard stories of people being hung up at the border or facing a potential fine when they try to leave and they are over their 90 day limit. i was also wondering if anyone knows if there is a limit to the number of stamps a person can have on his passport? (will they begin to question me if they see that i have crossed over the border more than once for short periods of time and then entered back into poland?)

any information or advice would be greatly appreciated!

thanks

[Alex Shulgin]

Polish law states that no foreigner can stay in Poland for more than 183 days in any 365 day period on tourist visas. So the border runs which used to be the standard way of avoiding the need to get a work permit and work visa don't work anymore. You might get lucky and cross without any problems (trains are especially good) but it's getting less and less likely. Of course it is illegal to work on a tourist visa but I guess you know that and it doesn't bother you.


The good news is that it is now easier to get a work permit than it used to be. As some EU citizens no longer need work permits the number of applications has fallen which makes the process a little easier.

Please do think about getting the paperwork sorted out. If your current school don't want to bother with the hassle, I can certainly point you in the direction of schools which will. As long as there are teachers who work illegally there will be bosses who are happy to operate illegally and that simply is not good for the industry at all. It's only good for crooks and criminals.

[philip29]

thanks for the information alex,

i don't feel good about working here under the table, i thought it would just be for a very short time, until things were sorted out, but i guess i was wrong. do you know if it costs the school quite a large sum of money to process the proper working papers? (are they just avoiding this to save some money?)

and where did you get the information about only being alloewed to stay in poland for 183 days in 1 year? i would like to forward this to my school so they can see it for themselves. possibly a web address?

thanks again.

[budhano]

I have found that there seems to be very murky conflicting information about all this. I have seen official websites which said you can only be in Poland for 90 days (whether consecutive or not) in a 365-day period on the tourist visa. Yet I've also had Polish government workers tell me that you can do the border crossing thing every 90 days as long as you like to stay in PL as a nonworking tourist.

I have read that the only way to work here is to get a work visa, and that you have to be in the US (if you're a US citizen), not in PL, to apply for a work visa. Yet I've also had government workers tell me that you don't need a visa, you only need a 1-year residency permit which can be done while in Poland as a 90-day tourist. (In both cases you need a work permit as well. Except for special exceptions of course...) Some have explained to me that a visa per se is really only needed if you're coming into PL from some other countries which aren't automatically let in as 90-day tourists, so if you're already here, a residency permit suffices.

It seems like the laws are continually in flux and no one knows for sure. :/ I'm in PL now and have filed all the paperwork for the 1-year residency permit, which according to several gov't workers will permit me to live and work here for a year, and can be renewed. I'll see what happens...

[philip29]

thanks for the info budhano,

i too have heard very conflicting stories regarding this whole issue. please keep me posted on how the residency permit goes.

later

[budhano]

And after turning in all the paperwork, they said it can take 45 days or more to get the permit...

[Rusty77]

I was reading, with interest, the letters about the specific number of days one is allowed to stay in Poland on a tourist visa, and so forth...for the Canadian who recently arrived (Nov) and is worried about the "90 day limit" you may be interested in hearing my story:
I'm Canadian also, lived for my first year in Poland with a work visa, when it expired (last summer) I began travelling to Germany every 90 days to renew the tourist visa. I WAS in the process of getting the 2nd legal work visa, and was waiting, so I had to do this for 6 months. Somewhat surprising to me, I never had any problems leaving or re-entering Poland between last June and Dec. Once I even went beyond the 90 days (albeit only slightly: 91 days) in Poland, and was not penalized when I returned (2005). AND, on the last day I returned to Poland (late Dec./05) I calculated later that I had been living in Poland beyond that 183 days...again, no questions asked, no penalty. I used the border crossing at Slubice/Frankfurt (by TRAIN).
I don't want to say completely "don't worry, it's easy to renew the tourist visa for a LONG TIME", because there may be exceptions, but this has been my experience. In any case, getting the legal work documentation is less of a hassle, and more credible, so perhaps you should press your school for this.
Good luck.
Rusty

[budhano]

One more bit of info; after someone in the office told us I didn't need to have insurance to make the application for a residence visa because I'd be getting insurance with the offered job that is part of the application, I got a letter from elsewhere in the bureaucracy saying I actually did need proof of insurance now, a minimum of 90 days worth, so I had to go buy a 90-day tourist insurance deal even though I will theoretically have job-supplied insurance well before 90 days.

[Alex Shulgin]