Voivode Inactivity Complaint: TRC Delay 2026

You filed for your Karta Pobytu (Polish residence permit, often called TRC) almost a year ago. The office says 'wait', the MOS status says 'in progress', and calls go nowhere. In your group chat, one person says 'send a ponaglenie to the voivode', another says 'go straight to court', and a third swears nothing works right now. Who is right? Partly all of them. A voivode inactivity complaint in Poland has two steps: first a ponaglenie (a formal reminder about the deadline), then a skarga na bezczynność or przewlekłość (a complaint to a court). But in 2026 there is a catch that almost nobody writes about. Let's go through it calmly, step by step.

How long can a voivode really take, and what is the 4 March 2027 freeze?

Start with the arithmetic. Under the Act on Foreigners, a decision on a temporary residence permit (zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy) should come within 60 days. That is art. 112a. Here is the part that trips up even experienced people: those 60 days do not count from the day you filed. They count from the last of the events listed in that same article. Courts say plainly that the term does not run from the date the application arrived. So 'six months since I filed' does not automatically mean 'late'. The exact starting date has to be checked in your own file.

Now the catch. Art. 100d of the Ukrainian special act suspends the running of deadlines in residence cases handled by the voivode: temporary, permanent and EU long-term. A law of 23 January 2026 (Dz.U. 2026 poz. 203) extended the suspension to 4 March 2027. It applies to every foreigner, not only Ukrainians. The Silesian Voivodeship Office says on its page about ponaglenie and skarga that during this period the rules on inactivity do not apply and no fines for missed deadlines are imposed. According to legal commentary, ponaglenia in these cases are not passed on to the higher authority.

Does that make complaining pointless? No, but you should set realistic expectations. Voivodes cite the suspension and leave ponaglenia unexamined. Courts are not unanimous yet. The administrative court in Poznań, judging by published decisions, applied the suspension. The court in Gliwice, as lawyers describe it, refused to apply it, found the voivode inactive and ordered a decision within 30 days. In its reply to the Ombudsman, the Interior Ministry admits a court may uphold a complaint for at least part of the period. One outcome does not guarantee another. It depends on the court and on your file.

One reassuring point. While your case is pending, your stay in Poland is treated as legal from the date of filing until the decision becomes final, as a voivodeship office states. A complaint about the deadline is not a new application and does not reopen your right to a permit.

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How do you file a ponaglenie step by step?

A ponaglenie is a letter with one question: why is this taking so long? It is based on art. 37 of the Code of Administrative Procedure (KPA). It is not complicated, but three mistakes keep repeating: filing too early, addressing it wrongly, and attaching no evidence.

1. Check that you are really late. Count the term using art. 112a and the suspension. A ponaglenie filed prematurely can be left unexamined by the voivode, and court decisions from 2026 describe such cases.
2. Pick the addressee. A ponaglenie is addressed to the higher authority but filed at the office that runs your case. That office either grants it or sends it up with your file, as the Poznań voivodeship office explains. In residence cases handled by a voivode, the higher authority in practice is the Head of the Office for Foreigners (Szef Urzędu do Spraw Cudzoziemców).
3. Write the reasons. A ponaglenie must contain a justification. Give your details and case number (sygnatura), the filing date, what has already been done (documents, fingerprints, notices), how much time has passed and why you think the deadline was breached.
4. Ask for something concrete: that the case be decided and a new deadline named. Attach copies of your filing confirmation, the office's letters and any correspondence.
5. File it so that it leaves a trail: registered post, ePUAP, or the office's reception desk with a stamp on your copy. Anything sent 'in a chat' or said on the phone is hard to prove later.
6. Wait about a week and keep the reply. If the office does not grant the ponaglenie, it must forward it upward without delay and no later than 7 days. In 2026 you may get a brush-off citing the suspension instead of a decision. That is still a document, and you need it for the next step.

For a worked example with wording, see our article on a ponaglenie for a spouse's Karta Pobytu.

Skarga for inactivity or slow handling: when do you go to court?

If the ponaglenie does not help, the next stop is the Voivodeship Administrative Court (WSA). The complaint is a skarga na bezczynność when the authority did nothing at all within the deadline, and a skarga na przewlekłość when it acts but too slowly. The logic is the same in both cases.

• Ponaglenie first. A skarga that was not preceded by a ponaglenie is inadmissible, and courts reject it at the door.
• There is no hard filing deadline. After the ponaglenie, you can file the complaint at any time while the inactivity continues.
• You file through the voivode. The skarga goes to the court via the authority you are complaining about, which must pass it to the WSA together with the file and its response (art. 54 of the court procedure act). A court can fine an office that fails to forward it.
• Cost: a fixed court fee of PLN 100 for a complaint about inaction. The court usually gives 7 days to pay, otherwise the complaint is rejected.
• What the court can decide: find that the authority was inactive or too slow, order it to decide within a set time (one ruling set 30 days), say whether the breach was gross, and in some cases award a sum of money.

What the court does not do: it does not decide for the voivode whether you get the card. It only forces a decision, and that decision can be a refusal. Be ready for that in advance. The time to appeal is short, so read it in the decision itself. To see how far your wait is from normal, compare it with the TRC processing times by voivodeship and read why a Karta Pobytu takes 8 months in one city and 2 years in another.

A generalised example (not a real client). Dmitry, a welder from Belarus, applied for a work-based card. A year passed and the office kept saying 'your case is in the queue'. We counted the term under art. 112a, prepared a ponaglenie with a timeline and attachments, and filed it through the voivode. The reply was a brush-off citing the suspension of deadlines. That was expected, but we needed the document: it is the basis for a skarga to the WSA. Nobody can know in advance what the court will decide, and we do not promise results. But he stopped just waiting and got a plan.

What else can you do while your case is stuck?

The ponaglenie and the skarga are not your only tools. There are softer ones worth using alongside them.

• A request to speed things up. The Silesian office says that in exceptional cases (for example humanitarian ones) a party or representative can ask for faster handling. You need a letter describing your personal situation, supporting documents and Polish translations of any foreign-language documents.
• Case status. Check it on your office's site or in MOS; login details are generated after the first summons. A status change sometimes appears before the letter does.
• Evidence. Log every contact: date, channel, case number, reply. If it reaches court, that log is the backbone of the complaint.
• Do not file a second application 'to speed things up'. It does not accelerate the case and can complicate it. Talk to a specialist first.

One note for Ukrainians: the suspension sits in the Ukrainian special act, but it covers everyone. People in Poland under UKR status have their own route, the CUKR card; its conditions and filing windows change, so check them on gov.pl/web/cudzoziemcy before you file. Everyone else follows the general rules described above.

Practical tip: before writing a single letter, put your filing confirmation, every letter from the office and a one-page timeline (date, what happened, who replied) into one folder. A clear timeline saves more time than any polished wording.

Waiting in silence is not your only option, and acting works best with a plan. Legal Solutions — 98% approval rate. Drop us a WhatsApp — we read every message.