It’s 10 p.m., your warehouse shift is over, and you open MOS on your phone. Still ‘in progress’. Three months have passed. One friend says ‘it takes 60 days’, another says ‘mine took eight months’. You have one question: how many days does a karta pobytu (Polish residence card, or TRC) actually take, and can you do anything to speed it up?
This guide is for Nepali workers in Poland — factories, warehouses, delivery, hotels, construction. It’s written in plain English so you can read it on your phone. Nobody can guarantee a number of days, and we can’t either. But many delays hide inside your own paperwork, and those you can fix.
How many days does a TRC take? The law versus real life
Polish law on foreigners (ustawa o cudzoziemcach) sets a 60-day period for deciding a temporary residence case. In practice, some offices keep to it and many don’t. If the office goes past the deadline, the card does not arrive on its own. So treat ‘60 days’ as a legal deadline for the office, not a promise to you.
How long you wait depends heavily on which voivodeship office (urząd wojewódzki) holds your case. Two people who applied in the same month can end up months apart. We explain why the same card takes months longer in one city and show a voivodeship-by-voivodeship comparison. For the general picture, see our guide to TRC processing time.
What usually adds time:
- Missing documents — the office sends a request letter (wezwanie) and the case pauses.
- Wrong translation or legalization — the document is rejected.
- A late reply to an office letter.
- A change of address the office doesn’t know about.
💬 Skip the reading — talk to a human. You can write on WhatsApp in Nepali — the team replies through a translator. Number: +48 735 248 525. Open chat →
Are you legally protected while you wait?
Short answer: yes, if you filed on time and your application was complete. The law requires you to file no later than the last day of your legal stay. If you filed in time, your stay counts as legal from the filing date until the decision becomes final. Your proof is the confirmation (potwierdzenie, often called the stamp) issued by the voivode. Official guidance is on gov.pl/web/cudzoziemcy.
One big change to remember: from 27 April 2026, temporary residence applications from foreigners are accepted only electronically through the MOS portal. Paper filing is closed. The old MOS accounts were shut down, so you need a new account, opened through login.gov.pl with a Profil Zaufany (Polish government digital ID). Many people lose time here, so start long before your last legal day.
The confirmation is proof of legal stay, not the card itself. If you plan to leave Poland while your case is open, ask first. These two articles help: renewal while abroad and how long you can stay outside Poland.
5 moves that cut delays — and you can do them yourself
You can’t control how fast the office works. You can keep your own file clean, complete and on time. These five matter most:
- Check your document list before you press submit. One missing paper means a wezwanie letter and a paused case. Check every document once more before sending in MOS.
- Get translations and legalization right. This is the most common mistake with documents from Nepal; the next section explains it.
- Report every change of address at once. If the office letter goes to your old address and comes back, your case can stall.
- Answer every office letter inside the deadline. Check MOS and your post box regularly. A missed deadline can put your case in trouble.
- Check your case status in MOS often, and save every confirmation, screenshot and letter.
The address rules are explained in our article on changing address during the process, and the MOS steps are in our case tracking guide.
Documents from Nepal: does an apostille work, or do you need legalization?
If you must submit a birth certificate, marriage certificate or other family documents, this question confuses many people. Nepal is not a member of the Hague Apostille Convention, so a normal apostille does not work for Nepali documents. You use consular legalization instead. The Polish embassy that covers Nepal is in New Delhi, and according to gov.pl/web/india/legalisation its consular section legalizes documents from Nepal. Before that, the document’s authenticity must be confirmed by the competent authority in Nepal.
After that, the document needs a Polish translation made by a sworn translator (tłumacz przysięgły). An ordinary translation, or one made by a friend, is not accepted by the voivodeship office — and this is exactly why many cases slip back by months. Which document needs legalization depends on the basis of your application, so confirm before you send.
For Nepal-side government procedures, please ask the relevant Nepali authority; we don’t handle them. What we handle: karta pobytu, renewals, permanent residence, EU long-term resident card, citizenship, appeals after refusals and stuck cases in Poland.
If you want the whole process in order, read our karta pobytu guide for Nepalis.
Changing jobs, a refusal, or a stuck case: what to do
Before and after the card arrives, three situations are all about deadlines.
- Changing employer: you must inform the voivode within 15 working days of the end of work, or apply for a change of the permit. Sources differ on whether the count is working or calendar days, so act as early as you can. If the deadline is missed, you may no longer be able to apply for a change, and a withdrawal procedure can start.
- Refusal: you can appeal within 14 days of receiving the decision. After that, the appeal route closes.
- Stuck case: first comes a ponaglenie (a formal request to the office to move faster). If that doesn’t help, a skarga na przewlekłość (complaint about delay) is the next step.
More detail: is a karta pobytu tied to the employer, refusal: appeal or apply again, and complaining about voivode inactivity.
An example (generalized, illustrative): Bikram, a hotel worker from Pokhara, moved from a factory job to a hotel in Poland. His new employer said, ‘We’ll sort everything on our side.’ Bikram counted the deadline himself and informed the voivode in time. That kept his case on the right track. The final outcome no one can promise before the decision.
Practical tip: put every deadline (last legal day to file, 15 working days after a job change, 14 days after a refusal) in your phone calendar with an earlier reminder. Keep confirmations, screenshots and letters in one folder.
If you’re unsure about your case, don’t wait until the deadline — write to us on WhatsApp, in Nepali if you like: +48 735 248 525. We read every message. Legal Solutions — 98% approval rate.