Month five of waiting. You pull out your passport to photograph the page for HR, and your stomach drops: it expires in ten weeks. Your karta pobytu (Polish residence permit, often called TRC) case is still open. No decision, no fingerprint invitation yet. So what now? Renew the passport and risk confusing the office, or sit tight and hope? Passport renewal during a TRC application is more common than people think, and it is fixable. Here is how to handle it in Poland without losing months of progress.
Does your passport have to stay valid while the TRC case is pending?
Short answer: plan as if yes. Since 27 April 2026, temporary residence applications go through the MOS portal. You upload a scan of your travel document with the application. Once the voivodeship office checks it formally, you can download a certificate from the system. It replaces the old passport stamp as proof that your case is open. Later the office invites you for a visit: fingerprints, your passport, your handwritten signature. When the permit is granted, you need a valid travel document to collect the card. So your passport matters at three points: the upload, the visit and the pick-up. The Border Guard also reminds foreigners that a residence card does not replace a passport. For the official overview, see gov.pl/web/cudzoziemcy.
We are not aware of a rule that automatically ends a pending case when a passport expires. But the office works with the document data you gave it, and a mismatch is exactly what slows a file down. Don't test it.
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Renew now or wait? Four situations, four answers
There is no single date that fits everybody. Find yourself in this list.
- Your passport still has a long time left. Don't touch anything. Put the expiry date in your phone with a reminder three months ahead. Remember the card is issued for the length of the permit, so your passport has to outlast the wait and the pick-up.
- Your passport expires within a few months. Renew now. Waiting times differ a lot between voivodeships, so you cannot count on a quick decision. Embassy renewals have their own queue as well.
- Your passport has already expired. Treat it as urgent. Apply for a new one at your embassy or consulate straight away. There are fallbacks if a new passport is truly impossible to get (see the lost-passport section below), but they are fallbacks, not plans.
- You already have a fingerprint invitation. Bring a valid passport on that date. If the new one will not be ready, tell the office in writing before the date. Don't turn up and improvise.
How long will you wait? That depends on your city. Our guide on why a karta pobytu takes 8 months in one city and 2 years in another explains the gap, and the post on the 60-day rule and 5 moves while you wait covers the legal clock.
How do you tell the voivode about your new passport?
Offices only know what you tell them. A new passport number sitting in your drawer helps nobody. Do it in this order.
- Renew through your embassy or consulate. Start as soon as the old passport gets close to expiry. Keep the old passport if they allow it. It holds your entry stamps and earlier permits, and you may need it as proof.
- Scan the data page of the new passport. Full page, no cut edges, no glare. Scan the old one too.
- Notify the office handling your case. Check your MOS account first: see whether your stage lets you add a document or send a message. The exact option depends on where your case is. If you cannot find it, write to the voivodeship office that holds your case and attach the scan. Give your case number, the old passport number and the new passport number.
- Save proof. A screenshot, the sent email, the date. If anyone asks later what you told the office and when, you can show it.
- Bring both passports and the printed certificate to the fingerprint visit. Old and new. Let the clerk decide which one they need.
The same logic applies to anything else that changes during the case. See our post on changing your address during the karta pobytu process. And if you want to follow what the office is doing with your file, here is how to check your MOS case.
What if the passport is lost, or your name changes?
Two different problems, two different clocks. Don't mix them up.
- New passport, same personal data. Once you hold the card, the Poznań voivodeship guidance says you do not need to exchange it if the data on the card did not change.
- Name or other card data changes. Marriage, divorce, a correction. Then the card must be exchanged, normally within 14 days, and skipping it is a petty offence. Details in our post on updating your name on the karta pobytu.
- Passport lost or stolen. Report it, then apply for a new one at your embassy. If a passport is lost, destroyed or expired and you genuinely cannot get a new one, a Polish travel document for foreigners can be requested from the voivodeship office. It is the exception, not the plan. If it is the card you lost, read what to do within 14 days.
One more thing, so nobody gets confused. If you are still travelling or working on a visa, or your employer is handling a work permit or declaration, those papers are not something we file. The consulate and your employer do that. We handle the karta pobytu itself, so that is what this article is about. A new passport number can still matter to those papers, so give it to your HR as well.
Practical tip: the day your new passport arrives, photograph its data page next to the old one, write both numbers in a single email to the office, and keep the sent message. One message, both numbers, one date on record.
Illustrative example (a composite, not a real client): Ramesh, a welder from Nepal, was five months into his wait when his passport showed four months left. He applied for a new one through his embassy, scanned both passports, wrote to the office with both numbers, and brought both documents to his fingerprint visit. The clerk took the new one, the case moved on, and he never had to explain a mismatch at the counter.
Collecting the card: which passport do you bring?
The finish line has a passport check too. After the permit is granted, the office issues the card on its own, with no separate application, and it is valid for the period of the permit. To pick it up you book a visit and bring a valid travel document, plus your previous card if you had one.
- A valid passport is the normal route. Bring the new one.
- No valid passport and no way to get one? The Ministry of the Interior's foreigners portal says you may collect the card on another document that proves your identity. Ask the office first which document they accept.
- Don't treat the card as a passport. It proves your right to stay in Poland, not your nationality and not your right to travel.
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