Check your eligibility for a Polish passport – the most important questions

Was one of your ancestors Polish? Would you like to regain your Polish citizenship? More to the point, would you like to start the process of gaining a European Union passport? You can check your eligibility for a Polish passport by providing the answers to just a few key questions.

Our law office specializes in immigration, relocation, and gaining citizenship by descent. We’ve compiled the list of questions below to serve as a basis for a free evaluation of your eligibility for a Polish passport. If you believe you are in fact eligible, you can contact our office to make sure and to receive expert help with your application for re-establishing your Polish citizenship.

What’s necessary to determine your eligibility?

The most important questions you need to know the answer to, if you want to be absolutely certain that your Polish ancestors maintained and passed on their Polish citizenship to you. Your answers should be as detailed as possible, noting when you don’t actually have the information. Some of the specific details can be clarified by an expert

1. Who were your Polish ancestors? Their full name, date and place of birth.
2. Where did they live in Poland?
3. When did they leave Poland—before or after 1920? If they left as minors, questions 1 to 9 should also be answered about their parents.
4. If they moved to Israel, when did they arrive? Before or after January 1951?
5. If they moved to another country, did they naturalize as citizens? If so, when—before or after January 1951?
6. Did they serve in any non-Polish military before 1951?
7. Were they employed by the federal, state, or local government outside of Poland before 1951?
8. Were your ancestors married? Place and date of marriage? (Note that descendants born out of wedlock may not be eligible in some cases).
9. If the Polish ancestor was female, did she marry a non-Polish citizen before 1951?

What are the answers you need?

In order to obtain Polish citizenship by descent, you need to prove a direct link to an ancestor who was a Polish citizen and did not lose said citizenship despite emigrating abroad.

In other words, if your ancestors:

1. Were Polish citizens who departed from Poland after February 1920.
2. Did not serve in a foreign army before 1951 (other than the Allied armies during WWII).
3. Did not naturalize as citizens of another country before 1951 (exceptions apply for male citizens depending on their age at the time of naturalization).
4. Did not marry a non-Polish citizen before 1951 if female.

Alternately, for someone who emigrated after 1951, most restrictions on maintaining Polish citizenship after emigration were lifted.

We should note that even though a single “link” being broken in the chain of eligibility is enough to lose eligibility in the future – if your grandparent lost his eligibility, your parents and you don’t maintain it – it’s worth looking at the whole picture. For instance, if your grand-grandparent emigrated with his family and lost his eligibility while his (adult) children did not, the link remains unbroken.

Contact experts on immigration to Poland

If you’re descended from a Polish citizen but don’t have all the necessary documents to prove said descent – that the original ancestor had a Polish citizenship, did not lose it when emigrating and that you are descended from said citizen – our genealogy experts can help find any missing documents that are required to prove your eligibility. Furthermore, our office can handle the application process that will result in you and any other families acquiring a Polish passport.

Contact us to schedule appointment at our offices in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or alternately, a zoom conversation:

 :  :

03-3724722

055-9781688

office@lawoffice.org.il