Our office helps you register foreign births, marriages, and deaths in Poland, ensuring they are legally recognized in Polish records. We guide you through the entire process, from preparing the necessary documents to submitting them to the appropriate authorities. We also provide certified translations and verify that all documents meet Polish legal requirements, so your registration is smooth and officially accepted. Whether it’s for citizenship applications, inheritance, or updating civil records, we make sure your foreign vital events are properly recorded in Poland.

Many Offices of Civil Registration in Poland also require the foreign vital record to have an Apostille.

Once the registration is completed, the Office of Civil Registration issues a Polish birth, marriage, or death certificate. The Office of Civil Registration is required to keep the original foreign records, so they are not returned to the applicant once the registration is completed.

A marriage may be registered in Poland based on a U.S. marriage certificate, provided that both spouses were legally single under Polish law at the time of the marriage.

If one spouse is not a Polish citizen, the original birth certificate of the non-Polish spouse is also required. Information from the birth certificate is used to supplement details that may be missing from the U.S. marriage certificate.

If a spouse was previously married, additional steps may be required. In some cases, it may be necessary to:

 register the prior marriage,

 register the divorce decree [link to divorce registration section]  or death certificate [link to document registration section] of the former spouse, and

 then register the current marriage.

This most often applies to people born in Poland who kept their married last name when marrying again.

Polish marriage certificates show the last names chosen by the spouses after marriage, as well as the last name of any children from the marriage. Declaring your chosen last name during marriage registration is important so that your Polish passport or ID is issued with the same last name as your U.S. documents, such as a driver’s license or passport.

A child’s birth may be registered in Poland based on a U.S. birth certificate. If the child was born to married parents, the parents’ marriage must first be registered in Poland before the child’s birth can be recorded.

To register a child’s birth, the original birth certificate and identification documents of the parents are required. When registering the birth of an adult (a person over 18), the identity document of that individual is required.

Once a Polish birth certificate is issued for a minor child, applications may be submitted for a PESEL number and a Polish passport. When filing these applications, Polish-citizen parents must present valid Polish passports. A non-Polish parent may present any valid identity document.

A death may be registered in Poland based on a U.S. death certificate. Once the death is recorded with the Polish Office of Civil Registration, a Polish death certificate may be used for official matters in Poland, such as pension or survivor benefit claims, as well as inheritance proceedings before a court or notary.

If the deceased was married, the Office of Civil Registration will update the Polish marriage record to reflect the termination of the marriage and change the surviving spouse’s marital status to “widow” or “widower.” This update is important if the surviving spouse later remarries or applies for a Polish passport for a minor child.

U.S. birth, marriage, and death certificates sometimes contain errors. The most common issues involve the mother’s maiden name and parents’ dates of birth. In Poland, dates are written with the day first and the month second, which can lead to confusion.

It is important to verify the correct spelling of names and dates of birth before submitting U.S. documents for registration in Poland. If errors are found, our office can assist with correcting the U.S. records.

In some cases, U.S. certificates list English versions of given names (for example, Grace instead of Grażyna or Andy instead of Andrzej). While these changes are often made for practical reasons, Polish authorities treat them as referring to a different person and require the discrepancy to be officially corrected before registration.

Some U.S. birth certificates do not list the father’s information, which is legally acceptable in the United States. Polish law, however, requires a father’s name to be entered in civil records in order to issue identity documents. When a U.S. birth certificate does not include the father’s details, the Polish Office of Civil Registration will complete the record by entering a first name for the father chosen by the mother, and assigning the father the mother’s maiden last name. This procedure is sometimes informally referred to as the “administrative father entry” or “fictitious father” rule, because the father’s information is entered solely for record-keeping purposes and does not establish legal paternity.