UK → POLAND Moving to Poland: how customs works, and the documents to expect

Two kinds of people book this route. Many are Polish nationals going home after years in Britain, with a flat already waiting and family at the other end. Others are moving to Poland from the UK for the first time, for a job in Warsaw or Kraków, or for a partner. The customs side is the same for both, because the EU’s relief looks at where you lived, not at your passport. Poland’s Ministry of Finance names returning Polish citizens and foreign nationals alike, and on this route it is French customs that applies the relief.

What differs is the worry. Returners ask us whether the Non-Cession Certificate is really needed when they still own the flat they are going back to. First-timers ask what proof of a Polish address looks like before they have one. Your instructed pack answers both after your quote, so you never guess from a list written for someone else. The same person answers them in your thread, too, from the day you book until the van reaches your door.

Poland calls your household goods mienie przesiedlenia, relocation property, but the relief from import duty is the EU rule that every member state applies, and here French customs applies it as the van enters the EU. The conditions are plain. First, you lived outside the EU for at least 12 months. Second, you owned the goods and used them for at least six months before you left. Third, they will serve the same purpose in your new home. The goods must arrive within twelve months of your taking up residence, and they may come in more than one consignment. For twelve months after release you keep them: sell, lend, pledge or hire them out in that time and you lose the relief and owe the duty. Alcohol, tobacco and anything used for a business sit outside the relief.

Your household is declared in France, where the van first meets the EU, not at a Polish office. Our customs partner lodges the declaration itself: that is what customs clearance included means on this route, so PUESC, the Polish customs portal, is not a site you will need.

Poland’s own pages describe a procedure in two steps for goods declared there: transit to a customs office, then an import declaration with a list of the goods, their quantities and values, in two copies. Neither step falls to you here. The Ministry’s own advice to private individuals is to let a customs agency file the declaration, which is what happens on this route. One more Polish particular: a car you drive there yourself is an excise matter of its own, apart from the relief on the household, and we do not carry it.

Poland asks every foreigner who moves in to register the address, the zameldowanie. A non-EU citizen has four days from moving in to do it. It is done in person, at the gmina office. EU citizens get 30 days; British citizens no longer do. The form needs the property owner’s confirmation that you live there, or your tenancy. Staying with family at first? The owner’s confirmation on the registration form and the accommodation declaration in your pack come from the same person. The registration is free; a certificate of temporary residence costs 17 zł.

Two more clocks start on arrival. A stay beyond the visa-free allowance needs a residence permit, which you apply for through your voivodeship office. And a UK driving licence issued from 2021 is good for six months in Poland, after which you exchange it, perhaps with a sworn translation and proof of your address; one issued earlier has no time limit. Neither is customs, but people moving to Poland from the UK ask us about both in the same breath, so they belong here.

The registration brings the first of Poland’s identifiers with it. Register for a stay beyond 30 days and the office issues your PESEL number without a separate application; if you cannot register but still need one, you apply in person at any gmina office, free. The number is what the tax office, an employer and the health fund will ask for, so it is worth having before the first payslip.

The residence permit runs on a different track. Poland’s Office for Foreigners takes the application electronically through its MOS portal, no later than the last day of your legal stay. The voivode then summons you to appear with your documents. The residence card follows a positive decision, for a card fee. A permit on its own does not carry the right to work, so most people moving for a job apply for the combined residence and work permit instead. None of it holds up the van.

The recorded drive is 16.3 hours, London to Warsaw. The van crosses the Channel, runs the length of Germany and becomes Polish traffic at Świecko, where the A2 begins. From Świecko to Konin the A2 is a concession motorway with tolls of its own; beyond it, a vehicle over 3.5 tonnes pays Poland’s electronic toll, e-TOLL. These are the driver’s costs, not yours, because nothing met on the road can touch a locked price.

Poland is gentler with goods vehicles than its neighbours. Its driving bans bite only above 12 tonnes, on summer weekends and public holidays, so neither of the two vehicle classes we run waits at a service station on a Sunday.

What does move a date is the calendar. Poland has 14 statutory days off, Christmas Eve among them since 2025: New Year’s Day, Epiphany, Easter Sunday and Monday, 1 and 3 May, Whit Sunday, Corpus Christi, 15 August, 1 and 11 November, and the three days of Christmas. All Saints’ Day on 1 November is the one to plan around. The country drives to its cemeteries, and the police run a nationwide road operation for the days either side. A collection window that straddles 1 November, Easter Monday or the first days of May is worth a word with us before you fix it.

Your quote for moving to Poland from the UK is one number for the transport and the customs clearance, locked when you book. For example, a 10 m³ load from London to Warsaw was £1,509 when we last read the matrix; your own addresses set yours. It does not move on the day. Nor does it move because a customs officer asks a question. The only thing that changes it is you, by needing the next size up, and even then you pay the locked price of that size, as our fixed price removals page sets out. What never sits inside it: duty or VAT if customs refuse the relief, which is their charge and their decision, and we say so up front; and what Poland asks of you as a resident.

We state cover in pounds rather than adjectives: goods in transit up to £20,275 per event, with the exclusions published on the cover page. Then there is the thread above: one conversation, a named person, from booking to the day the van reaches Warsaw. Read how moves went wrong, and what we did about it, on our MuveOne reviews page.