|Published on: 10th July 2025|Categories: News|
The updated AIDA Country Report on Poland provides a detailed overview on legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum applicants and content of international protection in 2024. It is accompanied by an annex which provides an overview of temporary protection.
A number of key developments drawn from the overview of the main changes that have taken place since the publication of the update on 2023 are set out below.
(A) International protection
Asylum procedure
- Statistics: In 2024, 17,020 people applied for international protection in Poland, including 14,571 first time applicants. The majority (65%) were nationals of Ukraine and Belarus and the in merit recognition rate was 82%.
- Violence at the border and pushbacks: Reports of border violence continued in 2024, with testimonies detailing the use of verbal and physical violence (e.g. use of firearms, beatings and routine use of pepper spray), including by Polish Border Guard officers. There were 5,615 recorded requests for assistance in 2024 and 1,555 individuals reported having been subjected to pushbacks. A total of 3,183 pushbacks were recorded. The practices at the Polish-Belarusian border were criticised by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Poland had infringed upon articles 3 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 4 Protocol 4 to the Convention by repeatedly pushing a group back towards Ukraine. Although domestic courts have also repeatedly found the authorities’ pushback practices to be unlawful, they continued throughout 2024.
- Ban on access to the Polish-Belarusian border and criminalisation of humanitarian assistance: In June 2024, the ban on entering the area close to the border was reintroduced and subsequently prolonged throughout the year. This prevented NGOs from providing humanitarian assistance to people seeking international protection. In addition, court cases against aid workers continued in 2024, with charges brought against people, inter alia, for ‘facilitating unlawful residence in the Republic of Poland’.
- ‘Instrumentalisation’ introduced in law and suspension of asylum at the border: On 27 March 2025, on the basis of the new regulation introducing the concept of instrumentalisation into Polish law, the right to apply for international protection at the Belarusian border was suspended for 60 days. In April 2025, the ECtHR granted several interim measures ordering Poland not to send people back to Belarus. However, at least one interim measure was ignored by Polish Border Guard officers.
- Identification of vulnerable applicants: NGOs continued to highlight the lack of an effective vulnerability identification system in 2024.
Reception conditions
- Access to reception conditions: The humanitarian crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border left many prospective asylum applicants without access to material reception conditions, including medical assistance. Deaths at the border continued in 2024. In addition, many people on the move did not receive adequate medical assistance despite the fact that they had experienced violence at the border, suffered injuries from crossing or falling from the border fence, or were in a state of extreme exhaustion. The situation was exacerbated by the reintroduction in 2024 of the ban on staying in specific areas of the border zone which made it harder for NGOs to provide humanitarian and medical assistance to people in need at the border.
- Special reception needs of vulnerable groups: Finding placements in appropriate facilities for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children remained a challenge in 2024. In a number of cases, emergency shelters or youth care facilities for crisis situations refused to accept children who had been brought in by the police or border guards.
Detention of asylum applicants
- Detention of vulnerable applicants: Children with families were still being detained in 2024 and the ‘Best interests of the Child’ principle was not commonly taken into account in court proceedings. In addition, no identification system for victims of violence was in place and victims of torture were still regularly placed in detention centres despite the binding regulations prohibiting detention in such cases.
Content of international protection
- Housing: In September 2024, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights presented its concluding observations on the seventh periodic review of Poland. The Committee expressed concern that the poverty rate remained relatively high among refugees. It also noted that refugees were particularly vulnerable to homelessness and landlord exploitation due to a lack of affordable homes.
(B) Temporary protection
- Extension of the temporary protection regime: In May 2024, temporary protection for Ukrainian nationals and some of their family members was prolonged until September 2025. It is valid until March 2026 for other temporary protection beneficiaries.
- Qualification: Since July 2024, minor, unmarried children of Ukrainian nationals (or their spouses) are eligible for special temporary protection.
- Registration: Since the Special Law Amendment of 15 May 2024, registration for special temporary protection is more difficult due to the absolute requirement to present a travel document and the obligation to register immediately upon arrival in Poland.
Content of temporary protection
- Access to asylum and other legal statuses: The number of asylum applications lodged by Ukrainian nationals increased significantly in 2024. In March 2025, the Office for Foreigners claimed that many Ukrainian nationals were treating asylum proceedings as a quick way to legalise their stay in Poland, a practice that it considered to be an abuse of the international protection system. The Office also claimed that the security situation in Ukraine had improved since 2022 and, as a result, it announced a more restrictive approach to Ukrainian applicants.
- Freedom of movement: Movement and mobility of temporary protection beneficiaries continued to be hampered mostly due to the rule that temporary protection is withdrawn upon a 30-day absence from Poland as well as unfavourable practices carried out by the Polish Border Guard. Many temporary protection beneficiaries lost access to social benefits upon temporarily leaving Poland in 2024.
- Access to education: Since September 2024, only Ukrainian pupils taking the matriculation exam in 2025 within the Ukrainian education system are exempted from the obligation to attend Polish schools.
- Access to socio-economic rights: The Special Law Amendment of 15 May 2024 introduced significant changes to the socio-economic rights of temporary protection beneficiaries, including a reduction in the notification period for employment, the revocation of the financial allowance for landlords and the one-off financial allowance for Ukrainian nationals upon their arrival in Poland, and making social welfare conditional on attendance in a Polish school.
The full report is available here and the annex on temporary protection is available here.
For more information about the AIDA database or to read other AIDA reports, please visit the AIDA website.
