A karta pobytu through an agencja pracy tymczasowej (temporary work agency) is applied for like any work-based permit, but the agency is your employer and the company where you actually work is the pracodawca użytkownik (user employer). Both appear in Annex 1 and in the voivode's decision. Moving to another user employer needs a permit change application (220 PLN), or you are working outside your permit.
Agency work is the standard route to a residence card for warehouse, logistics and factory jobs around Warsaw. It is also the most fragile one: your permit is tied to two companies at once, and the second can change on any Monday.
Who is who
Polish law on temporary work (the Act of 9 July 2003 on employing temporary workers) splits the roles. The agency hires you, signs your contract, pays your salary and your ZUS (social security) contributions. The user employer gives you tasks and supervises them. In residence paperwork the agency is the podmiot powierzający pracę, the entity entrusting the work.
The contract is either a fixed-term umowa o pracę (employment contract) or a civil-law contract, usually umowa zlecenie (art. 7). Your conditions cannot be worse than those of the user employer's own staff in the same or a similar job (art. 15).
The agency itself has to be entered in the register of employment agencies, known as KRAZ. Since 1 June 2025 this sits in the Act on the labour market and employment services (art. 305), and the agency must show its KRAZ number on documents and job ads (art. 324). It may not charge you for finding you work (art. 321 ust. 1 pkt 1).
What the agency has to provide
The legal basis for your card is a zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy i pracę, also called the single permit. From the agency you need:
- A written contract before you start. If it is in Polish and you don't speak Polish, the agency must give you the text in a language you understand beforehand (art. 5 of the Act of 20 March 2025 on employing foreigners).
- Annex 1 (załącznik nr 1) completed in MOS. You enter the agency's email address in your application, the system emails them a link, and they fill in the annex and sign it with a qualified e-signature, a profil zaufany (trusted profile) or an e-ID signature. The signer must be authorised in the company register (KRS) or hold a power of attorney, which you then attach. Until the agency completes the annex, you cannot submit.
- Proof that the agency can pay you and runs a real business. The Mazowiecki office asks for this, and a lack of funds is a direct ground for refusal (art. 117a pkt 2 of the Act on Foreigners).
The annex lists the agency and the user employer (name, address, register number, REGON), then the job title, occupation code, workplace, contract type, working hours, pay, duties, period of work and PKD business code, plus the agency's statement on criminal records.
The fee is 440 PLN for the application and 100 PLN for the card. Since 5 March 2026 the stamp duty is not refunded after a refusal (art. 113c), so an agency's error in the annex costs you 440 PLN and months of waiting. For the filing mechanics, see our MOS 2.0 walkthrough.
Where agencies get Annex 1 wrong
The Mazowiecki office publishes its own list of frequent errors, and close to half of them are employers' mistakes:
- no weekly hours for an umowa zlecenie;
- an hourly rate with no number of hours;
- an illegible signature, or a signature by someone without authority;
- the criminal record section left blank by the employer.
From agency cases we would add three of our own. The "miejsce wykonywania pracy" (place of work) field shows the agency's office instead of the warehouse. The user employer is described as "according to client needs" rather than named. And the period with one user employer is set at 36 months, which the law does not allow.
Check the user employer too. If its business is suspended, struck off the register or in liquidation, the voivode will refuse (art. 117a pkt 1).
A company acting as an agency without being one
The riskiest set-up is an ordinary company with no KRAZ entry that hires you and "lends" you to others. The voivode must refuse when the file shows the employer is not an agency and the work is done for a third party (art. 117a pkt 4). Fines are steep: a company that takes on a foreigner supplied by a non-agency pays at least 6,000 PLN per person (art. 84 ust. 11 of the 2025 Act), and an employer that sends a foreigner to work under someone else's direction outside a temporary work contract faces at least 3,000 PLN (ust. 12). Our overview of fines for illegal employment covers the rest.
The 18-month cap versus your card's validity
An agency can place you with one user employer for at most 18 months within any 36 consecutive months (art. 20 of the temporary work act). The cap is the same for employment and civil-law contracts. The exception is covering for an absent employee, which can last up to 36 months.
A karta pobytu can be issued for up to 3 years. If yours runs for 3 years with one user employer, the agency has to move you by the 18-month mark, so a change of user employer is practically built into your plan. Ask the agency early which client comes next, and file the change months before the cap, not in the final week.
Changing the user employer, step by step
If you stay with the same agency and only the client company changes, you apply to change your permit rather than for a new one (art. 120 ust. 1 pkt 2):
- The agency completes a new Annex 1 with the new user employer and working conditions.
- You file a wniosek o zmianę zezwolenia na pobyt czasowy i pracę (application to change the permit) with the voivode for your current place of stay and pay 220 PLN stamp duty.
- You attach a passport copy, health insurance, proof of payment and, if your previous job ended, proof that you notified the voivode on time.
- You wait for the change decision. The permit's validity date stays the same (art. 120 ust. 3).
Until the change is granted, the decision still names the old user employer. Working for the new one means working on conditions other than those in your permit, which for the agency and the user employer is illegal employment of a foreigner (art. 2 pkt 2 lit. e of the 2025 Act), fined from 3,000 PLN per worker. The fine falls on the companies, but you will have to explain that period in your next application.
When no change is needed
Under art. 119 you don't need a change when the agency or user employer changes its name, address or legal form, when the business passes to another employer, when your hours go up with a proportional pay rise, when only the job title changes and your duties stay the same, or when an umowa zlecenie is replaced by an umowa o pracę. The agency then notifies the voivode in writing within 15 working days.
When the agency itself changes
A new agency is a new employer (art. 120 ust. 1 pkt 1). The voivode must refuse the change if you didn't report losing the previous job within 15 working days (ust. 4 pkt 6), or if the new agency offers work for a shorter period than your permit has left (ust. 4 pkt 5). That second rule catches many people: agencies like three-month contracts, while a change requires work through to the end of the permit. More on what else the permit ties you to in our article on the karta pobytu tied to an employer.
What if the agency stops giving you work?
If the contract ends, you must notify the voivode in writing within 15 working days (art. 121 ust. 1). Filing a change application within that time also counts. The agency has to notify the voivode within 15 days as well.
After losing the job you get 30 days during which the permit is not revoked, provided you reported on time (art. 123). This protection applies only once during the permit's validity. Use the 30 days to find a new agency or employer and file a change or a new application. The day-by-day timeline is in our piece on the 15/30-day rule when changing employers. If the agency also held back your last salary, here is how to complain to the labour inspectorate (PIP).
Can I get the card if the agency uses an umowa zlecenie?
Yes. The temporary work act allows civil-law contracts, and the Act on Foreigners asks for one thing: the monthly pay in Annex 1 must be at least the minimum wage, 4,806 PLN gross in 2026, whatever the contract type or hours (art. 114 ust. 1 pkt 5). On a zlecenie, the agency has to state weekly hours, or the office will send a request for more information.
Checking an agency before you sign
Five minutes now can save you months:
- Look the agency up in the KRAZ search on stor.praca.gov.pl: number, entry date, status. Since 1 June 2025 an agency may serve foreigners who need a work permit or an oświadczenie (declaration of entrusting work) only 2 years after its KRAZ entry, and the register shows that date (art. 305 ust. 3 and art. 308 ust. 2). Agencies already doing this work before then are exempt. Many people start in Poland on exactly those documents and apply for a card later.
- Match the KRAZ number on your contract and the job ad.
- Check the user employer in KRS or CEIDG: active, not in liquidation.
- Ask for a draft of Annex 1 before the agency signs it in MOS and compare it with your contract: job title, hours, pay, workplace.
- Don't pay the agency for the job or "for the annex". Demanding money from a foreigner in return for arranging a work document is an offence fined from 6,000 to 50,000 PLN (art. 84 ust. 4).
A typical case
A typical situation. A Georgian national works as an order picker at a warehouse near Warsaw through an agency, on an employment contract, with a 3-year card. In month 15 the agency says that after 18 months it will move him to another client in Błonie, "from Monday, paperwork later". The right order is different: the agency completes a new Annex 1 straight away, the change application goes in with the 220 PLN fee while he's still working for the original user employer within the cap, and the move to the new site waits for the decision. Start there "from Monday" and the agency risks a fine, while he has questions to answer at his next application.
If your agency disappeared and you need a new job to keep your card, we offer job search support. How a type A work permit differs from an oświadczenie, the documents many agency workers start on, is covered in a separate comparison.
This is an overview; for your own situation, get an individual assessment from a lawyer.
We check your agency's Annex 1 and see the karta pobytu through to a decision, from 2000 PLN: send us your details.