Polish passport

Polish passport
The front cover of a contemporary Polish biometric passport
Date first issued	1 January 2007
Issued by	Poland
Type of document	Passport
Purpose	Identification
Eligibility requirements	Polish citizenship
Expiration	5 years for children aged 0–13, 10 years for people aged 13+, 1 year for emergency travel documents
Cost	140 zł (adult) / 30 zł (under 13) / free (over 70)

Polish passport is an international travel document issued to nationals of Poland, and may also serve as proof of Polish citizenship. Besides enabling the bearer to travel internationally and serving as indication of Polish citizenship, the passport facilitates the process of securing assistance from Polish consular officials abroad or other European Union member states in case a Polish consular is absent, if needed.

According to the 2014 Visa Restrictions Index, Polish citizens can visit 157 countries without a visa or with a visa granted on arrival. Polish citizens can live and work in any country within the EU as a result of the right of free movement and residence granted in Article 21 of the EU Treaty.

Every Polish citizen is also a citizen of the European Union. The passport, along with the national identity card allows for free rights of movement and residence in any of the states of the European Union and European Economic Area.

The passports are issued by the Ministry of the Interior and applications are filed voivodeship offices which have a passport office. Passports issued since mid-2006 are of a biometric variety, and valid for ten years. The blue cover passports issued up until 2001 and burgundy-cover passports (issued up until 2006) remain valid until their state expiry dates, however their lack of biometric features inherently means that they have slightly different visa restrictions for travel abroad as they are considered to have insufficient security features by some nations, such as Canada (allows visa-free access only for Polish citizens in possession of a biometric passport).