Poland: passport and entry requirements
Poland is in the Schengen area, so a UK family travels visa-free on the usual passport rules, with the EU's new digital entry checks now taken at the border.
Your passport
Every passport has to have been issued less than ten years before the day you arrive, and still have at least three months left on it after the day you leave. The ten-year test catches passports renewed early, before September 2018, when the extra months added on at renewal don't count towards the ten years. Go through each family member's passport as you book, since children's passports run for five years against an adult's ten and rarely expire together. Renew any that are getting close, as it takes a few weeks to come through.
Getting in
There's no visa for a holiday, and you can stay up to 90 days in any 180-day period. That allowance is shared across the whole Schengen area, most of the EU plus a few neighbours like Norway and Switzerland, so days spent in any of them count towards the same total. It only matters if you're in Europe for long or repeated spells within the same six months.
On arrival you're registered on EES, the EU's entry and exit system, which records your photo and fingerprints digitally in place of stamping your passport. It's free, takes a few minutes and the record lasts three years.
ETIAS, a pre-travel authorisation the EU plans to bring in, isn't running yet and has no confirmed start date, so there's nothing to apply for now. When it starts it'll cost €20 (last checked August 2026) and last three years, and under-18s won't pay the fee, though each traveller still needs their own.
Access is restricted near Poland's borders with Ukraine and Belarus, which only matters if your trip reaches the far east of the country rather than the cities.
Every child needs their own passport, from birth, since none can travel on a parent's. Under-12s aren't fingerprinted for EES, though officials can still take their photo, and when ETIAS starts each child needs their own too, free for under-18s.
If you also hold Polish nationality
Anyone in the family who's a dual British and Polish national has to enter and leave Poland on their Polish passport rather than their British one. It makes no difference to British-only travellers.
Official sources
Last checked 11 August 2026. Passport and entry rules change, so always confirm on GOV.UK before you book or travel.
