Polish Civil Registry Offices

There are some Polish websites which can assist you with locating Civil Registry office contact numbers:

List published by Ministry of Foreigner Affairs

• https://www.gov.pl/web/mswia/urzedy-stanu-cywilnego

• https://archiwum.mswia.gov.pl/pl/form/148,Adresy-USC-w-Polsce-Addresses-of-Civil-Registry-Offices.html

Other

• https://ratusz.pl/

• https://weselicho.net/porady-slubne/adresy-urzedow-stanu-cywilnego

Privacy Law in Poland

Please note that access to BIRTH records is restricted for 100 years and 80 years for MARRIAGES and DEATHS. Application for such records has to be made to the relevant local Registry Office which is called Urząd Stanu Cywilnego or USC. Some bureaucracy is involved and information will ONLY be released to close family members after they have provided evidence of the relationship.

Just because the 100 or 80 years may be up does NOT mean that records will become available at an archive or that they would be found online. Firstly, the record book may contain subsequent BMD entries so it could be dependent on the date of the last entry.

Different registry offices (USCs) also have different procedures for transferring record books to state archives. The process is not instantaneous and could take some time.

For the records to appear online, generally a volunteer has to index the records and possibly take photos of the pages. Or, the state archive MAY scan the pages (but they don't index the entries). Both these actions can take years.

The structure of records is available on our webpage. See under "Polish Vital Records”.