On 11 June 2026 President Karol Nawrocki signed seven bills into law, among them the Act on Poland’s Participation in the Eurodac System. Eurodac is the EU’s central fingerprint database that stores biometric data of asylum-seekers and irregular border-crossers, enabling Member States to determine which country is responsible for examining an asylum claim. Until now, Polish authorities could upload fingerprints but lacked full real-time access to the enhanced search interface introduced under Eurodac 2.0. The new statute provides the legal basis for that upgrade and for cross-matching data with law-enforcement systems. Under the law, Poland’s Border Guard and Office for Foreigners will begin transmitting fingerprints within three hours of an apprehension or lodging of an asylum application, down from the current 72-hour window. Data will be retained for up to ten years in cases involving serious crime, harmonising national rules with the latest EU regulation. The Act also empowers the Police and Internal Security Agency to query Eurodac for counter-terrorism purposes, subject to judicial oversight. For mobility managers the main impact will be procedural: asylum-seekers whose fingerprints are already in Eurodac will be more quickly redirected to the Member State that first registered them, reducing the likelihood that they remain in Poland unlawfully while claims are sorted. At the same time, faster data-sharing should accelerate the issuance of ‘Dublin transfer’ documents, a prerequisite for carriers transporting returnees by air. Carriers failing to verify that passengers hold the correct paperwork can face fines of up to PLN 30,000 under the amended Aviation Law. Human-rights organisations urged the government to pair the stricter biometric regime with safeguards for minors and victims of trafficking. In response, the Chancellery of the President published guidelines clarifying that fingerprints of children under 14 may only be taken in the presence of a guardian and child-welfare officer. Implementation will roll out in phases. Warsaw’s ‘Eurodac Hub’ at the National Migration Information Centre is scheduled to go live on 1 October 2026, with regional Border Guard units connected by the end of the year. Companies relocating staff to Poland are advised to ensure that any previous asylum applications in other EU states have been properly closed to avoid false Eurodac matches that could complicate residence-permit processing.
