Compiled 2026-09-03. For researchers who have sent a records request to a Polish state archive, civil registry office (USC), diocesan archive or parish, and have a reply in Polish.
How this document is sourced
Every term and figure below was read from the page cited beside it on 2026-09-03. Statutory quotations are verbatim from the consolidated text of the act named.
What this is not. It is not a collection of real reply letters. Those are private correspondence and cannot be sourced, so this document does not invent them. An earlier draft did exactly that — it presented plausible reconstructed sentences under a claim that every phrase was sourced, and one of its three citations was a dead link. That draft has been replaced.
What you get instead is the vocabulary the replies are actually built from: the administrative terms Polish offices use, what each one means for your request, and what the law entitles you to. When you receive a reply, the useful move is to look up its terms here and get the full text translated separately — not to match it against invented sentences.
1. Terms you will meet in a reply
| Polish term | What it means | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| kwerenda | A search carried out by the archive's staff on your behalf. | This is the paid service. If your letter asked the archive to look something up, it is doing a kwerenda. |
| poszukiwania na zlecenie | Commissioned searches — the same thing, worded differently. | Same as above. |
| odpis skrócony | An abridged copy of a civil-status record. | Contains the current facts only. Cheaper, and usually not what a genealogist wants. |
| odpis zupełny | A full copy — "dosłowne powtórzenie treści aktu stanu cywilnego", a literal repetition of the record's content, plus any annotations. | Ask for this one. It carries the marginal notes (annotations of marriage, death, corrections) that an abridged copy drops. |
| zaświadczenie | A certificate confirming what is, or is not, in the register. | What you get when the office confirms a record's absence rather than issuing a copy. |
| interes prawny | Legal interest. | If you are not the person's spouse, ascendant, descendant or sibling, you must document why you are entitled — see §3. |
| zespół (archiwalny) | An archival fond — the collection a set of registers belongs to. | The number you were given, e.g. 13/1368/0. Quote it in every follow-up. |
| sygnatura | The shelf reference of a specific volume within a fond. | More precise than the fond number. If a reply gives you one, keep it. |
| akta / księgi metrykalne | Metrical records / registers — church registers of baptism, marriage and burial. | Distinct from akta stanu cywilnego, the civil records. A reply may hold one and not the other. |
| akta stanu cywilnego | Civil-status records, kept by the USC. | Governed by the retention rule in §2. |
| przekazano według właściwości | Forwarded to the competent authority. | Your request went to the wrong office and has been passed on. You should have been told where — see §3. |
| pozostawienie podania bez rozpoznania | The application is left without consideration. | Something was missing and you did not supply it in time. Not a refusal on the merits; you can re-apply. |
| decyzja o odmowie | A formal decision refusing to issue the copy. | A refusal you can appeal. Note that issuing one carries its own fee — see §4. |
2. How long the record stays at the civil registry office
Prawo o aktach stanu cywilnego (28 November 2014), art. 28:
- ust. 1 — the head of the USC keeps 100 years for birth records and 80 years for marriage and death records, together with the collective files for each.
- ust. 2 — those periods run "od końca roku kalendarzowego, w którym nastąpiło sporządzenie aktu stanu cywilnego" — from the end of the calendar year in which the record was drawn up. The event year alone is only an estimate.
- ust. 3 — birth and marriage records of people still living are retained until a death record or death information is registered.
- ust. 4 — after the applicable retention period expires, transfer to the competent state archive is due within two years.
Legacy registers — art. 128. For registers kept before the act took effect in 2015, the 100/80 years run from the closure of the book, not the individual event. Combined books count from closure of the last register within them. Death-registration exceptions also apply. Art. 129 ust. 3 gives two years for transfer where retention expires after the act took effect.
Confirm actual custody. A book closed later can remain at the USC longer than an event-year estimate suggests. Ask the USC whether it has transferred the volume, to which archive, and when.
3. Which rules apply to your request
This is the part that is easiest to get wrong, so read it before citing any deadline. The Kodeks postępowania administracyjnego (KPA) governs administrative proceedings. Not every request you send is one, and its deadlines do not apply across the board.
| Where you wrote | Is it an administrative matter? | What governs the timing |
|---|---|---|
| USC — asking for an odpis | Yes. Issuing civil-status copies is a public-administration task under Prawo o aktach stanu cywilnego, and a refusal comes as a decyzja. | KPA deadlines apply. See the table below. |
| State archive — genealogy search with no official purpose | No. | The archive's own service terms and its queue. No statutory deadline. |
| State archive — where you state an official purpose (cel urzędowy: a citizenship or Karta Polaka file, a pension, a restitution claim) | Usually yes — this is the distinction archives themselves draw. | KPA may apply. Say what the documents are for; it can change how the request is handled. |
| Parish or diocesan archive | No. These are Church institutions, not public administration. | Nothing statutory. Courtesy, and the parish priest's time. |
Archiwum Państwowe w Częstochowie states the boundary plainly: "Zamówienia, co do których nie jest wskazany cel urzędowy, są realizowane poza zakresem administracji publicznej, bez zastosowania przepisów kodeksu postępowania administracyjnego" — orders with no stated official purpose are handled outside public administration, without applying the KPA. It adds that such searches "stanowią sferę działalności usługowej Archiwum", the archive's service activity.
What this means in practice. Do not cite art. 35 at a parish, and do not cite it at an archive for an ordinary family-history search — you would be invoking a law that does not govern the request, which reads as aggressive and tends to slow things down rather than speed them up. Where it genuinely applies is a USC request, and an archive request whose official purpose you have stated.
The KPA provisions themselves
Applicable to the lanes marked Yes above.
| Provision | Verbatim (Polish) | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| KPA art. 35 § 1 | "Organy administracji publicznej obowiązane są załatwiać sprawy bez zbędnej zwłoki." | Offices must act without undue delay. |
| KPA art. 35 § 3 | "nie później niż w ciągu miesiąca"; for a particularly complex matter, "nie później niż w ciągu dwóch miesięcy" | One month, two if the matter is particularly complex — for an administrative matter only. A follow-up citing art. 35 is reasonable at a USC. It is not a deadline you can hold an archive to for a family-history search, or a parish to at all. |
| KPA art. 64 § 2 | "należy wezwać wnoszącego do usunięcia braków w wyznaczonym terminie, nie krótszym niż siedem dni, z pouczeniem, że nieusunięcie tych braków spowoduje pozostawienie podania bez rozpoznania." | If something is missing, the office must ask you to fix it and give you at least seven days — the office sets the actual deadline, which may be longer. It must also warn you of the consequence. |
| KPA art. 65 § 1 | "Jeżeli organ administracji publicznej, do którego podanie wniesiono, jest niewłaściwy w sprawie, niezwłocznie przekazuje je do organu właściwego, zawiadamiając jednocześnie o tym wnoszącego podanie." | A wrongly-addressed request must be forwarded, not discarded — and you must be told. |
| PoASC art. 44 ust. 1 | The kierownik USC issues "odpisy zupełne i odpisy skrócone aktów stanu cywilnego" | Two kinds of copy exist. Name the one you want. |
| PoASC art. 45 | Issued to the person, "jej małżonkowi, wstępnemu, zstępnemu, rodzeństwu, przedstawicielowi ustawowemu, opiekunowi, osobie, która wykaże w tym interes prawny" | Spouse, ascendant, descendant, sibling, legal representative or guardian are entitled as of right. Anyone else must show legal interest. |
On proving descent. Kraków's civil registry service page states plainly that an applicant seeking a record outside their direct family must submit "dokument, który potwierdzi Twój interes prawny" — a document confirming legal interest. In practice this means the chain of certificates linking you to the person. Say your relationship in the request itself; it is the difference between a copy and a refusal.
4. What it costs
| Item | Fee | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Odpis skrócony (abridged copy) | 22 zł | Kraków BIP, service SC-18 |
| Odpis zupełny (full copy) | 33 zł | Kraków BIP, service SC-18 |
| Decision refusing a copy | 10 zł | Kraków BIP, service SC-18 |
| Archive search, per half hour | 20–30 zł | Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie |
On archive searches, AP Łódź states: "Prowadzenie kwerend archiwalnych przez Archiwum na rzecz osób zainteresowanych jest odpłatne (wyjątkiem są podania dotyczące udokumentowania represji wojennych…)" — commissioned searches are paid, except requests documenting wartime repression. If your research concerns deportation, forced labour or similar, say so: the fee may not apply.
ANK notes that "Czas wykonania kwerendy jest zależny od stopnia jej skomplikowania i zakresu" — turnaround depends on complexity and scope — and that the archive needs "jak najdokładniejsze informacje o przedmiocie Państwa poszukiwań", the most precise information you can give.
5. Deliberately not included
Specimen reply sentences. Formulations such as "poszukiwania zakończyły się wynikiem negatywnym" or "księgi nie zachowały się" are widely reported by genealogists and are probably close to real usage — but no published source was found that shows an office writing them, so they are not presented here as if verified. If you want them included, they need to come from real replies: send the Polish text you receive and it can be added with your letter as the source.
Sources
All read 2026-09-03.
- Kodeks postępowania administracyjnego, art. 35
- Kodeks postępowania administracyjnego, art. 64
- Kodeks postępowania administracyjnego, art. 65
- Prawo o aktach stanu cywilnego — official 2026 consolidated text, art. 28, 44–45, 128–129
- Wydawanie odpisów z rejestru stanu cywilnego (fees, legal interest)
- Zlecenie poszukiwań (search fees, turnaround)
- Poszukiwania na zlecenie (paid searches, wartime-repression exception)
- Genealogy guidance on the retention periods
- Kwerendy: service activity versus administrative proceedings