The number of Ukrainians living in Poland under temporary protection status has plunged by over 106,500 since spring, government statistics released on September 8 show.
Some 974,500 people were registered under the immigration status offered to Ukrainian refugees in Poland in April 2026. That number fell to 868,000 by early September, a drop of around 11 percent.
Polish news reports have suggested rising hostility toward the refugees is causing an exodus from the country. Some are emigrating, but Ukrainians in Poland say much of the decline is down to bureaucratic roadblocks rather than strife on the streets.
Bohdan Kontsur, an immigration expert with Ukrainian House in Warsaw told RFE/RL that a law change in March has required Ukrainian refugees to explicitly state to border guards their intention to seek temporary protection in Poland. But he says many, “find out about this when they go to the [immigration] office and there they're getting told that their entry into Poland was listed as a tourist entry.”
Kontsur says many Ukrainians he has helped have claimed they were not asked any questions at the border, and saw no information about the new rule at the checkpoints.
Ukrainians visiting Poland as tourists are not permitted to apply for temporary protection status.
Anna Sobieska-Tekien, a spokesperson for the Polish border guard confirmed the legal detail to RFE/RL.
“A Ukrainian citizen intending to enter Poland to avail themselves of temporary protection should clearly declare this intention to the Border Guard officer during the border check,” she said in an email.
“This is important because, in the absence of such a declaration, entry may be registered under the general rules applicable to visa-free travel,” the spokesperson added.
At the beginning of September, another legal change kicked in that has wiped swaths of Ukrainians off the registry of temporary protection holders due to the documents they used to enter Poland.
During the initial rush of Ukrainians fleeing the 2022 Russian invasion, many were able to obtain temporary protection without a valid passport, using other documents, such as a national ID card, to establish their identities. In the case of children, birth certificates could also be used, while some refugees were registered on the basis of declarations of their identity.
Under a law that took effect this year, Ukrainians whose temporary protection status had been granted without presentation of a valid travel document were required to confirm their identities with a valid travel document by August 31. Those who failed to do so lost the right to legal residence attached to their temporary protection status on September 1.
Kontsur says tens of thousands of Ukrainians were affected. That was later amended to give those affected a six-month grace period to "sort their situation out," Kontsur added.
Poland’s border authorities say those Ukrainians who lost their temporary protection in September “may be able to re-obtain this entitlement after legally reentering Poland,” with a valid passport.
Polish attitudes toward refugees have hardened significantly in recent months according to polls.
Immediately following the 2022 Russian invasion, some 94 percent of Poles felt their country should accept Ukrainians fleeing the violence. By July 2026 that number fell to just 42 percent with more than half of those polled opposed to accepting Ukrainian refugees.
Rising Polish antipathy has been driven mostly by renewed attention to the massacres of ethnic Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in the 1940s, and the level of benefits received by the newcomers.
Olena Babakova, a Polish-Ukrainian researcher who co-authored a 2026 report on relations between Poles and Ukrainian migrants says the widely reported surge in anti-Ukrainian sentiment began in the run up to the 2025 presidential election. But she also says there are multiple factors behind the decline in Poland's refugee numbers, including Ukrainians who are transitioning to other kinds of residency permits.
Babakova says individual cases of hostility toward Ukrainians in Poland have little bearing on whether those people relocate. Babakova told RFE/RL that after navigating the stresses of leaving their homeland to settle in another country, many Ukrainians unwilling to return to a war zone “feel it’s impossible to do this emotional work once again and to come to some other new country.”
“You work so hard to secure a home and food for your children. Maybe your children experience some problem at school, but still, the school is relatively good, it's close to your home. What should happen that you decide to pack your suitcases and tomorrow just leave?”
Those who are departing Poland Babakova says, “are not the people who feel the worst. It's simply people who have the largest resources to conduct this one new immigration campaign.”
