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Since 1 July 2025, a graduate of a Kazakhstani school applying for the first year of a Bachelor’s or long-cycle Master’s program has one route: certificate recognition is issued by the director of NAWA. The education kuratorium (kurator oświaty) no longer considers such applications.
This document is needed twice. The university requires it at enrollment, the consul in the visa package, and the Polish embassy states the consequence directly: “failure to submit the above-mentioned document entails refusal to issue a student visa”.
If what you have is not a school certificate but a university diploma, the answer is different: the diploma goes through a separate procedure, with a different name, a different executor and a different price.
The short answer: who needs certificate recognition
Certificate recognition through NAWA is not required in three cases:
- you are applying for a second-cycle Master’s program, a postgraduate program or a doctoral school;
- you already have a kuratorium decision issued before 30 June 2025: it remains valid, there is no need to apply again;
- your case was opened with the kuratorium before 1 July 2025 and is not yet completed: it is finished under the old rules.
All the data below was verified against official sources on 28 July 2026. The recognition procedure changed in 2025 and may change again, so recheck the conditions for your own case before applying.
Certificate and diploma: two different procedures
They are confused all the time, and the cost of the mistake is weeks lost inside the admission season.
If you are applying after school
You need the written information from the director of NAWA about a foreign school certificate. The application is submitted only online, through the SYRENA system, and the written information itself is issued free of charge: NAWA charges neither the document owner nor the university. The result arrives as a PDF in Polish with a qualified electronic signature, and the system notifies you when it is ready.
An apostille is not needed for this step: documents in SYRENA do not have to carry an apostille or legalization. The apostille is needed later, for the visa package, so it is arranged in parallel with the NAWA application. Procedure and timing: apostille on the certificate and sworn translation.
A sworn translation is usually not needed for NAWA either: the agency does not require translations for documents in English, Russian, Ukrainian or Belarusian, and a Kazakhstani certificate is printed on a form where the Russian text is identical to the text in the state language. If a document was issued only in Kazakh, a translation by a sworn translator (tłumacz przysięgły) will be needed.
The set includes not only the certificate but also a document on the previous level of education, the annex or transcript (if issued), a passport, a document on the change of surname (if it was changed) and a parents’ application if the applicant is under 18. Each file is no larger than 3 MB. The full breakdown: certificate nostrification for Poland in 2026.
If you already have a university diploma
For second-cycle Master’s programs, postgraduate programs and doctoral schools, diploma nostrification is not required. The document for the second cycle is a Bachelor’s diploma or an equivalent, the school certificate is not requested there.
Nostrification is needed where formal equivalence to a Polish diploma is required. It is carried out by a Polish university with the required scientific category and programs in the same or a related field. The fee is capped: no more than 50 percent of a professor’s salary, and from 17 April 2026 that is 4 825 zlotys. In justified cases the university may waive the fee.
The terminology itself creates the confusion: in Polish law “nostrification” applies to university diplomas and academic degrees, not to a school certificate. In Russian everyone says “certificate nostrification”, but in Poland this request will send you to the wrong window. The correct name of what a school graduate needs is the written information from the director of NAWA.
NAWA and the kuratorium: who is responsible for what
| Question | NAWA | Education kuratorium |
|---|---|---|
| What it issues | Written information about a foreign school certificate | An administrative decision on certificate recognition |
| When it applies | First year of a Bachelor’s or long-cycle Master’s program, from 1 July 2025 | Other purposes, for example continuing studies at a Polish school. Not used for university admission |
| A new certificate application for university | Yes, only online through SYRENA | No, does not consider them since 1 July 2025 |
The kuratorium has not closed and has not become slower. It still recognizes certificates for other purposes, but the right to apply to a university has been removed from its remit. This is not a choice between two windows but two different questions.
How to tell which route is yours
- Look at what you have in hand. A school certificate and a university diploma go through different procedures.
- Determine the cycle. The first year of a Bachelor’s program and a long-cycle Master’s require the NAWA information. The second cycle, postgraduate programs and doctoral schools do not.
- Check the dates. A kuratorium decision issued before 30 June 2025 is valid, a case opened before 1 July 2025 is completed, and a new certificate application to the kuratorium for university admission cannot be filed.
- Do not count on automatic recognition. The bilateral agreement covers documents obtained in Kazakhstan before 29 September 2005, so a certificate issued in 2026 is not recognized automatically. Check your case in the NAWA database: kwalifikator.nawa.gov.pl.
- Check the language of every document. The translation exemption in SYRENA depends on the language of the document, not the country.
- Clarify the university’s translation requirement separately. There is no general rule for the visa and admissions: it is set by the specific university, and it must be checked before paying for a translation.
What happens if you pick the wrong route
The application went to the kuratorium. It will come back with nothing, and lost time is more dangerous than lost money: enrollment deadlines are rigid, and weeks inside the admission season cannot be recovered.
The document is missing at the visa application. Without it the visa is refused. Consuls do not take part in certificate recognition and do not act as intermediaries between the applicant, the university and NAWA, so this cannot be fixed at submission. What else goes into the package: student visa to Poland.
The document is missing at enrollment. Some universities require it before the consul does. Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego, for example, writes that the NAWA information must reach the university before enrollment. Check your university’s requirement in its admission rules.
The application was filed by an intermediary without a notarized power of attorney. NAWA rejects such applications. It can be filed by the certificate owner or by the institution the information is presented to; a third party only with a notarized power of attorney sent to NAWA by regular mail together with a copy of the confirmation of payment of the stamp duty.
The set was sent incomplete. The clock starts not from the first submission but from the complete set. If there are formal deficiencies, the period is counted from the day they are corrected.
NAWA does not publish processing times: the agency writes that the information is issued as quickly as possible given the very large number of applications, and gives no figures. Any specific timeframe from the internet is someone else’s estimate. That is why the NAWA step is started first, not last: the Poland admission calendar.