Poland registers 516 same-sex marriage certificates — RMF24
Poland’s civil status register has recorded 516 foreign certificates of same-sex marriages. Of these, 198 concern marriages between women and 318 between men, RMF24 reports, citing data from Poland’s Ministry of Digital Affairs.
The Warsaw civil registry office carried out the highest number of transcriptions, with 209. In Wrocław, 73 certificates were transferred to the Polish register, while Kraków recorded 46. The top 10 also included Gdańsk with 24, Sosnowiec with 22, Milanówek with 19, Łódź with 17, Poznań with 13, Gdynia with 12, and Bydgoszcz with 7.
New rules have been in force since August
Since August 23, an order by Poland’s minister of digital affairs has been in force, allowing certificates of same-sex marriages concluded abroad to be transferred to the national register through the transcription procedure. At the same time, some entries were made before the new rules came into force.
The first transcription was carried out by the Warsaw civil registry office in mid-May. It concerned Jakub Zupryak-Troyan and Mateusz Troyan, who married in Berlin in 2018. The Warsaw office was required to make the entry under a ruling by Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court issued in mid-March.
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Benefits and taxes
Following updates to civil status registration document forms, separate options are provided for marriages between a woman and a man, two women, or two men. According to RMF24, couples whose foreign certificates have been entered into the Polish register are to receive the same rights as different-sex spouses who married in Poland.
Poland’s Social Insurance Institution has undertaken to recognize these rights. In particular, this concerns care benefits when it is necessary to care for a sick husband or wife. At the end of September, Minister of Finance and Economy Andrzej Domański also signed a general interpretation enabling such couples to jointly calculate personal income tax.
The new rules were introduced after a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union on Poland’s obligation to recognize same-sex marriages concluded in other EU member states. The update of certificate forms was also a response to rulings by Polish administrative courts regarding the transcription of such documents.
