Half were denied, a third were granted refugee status. August results of reviews of Belarusians' applications for international protection in Poland have become known

Positive decisions in August accounted for 35.3% of the total number of cases considered. This is more than in July, when only 13% of cases received refugee status or subsidiary protection. However, the August figure is significantly lower than the results of previous years and the first five months of 2026, when the refusal rate was only about 4.5–5.5%.

Overall, the number of new applications from Belarusians for international protection in Poland is decreasing. In the first eight months of 2026, the Polish agency registered about 1200 such applications. This marks a return to a relatively stable level after the record figures of 2022–2024, when 3 to 4 thousand applications were received annually. In 2024, there were almost 4 thousand.

The Office for Foreigners explains the decrease in new applications with two main reasons. Firstly, most people who faced the threat of political repression after 2020 have already left Belarus and managed to legalize their stay in Poland. Secondly, the decisions of the Polish authorities are influenced by stricter case review practices. The agency believes that a high proportion of rejections in the summer may deter new migrants from choosing the international protection procedure as the main method of legalization.

As of September 1, 2026, cases of approximately 3.2 thousand citizens of Belarus remained under consideration in Poland. About 92% of them were under review at the first instance. Despite the decrease in new applications, a backlog of cases filed in previous years remains. The Polish agency calls this a structural problem of the system's capacity. Currently, the main focus is on cases accumulated since 2023–2024.

The ratio between refugee status and subsidiary protection has also changed. While in 2022, there were about 20 decisions on subsidiary protection for every one refugee status, in recent months, refugee status has been granted more frequently to Belarusians. The exact reason for this change is not stated in the report of the Polish agency. The authors of the material suggest that more attention may now be paid to individual cases of persecution, rather than solely to the general political situation in Belarus and the potential threat to the applicant.

Regarding access to the labor market, applicants for international protection can usually obtain the right to work six months after submitting the application, if the first instance has not made a decision by then. However, Belarusians are often an exception in this regard. Many of them already had the right to work before starting the international protection procedure — for example, on the basis of humanitarian visas with work permits or temporary residence permits.

The Polish agency notes that thanks to this, most Belarusians who applied for protection remain financially independent and do not create an additional burden on the state social assistance system.

On September 26, Belarusians held a picket near the building of the Office for Foreigners to protest against the large number of rejections in granting international protection.

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