Landmark ruling legalizes foreign same-sex marriages in Poland

The Polish Supreme Administrative Court in Warsaw delivered a landmark ruling on March 5, 2026, that recognized the first foreign marriage of a same-sex couple. Soon after, on May 5, the same court delivered three other similar rulings. Me and my husband, Miłosz, were among the lucky couples. It is an immense pleasure and honor to not only witness, but also be a catalyst of the history-making process.

I will try to briefly summarize our journey for equality to give the readers a wider perspective on the struggle that has continued in Poland since 2003 when the first draft bill legalizing same-sex unions was considered in the Polish Parliament. The initial bill was rejected and it took another decade when three other draft bills were considered together and… all of them lost the vote. The whole situation escalated internal tensions within the ruling coalition led by Donald Tusk. 

Now I will get to our part of the common struggle, which started on April 29, 2022 when we got married at the elegant Hochzeitsvilla of Berlin’s quarter of Steglitz-Zehlendorf.

Initial rejection and our argumentation

The requirement for Polish citizens getting married overseas is to register their marriage either at home or in Polish consulates within thirty days. We followed the regulation, however, upon submission, we were told our forms would be taken but would most probably be rejected as the existing forms are designed only for opposite-sex couples.

And this is what happened indeed. A couple weeks later both of us got letters saying that Article 18 of the Polish constitution prohibits same-sex unions to be legalized and that the very institution of same-sex unions violates the “legal order” in Poland. Our lawyer drew up an appeal to the head of civil registry office (USC) referring to the first Polish Ombudsperson, Prof. Ewa Łętowska, who has claimed for over a decade that although Article 18 of the Polish constitution states that the institution of marriage, understood as a union between a man and a woman, is under special protection, it does not prohibit other forms of civil unions to be legal.

The other argument we used, debunked the notion that same-sex unions jeopardize the Polish “legal order”. Poland is an EU member state and thus bound by the European Convention on Human Rights. Art. 8 of the Convention states that “everyone has the right to respect for his private life and family life” as well as Art. 12 of the Convention, which states that “men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family”. None of the arguments convinced the head of the office and they upheld the previous decision. We then decided to appeal to the voivode (regional governor) using the same arguments but they also upheld the previous refusal.

Suing Poland to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)

Then we went two ways simultaneously. The next step in the Polish legal system is appealing to the Voivodeship Administrative Court. And so we did. But, expecting there might be a refusal again, we decided to file a lawsuit against Poland directly to the ECHR in Strasbourg.

The ruling of the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw came a year later and was ambiguous but in a way positive. It stated that there are no formal obstacles, as neither the Polish constitution with its Art. 18 nor any other pieces of legislation prevent same-sex marriages from being legal in Poland. Having said that, the court dismissed our appeal entirely, as it could not create a new institution. This is the job of another branch of power, that is, the Parliament. As it had been the fourth favorable verdict of a voivodeship court in similar cases, there was a ray of light in the tunnel that we are getting near a landmark ruling.

Another glimmer of hope appeared when the verdict of the ECHR in Strasbourg was announced in the fall of 2025. It referred to over a dozen cases filed by Polish same-sex couples concerning foreign marriages with the first one filed in 2010. The court stated that Poland should pass some legislation legalizing same-sex unions. The verdicts of ECHR are only recommendations as there are no legal provisions of how the court could force states in question to execute the verdicts. There are also no any prescribed penalties for not having applied the rulings. The court stated, however, that unless Poland resolved the issue satisfactorily, the couples could return to the court with the same lawsuit without having to wait another 15 years.

The ECHR’s ruling was further reinforced in November 2025 with the response of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered at the request of the Supreme Administrative Court when considering the case of Mateusz and Jakub (The marriage of Jakub Cupriak-Trojan and Mateusz Trojan is the first same-sex marriage to be registered in the Polish civil registry system). It ruled that EU law precludes Poland from refusing to recognize and transcribe a same-sex marriage legally concluded in another member state. The CJEU determined that EU citizens' freedom of movement, as well as private and family life must be upheld upon returning to their state of nationality. The Polish Supreme Court recognized the recommendations and delivered the landmark ruling in March 2026.

What is going on now? What are the practical consequences and is the battle finally over?

Well, it seems that civic oversight can never really stop if we want our rights and freedoms to function in daily life situations. After the initial joy following the March verdict, there were no major changes. The Polish transcript of the marriage certificate was not sent to the plaintiffs. It was only the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy that announced that unemployed spouses of persons with permanent employment contracts are automatically covered by the spouse’s public insurance plan. Additionally, if one spouse dies, the surviving spouse would be entitled to a survivor’s pension. The government explained that the failure of issuing foreign same-sex marriage certificates’ transcripts was due to the challenges of introducing three separate versions of foreign marriage registration forms within the USC’s IT system for: husband & husband, wife & wife and husband & wife.

A couple of days after our May ruling was delivered, the pressure on the authorities to execute the sovereign court’s ruling grew. The first Polish same-sex married couple, Jakub and Mateusz, were offered a makeshift solution to which they both agreed, namely that one of them would be listed as a woman using the old form before the new forms appear in August this year. Later on, they will be able to fill out the correct ones and replace them with the interim ones.

Last week we received the content of our verdict printed on almost ten pages. The letter was also sent to the USC where we originally applied to have our marriage registered in May 2022 and the office has thirty days to send us the requested transcript. We will most probably also receive the interim versions.

Checking our entitlements

After receiving the transcript, we will head to our IRS office to check if we are entitled to file a joint tax report. Currently, it is the most vital element for us as we had large tax underpayments in recent years due to not being able to file a joint annual tax report. We will request our tax reports to be recalculated from the fiscal year 2023 according to the joint tax filing rules. Afterall, we have been married since April 29, 2022 and not since the court’s verdict on May 7, 2026.

Our fight is far from over. Just last week the so-called Act on the Status of a Closest Person in a Relationship and the Cohabitation Agreement, which is how the government has called civil unions so as not to irritate a ruling coalition member, the Polish People’s Party whose head has self-appointed himself as internal opposition, was passed in the lower and higher chambers of the Parliament. The other requirement was that the act be stripped of adoption rights. Now the act is awaiting the President’s signature but this is unlikely to happen. A new bill cannot be introduced before the elections next fall, which are expected to result in the election of much more conservative politicians. The struggle continues…. 

Europe's Road to Marriage Equality 

Europe is a region with the highest number of countries that recognize same-sex marriage. At the turn of the century, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage on April 1, 2001, followed by Belgium in 2003 and Spain in 2005. From 2009 to 2012, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Portugal, and Denmark joined the early adpoters, with a Western European wave joining them in 2013 when France introduced the marriage for all (“Mariage pour tous”) and England and Wales passed their Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act. Scotland came next, recognizing same-sex marriage in 2014 and Luxembourg and Ireland in 2015. In the second half of the decade, Finland, Malta, and Germany joined the growing number of countries recognizing same-sex marriage, with legal changes introduced in 2017. In December 2017, the Constitutional Court in Austria ruled that banning same-sex marriage goes against the constitution. The ruling took effect in 2019. In Switzerland, a national vote with nearly two thirds approved the new law, and between 2022 and 2025 Slovenia, Andorra, Estonia, Greece and Liechtenstein followed.

The views and conclusions contained in the text express the author's opinions and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.