At the end of 2025, Poland had nine reception centres which altogether provided 1,525 places. As of 31 December 2025, 716 (compared with 853 in 2024) asylum applicants were residing in the centres. Another 6,061 (compared with 5,254 in 2024) asylum applicants were receiving assistance outside the centres.[1]
In 2025, as in previous years the centres in Podkowa Leśna-Dębak and Biała Podlaska served as the first reception, where asylum applicants were directed after applying for asylum in order to register and carry out medical examinations. The remaining seven centres were accommodation centres (Białystok, Czerwony Bór, Bezwola, Łuków, Grupa, Kolonia-Horbów and Linin).[2]
In 2025, there was no problem of overcrowding in these centres. As of 31 December 2025, the highest occupancy rate was 72.5% in Białystok and 65.33% in Łuków; the lowest was in Podkowa Leśna Dębak – 21.93% (first reception) and Biała Podlaska – 25.45% (first reception).[3]
Since March 2022, the reception centres for asylum applicants have been serving also as a place for accommodation for some temporary protection beneficiaries. However, no temporary protection beneficiaries benefited from this accommodation in 2025.[4]
Centres are located in different parts of Poland. One is located in a city (Białystok), but most of them are situated in the countryside. Bezwola, Dębak, Grupa and Linin are in the woods. These centres are therefore not easily accessible.
Spatial exclusion as a result of the present location of the centres is considered the main problem by some NGOs.[5] Isolation of the centres limits contact with Polish citizens and Polish institutions, including NGOs. It affects the effectiveness of the integration process.[6] In addition, the reception centres are located in areas with a high level of poverty, which hampers the asylum applicant’s access to the labour market.[7] Moreover, the isolation of asylum applicants from society negatively affects their psychological state.[8]
Applicants living in reception centres may also be exposed to social exclusion resulting from disinformation.The media reported that in April 2025, people hostile to migrants gathered in front of the foreigners’ centre in Czerwony Bór. The applicants accommodated in the centre were said to feel threatened and met with hostility from the local community. In response to emerging disinformation, the Office for Foreigners stated that the foreigners accommodated in the centre do not pose a threat to state security and assistance is provided to them in accordance with the applicable regulations.[9] Generally, racism and xenophobia within Polish society also remain a serious challenge. One person describes their experience as follows:
When I was in Biała Podlaska and later in Łuków… it was the same everywhere. As soon as you go outside, Poles immediately start staring at you, as if you were someone foreign, strange. (…) Even drivers—when they see a Black man on the street, they immediately look, they stare. Even when riding a bicycle, when they see you, they have to look… I don’t understand why.[10]
[1] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 10 April 2026, 19 February 2025. See also ECRE, ‘Seeking Refuge in Poland: A Fact-Finding Report on Access to Asylum and Reception Conditions for Asylum Seekers’, April 2023, available here, 22-23.
[2] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 19 February 2025.
[3] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 10 April 2026.
[4] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 10 April 2026. For more, see Temporary protection Annex: Housing.
[5] See W. Goszczyński, R. Baczyński-Sielaczek, J. Suchomska, J. Stankowska and M. Wróblewski. ‘Lokalne systemy integracji uchodźców – badania’ in Fundacja EMIC and Pracownia Zrównoważonego Rozwoju, Wielogłos. Integracja uchodźców w polskich gminach, 2016, available (in Polish) here, 58. See also M. Baran-Kurasiewicz, ‘Uzyskanie statusu uchodźcy i sytuacja uchodźców w Polsce’, Polityka i Społeczeństwo 3(19)/2021, 17.
[6] PFM, ‘Czas w ośrodku to czas wykluczenia’, 2023, available in Polish here, Institute of Public Affairs, ‘Analiza przygotowania lokalnych instytucji do przyjęcia uchodźców z programu relokacji i przesiedleń. Raport końcowy z badań fokusowych’, 2016, available (in Polish) here, 12-14; Lukasiewicz, K., ‘Exile to Poverty: Policies and Poverty Among Refugees in Poland’, International Migration Vol. 55 (6) 2017, 65.
[7] Lukasiewicz, K., ‘Exile to Poverty: Policies and Poverty Among Refugees in Poland’, International Migration Vol. 55 (6) 2017, 61.
[8] A. Garbolińska, ‘Rodzaje ośrodków dla osób w procedurze uchodźczej w Polsce’, 2022, available in Polish here.
[9] Wp.pl, ‘Niepokoje w Czerwonym Borze. Mieszkańcy skarżą się na zachowania migrantów’, 8 April 2025, available in Polish here.
[10] K. Madej, E. Łapińska, K. Sulima ‘Pokazać, że można tu żyć, Raport z badania potrzeb osób uchodźczych opuszczających ośrodki dla cudzoziemców’ PFM, Fundacja Batorego, March 2025, available in Polish here.