Europe

Insurance

We recommend that you obtain comprehensive travel and medical insurance before travelling.  You should check any exclusions, and that your policy covers you for the activities you want to undertake. See Travel Insurance.

 

If things do go wrong when you are overseas then this is How We Can Help.

Dual nationals  

 

If you are a dual national of Poland and the UK and are arrested or detained in Poland, you will be deemed to be Polish by the Polish authorities.  You will have the same rights as any other Polish citizen in these circumstances (including the right to legal representation), however the British Embassy may only be able to offer you limited consular assistance.

Consular registration

Register with our LOCATE service to tell us when and where you are travelling abroad or where you live abroad so our consular and crisis staff can provide better assistance to you in an emergency.  More information about registering with LOCATE can be found here.

Passports

If a passport is lost in Poland, replacement and emergency passport facilities are available at the Embassy in Warsaw (00 48 22 311 0000).  Passport facilities are not available at the Consulates outside of Warsaw, which are headed by Honorary Consuls.

Customs Regulations

Travellers entering the UK from European Union countries do not normally pay any UK tax or duty on excise goods they have bought tax and duty paid in EU countries for own use. But there are special rules for cigarettes and some other tobacco products from some EU countries.

The UK is maintaining limits on the amount of cigarettes and some tobacco products that travellers are able to bring in to the UK for own use from nine European Union Member States (including Poland), without paying UK duty.

The limits are:

Estonia - 200 cigarettes or 250g of smoking tobacco.

Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - 200 cigarettes.

Anyone who is carrying more than the limits should pay UK duty on those goods by entering the Customs red channel or by using the red point telephone. If travellers enter the Customs blue channel with more than the limits, then all of their tobacco may be seized.

Money

The majority of Polish businesses, hotels and banks do not recognise Scottish bank notes and you will face difficulties in trying to change money.

You might find it difficult to obtain money from some ATM machines using Maestro and Visa cards due to difficulties in reading the card.  Polish banks are trying to sort out the issue but it has yet to be resolved.

New legislation on the controls of cash entering or leaving the EU will apply in all Member States from 15 June 2007.  Any person entering or leaving the EU will have to declare the cash that they are carrying if this amounts to 10,000 euros or more; this includes cheques, travellers’ cheques, money orders, etc.  This will not apply to anyone travelling via the EU to a non-EU country, as long as the original journey started outside of the EU nor to those travelling within the EU.