For years Krakow has been hiding behind the city with its soul – historical, calm, with a clear local character. Today, however, it is starting to match a multiethnic metropolis where it is increasingly hard to hear the Polish language in a tram, and acquainted faces vanish from the settlements. According to a study prepared by the Centre for Advanced investigation of the People's and spiritual University of Economics in Krakow, immigrants already account for 9.2% of the population of the city. That's almost 1 in 10 people.
Is it inactive the same Kraków?
Every year foreigners arrive, and the growth rate of any groups – especially from Asia – raises questions about the city's ability to integrate and keep social cohesion. Is anyone in control? Or is Krakow drifting towards a direction most of the inhabitants never chose?
Only a fewer years ago, foreigners were noticeable in Krakow, but not dominant. Today, the situation is completely different. According to the study of the University of Economics, the number of foreigners surviving in Krakow exceeded 73 thousand. This is data from the Małopolska Provincial Office concerning people with legal residence. The Social Insurance Institution gives a akin number – over 69 1000 people employed in companies registered in Krakow.
This means that foreigners already account for 9.2% of the city's population. In terms – almost all tenth of the inhabitants have no Polish citizenship. This figure was inactive around 29 1000 in 2021. An increase of over 40,000 people in just 3 years is barely natural. It's a change that happens quickly, quietly, but with large consequences.
The largest group of immigrants in Krakow are Ukrainians – over 36.5 1000 people according to MUW, and 39.2 1000 according to ZUS data. There are 33.6 1000 refugees from this country in the registry of persons covered by the Ukrainian speciality (UKR status). The second largest group is Belarusian – nearly 8,000. In 3rd place Hindus appear – their number exceeded 3.8 1000 according to provincial data. The Russians (2.3 thousand), Georgians, Turks, Azers, as well as Colombians, Filipinos, and people from North Africa are then placed.
It points out that immigrants from outside the European Union, both from the erstwhile USSR and Asia and Africa, dominate. EU migrants – specified as the Italians, the Spanish and the French – represent a number and even a somewhat smaller number. This shows that the structure of immigration in Krakow is little and little like the Western European model and more like the directions known from countries that face difficulties in integration.
Foreigners in Krakow are mostly young people – between 25 and 44 years old. In 2024, people aged 25–34 made up 36% of all foreigners. Another 26% is simply a group aged 35–44. They are active people, but besides those who can rapidly start families and settle permanently.
In terms of gender, there are besides crucial differences – in MUW and ZUS registers women make up only about 42%. Men are peculiarly dominant in Asian and African groups. This is not a balanced migration of families – it is an influx of singles, frequently geared solely to work and earnings.
Despite clear trends, the city does not seem to have a coherent migration policy strategy. The number of immigrants is increasing, but there is no proportional action in terms of integration, support for schools, housing or transport. Moreover, the deficiency of a real public debate on the effects of this change can lead to expanding tension. Kraków is not just an academic and tourist centre. It is besides a city that should keep social, spatial and cultural balance. Is it possible that in a fewer years 1 out of 5 inhabitants of Krakow will be foreign? Given the pace of change – this is more than a real scenario.
Krakow as a suburb of Kiev?
The outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 started a migration wave, which in a short time changed the demography of many Polish cities – Krakow in particular. In 2022, 16 1000 Ukrainians were registered in the database of persons subject to temporary protection (UKR status). 2 years later, this number increased to 33.6 thousand.
This means that almost half of all foreigners in Krakow are Ukrainian citizens. Let us add people with residence cards and insured in ZUS – and we have a population exceeding 36 thousand. In any registers, their number is up to 39,000.
Since September 2024, children from Ukraine, covered by the UKR status, are obliged to attend Polish schools. These are the terms of the 800+ benefit. In theory, this is intended to advance integration, in practice, which means a serious burden for the local education system. More than 5 1000 fresh students from Ukraine joined schools in Krakow alone. No teachers, no seats, no infrastructure. In many institutions the Polish language is no longer the apparent language of communication. Children from Ukraine frequently learn in separate classes, which is not conducive to integration – alternatively it postpones it or replaces it with parallel reality.
Parents of Polish students increasingly study concerns: about the level of teaching, organisational chaos, the inability to work with children individually. And they ask a simple question – who is it that adapts to whom?
Ukrainians rapidly found themselves in the Kraków labour market. Many of them have taken up employment in trade, gastronomy, courier services and the construction industry. Employed by agencies, they frequently work under worse conditions than Poles, but are cheaper and little demanding for employers. It's not about resenting the employees themselves. The problem is simply a strategy that promotes mass, uncontrolled labour migration, without warrant of standards and without safety for local workers.
Jobs that could be occupied by young Poles – go to foreigners. These others, in turn, do not always pay full taxes and contributions, while utilizing the infrastructure that everyone funds.
Although the subject of cultural tensions is inactive considered taboo in the authoritative discourse, more and more inhabitants of Krakow talk straight about it – something has changed. The neighborhoods change, the street language changes, the atmosphere changes. These are no longer “guess” who have come to wait out the war. These are fresh neighbors – in shops, schools, at stops. any bring value, but many live next door, not together. There is simply a deficiency of real integration – and migrants – and authorities. And erstwhile there are no bridges, there are walls. There are expanding numbers of entries online with frustration, less and less political correctness and more unanswered questions.
Doesn't Kraków deserve to decide its shape? Are the decisions about who lives here only to be made by the “force of facts”?
Indian: Quiet, fast expansion
While the presence of Ukrainians in Krakow can be explained by dramatic circumstances of war, the increase in the number of immigrants from India cannot be considered spontaneous. It's a process that's been going on for respective years, but it's only now beginning to take on a scale that can't be ignored. In 2019 there were only about 900 Hindus in Krakow. In 2024 – already 3.8 1000 (MUW data). ZUS gives the number of 2.7 1000 people employed from India, which means that only in the last year the increase was over 50%.
It is the largest percent increase of all immigrant groups in the city – and 1 of the fastest in the country. Hindus become 1 of the most many groups of migrants from outside Europe, and Kraków becomes a fresh point on the map of their migration routes.
Most Indians in Krakow are young people, most frequently men aged 25–35. any of them come as part of student programs – especially for method and IT courses conducted in English. But more and more are coming through employment agencies – to work in gastronomy, logistics, hotel industry.
Krakow outsourcing companies and the alleged BPO (business process outsourcing) employment employees from India to service abroad customers. English is enough, Polish is not necessary. Labour costs – lower than for Poles with the same education. For employers, it's pure profit. For the city – not necessarily.
The Indian community in Krakow grows, but does not integrate. This is not about cultural closure – although differences are clear – but about a completely different model of operation. Many people come on contracts, for a limited period, without a permanent settlement plan. Still, they stay more and more. There's more coming. They settle in the same neighborhoods – the Red Current, Ruchaj, Nowa Huta. This is not a charge against them – it is simply a charge against a strategy that allows the number of 1 cultural group to grow so fast, without any restrictions or policy of balancing the inflow.
Residents complain about moral differences, communication difficulties, deficiency of common language – virtually and figuratively. Meanwhile, the city seems not to announcement this phenomenon, although the numbers are unambiguous. An increase in Indian numbers by 300% over respective years is not a "natural trend". This is the consequence of deficiency of regulation, deficiency of migration policy and – worst of all – deficiency of vision.
If this is the dynamics of 1 group in a short time, what is next 5 years from now? Do the city authorities have any control over who settles in Krakow and in what number? Or does it all depend on global trends, corporate needs and intermediaries? Residents have no influence, but they have consequences. Housing prices are changing, the social structure of the districts is changing, the character of public places is changing. Quiet but effective.
Conclusion
Immigration is simply a phenomenon that happens independently of local sentiments. But that doesn't mean you can't, or don't have to, control it. More than 73,000 foreigners live in Krakow today. That's over 9% of the city's population. And this number grows year by year.
The largest group are Ukrainians whose presence has turned the local education strategy and the labour marketplace upside down. The second wave is economical migrants – from India, Central Asia, Africa. They are not culturally close migrants. Nor are they embedded in any coherent integration plan. They come due to the fact that they can. due to the fact that the strategy allows them to.
Meanwhile, crackers increasingly feel that decisions are taking place above their heads. That the city they know changes without asking them. That the processes that only a fewer years ago seemed temporary present are permanent.
This is not a text against circumstantial people. It is an appeal to reconstruct control, reason and open debate. due to the fact that if nothing changes, Krakow will no longer be Krakow in a fewer years. It will be a city where most residents have nothing to do with its history, language or community.
