How to find a grave in Poland — search engines, cemetery registers and archives

Introduction

We understand that searching for the grave of someone close can be exhausting, particularly when all that remains of a family history is a surname and the name of a town. The question of how to find a grave in Poland returns with special force before All Saints' Day (Wszystkich Świętych), when we would like to stand at a particular place rather than only remember. Many people try once, type a surname into a single search engine, find nothing, and the search ends there.

This guide is built differently from a list of links. It is a decision path: we take you through the steps in order, from nationwide grave search engines, through city databases and the compulsory grave records, to the state archives and specialist databases, and at each stage we explain what to do if it produced no result. We assume no genealogical knowledge and no special tools, and we write with families outside Poland in mind, who may be searching entirely from a distance.

We checked the data and figures in this article on 4 September 2026. The database counters rise continuously, and every cemetery administration sets its own rules of access.

How to find a grave in Poland — four steps, from the simplest

It is worth searching in four steps, starting with the simplest: the nationwide grave search engines, then a city or parish search engine, then contact with the cemetery administration and its registers, and finally the state archives and specialist databases. Each further step is taken only once the previous one has produced no result.

1. Nationwide search engines. A few minutes, no formalities. They cover only the cemeteries within a given system, but they cost the least effort.
2. A city or parish search engine. More precise, because it comes straight from the administration's own records.
3. The cemetery administration and the cemetery registers. The step that most often settles the matter: the registers also cover burials that never reached the internet.
4. State archives and specialist databases. For when the place of burial is unknown, or the grave belongs to a separate category — a veteran, a soldier, a denominational cemetery.

What to prepare before you begin

The more information you gather at the outset, the fewer dead ends along the way. It is also worth noting down what you have already checked, because a search rarely ends in a single evening.

• the first name and surname of the person who died and, for women, the maiden name as well, which is very often what appears in the registers;
• variant spellings of the surname, including the 'unlikely' ones written down by ear by a clerk;
• the approximate year of death, or a span of several years;
• the place of death and the town where the family lived, which are not always the same;
• the name of the parish and the parents' first names, which help to tell apart people with the same surname.

More and more families who find a grave after many years complete that discovery with a digital memorial — a memory page on which photographs and a life story are kept together with the location of the resting place.

Nationwide grave search engines — Grobonet, Mogiły, eCmentarze

Poland has no single state register of graves. Three large commercial search engines operate instead: Grobonet, Mogiły and eCmentarze. Each covers only those cemeteries whose administrations have joined its system, so the absence of a result in one of them settles nothing. The conclusion is simple: check all three.

The law in force is the Act of 31 January 1959 on cemeteries and burial of the dead. The draft of a new act (UD278) had not been passed as of September 2026 and remains on the legislative work list of the Rada Ministrów (the Council of Ministers) (prawo.pl).

Table 1. Nationwide grave search engines compared (as at 4 September 2026)

Grobonet

Grobonet is the search engine for burials that you will meet most often. Many cemeteries make it available at their own address, but the data also feeds a shared database. The counter read on 4 September 2026 showed 7,395,737 people buried (www.grobonet.com). Please use the address with the 'www' prefix, because the version without it is sometimes unavailable. The provider, the company Polskie Cmentarze, states 'more than 600 cemeteries across the country' and 'more than 1,300 Grobonet burial search engines for towns and parishes' (polskie-cmentarze.com) — figures from the provider, not an independent audit.

You search by first name, surname and date of death. The results are supplemented by cemetery plans and photographs of graves, and in some installations a virtual grave lantern is available. The rules are not uniform: sometimes it is free, sometimes it carries a charge that depends on how long it is displayed. The municipal cemetery in Szprotawa charges PLN 7 for 7 days, PLN 14 for 14 days and PLN 21 for 21 days (cmentarz-szprotawa.pl).

Mogiły

The mogily.pl service is built to order for parishes and municipalities. Each cemetery is surveyed by land surveyors, and an interactive plan showing the location of the grave is then published alongside a search by surname. It is not a register equivalent to Grobonet, but a collection of parish and municipal installations. The counters read on 4 September 2026 show 2,005,279 people buried, 1,113,548 graves and 842 installations (mogily.pl).

One word of warning: the service runs over HTTP only, so your browser may warn you about an insecure connection. That does not mean the site is harmful — it simply has no certificate.

eCmentarze

The third option, often left out of guides, is ecmentarze.pl, run by Tech-Studio S.C. You can search by first name, surname, town, cemetery and voivodeship. As at 4 September 2026 the service covered 694 fully surveyed cemeteries, 51 partner cemeteries and 7,917 in the basic directory (ecmentarze.pl). Families abroad will find the English and German versions useful; they sit at a separate address.

City search engines — Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków

Large cities run their own official grave search engines for municipal cemeteries. They are usually more accurate than the nationwide databases, because they come straight from the administration's records. It is worth checking them in parallel, especially when you know the city but not which of its cemeteries the burial took place at.

Warsaw

Zarząd Cmentarzy Komunalnych w Warszawie (the Warsaw Municipal Cemeteries Authority) provides a search engine at cmentarzekomunalne.com.pl. The form requires only a surname; the first name is optional, and unticking the 'whole surname' box also finds close variants of the spelling. As at 4 September 2026 the database covered 224,553 people buried at Cmentarz Północny (the Northern Cemetery), 77,113 at Cmentarz Wojskowy (the Military Cemetery) and 16,451 at Cmentarz Południowy (the Southern Cemetery) (cmentarzekomunalne.com.pl).

One important caveat: the search engine covers only those three municipal cemeteries. It does not cover Stare Powązki (the Old Powązki Cemetery), which is a parish cemetery — information about burials there has to be sought from its own administration.

Wrocław

Zarząd Cmentarzy Komunalnych we Wrocławiu (the Wrocław Municipal Cemeteries Authority) runs a search engine at groby.cui.wroclaw.pl. You search by surname, narrowing the result down to a cemetery and a year of burial. The result is unusually rich: alongside the dates of birth, death and burial, the service gives the field, grave and row number, the name of the district and also the grave expiry date (wroclaw.pl) — that is, the date up to which the plot has been paid for. We describe how those fees work in our article on cemetery plot prices and how the lease works.

Kraków and smaller towns

Zarząd Cmentarzy Komunalnych w Krakowie (the Kraków Municipal Cemeteries Authority) provides both an online grave search engine and cemetery archives holding the registers and grave files (zck-krakow.pl), so you can move from an online result straight to the archival documentation.

In smaller municipalities a separate search engine rarely exists. The starting point is then the website of the municipal office or the parish, and very often a single telephone call to the parish office is enough.

What to do when the search engine finds nothing

A blank result usually does not mean there is no grave. It means the cemetery is not in the system, or the burial is older than the digital records. At that point it is worth trying variant spellings of the surname and the maiden name, searching without the first name and widening the range of years, and only then contacting the cemetery administration.

Table 2. The search engine found nothing — what next

Variant spellings of a surname — the commonest cause of a 'blank' result

Before the computer age, details were entered by hand and by ear, and older registers were transferred into IT systems from handwriting. Hence the discrepancies that produce no results: letters written interchangeably ('Kowalczyk' and 'Kowalczik'), the presence or absence of diacritics ('Wójcik' and 'Wojcik'), a maiden name instead of a married name, a middle name entered as the first, or a simple typing error.

A practical order to try: the surname alone without a first name, then the first few letters of the surname if the search engine allows it, then the maiden name, and finally a wider span of years — ten years rather than one.

Cemetery registers and grave records — what the cemetery administration must keep

Every cemetery administration has a statutory duty to keep grave records: the register of persons buried, the register of graves and an alphabetical index of those buried. This follows from art. 20(2) of the Act on cemeteries and burial of the dead and from the regulation of the Minister of the Interior and Administration (MSWiA) of 1 August 2001. The registers are kept indefinitely, which is the strongest argument for not stopping at a search engine.

The basis is the Act of 31 January 1959 on cemeteries and burial of the dead (consolidated text: Dz.U. 2025 item 1590; in force as at 4 September 2026), whose art. 20(2) empowers the minister responsible for internal affairs to determine how grave records are to be kept (api.sejm.gov.pl). It is implemented by the regulation of the MSWiA of 1 August 2001 (Dz.U. 2001 no. 90 item 1013) (api.sejm.gov.pl), amended in 2003 and 2015.

Table 3. Grave records — the three documents and their contents

The last entry in the register of graves is often the most valuable: it shows whether the plot has been paid for and whether anyone has lodged an objection to the grave being used again. Entries are made on the basis of the karta zgonu (the medical death card) or another document constituting grounds for burial. Until the amendment of 21 July 2003 (Dz.U. 2003 no. 141 item 1370, in force from 28 August 2003), the register of persons buried was called the 'perpetual register of persons buried'.

The registers are kept either on paper or in an IT system and are retained indefinitely, protected against damage, destruction and theft, and against the processing of the data they contain by unauthorised persons. The consequence is considerable: even a burial from eighty years ago should have an entry in the register, though not necessarily in a search engine.

How to approach the cemetery administration

A telephone call or an email is enough. It is worth giving the first name and surname of the person who died together with the maiden name and variant spellings, the approximate date of death, the parents' first names and a note of your relationship, and asking for the section, row and number of the grave.

You should know, however, that access to full grave files is sometimes restricted. Zarząd Cmentarzy Komunalnych w Krakowie assesses such requests individually, and they may be submitted by grave holders and co-holders and by family members; the documents may also be anonymised (zck-krakow.pl). That is the practice of one administration, not a nationwide rule. Fees for a search follow the price list of the particular administration; there is no single national rate.

Veterans' graves, war graves and denominational cemeteries — specialist databases

Some graves have their own separate registers. Graves of veterans of the struggle for independence are recorded by Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (IPN — the Institute of National Remembrance), matters concerning war graves and war cemeteries fall to the voivode, and denominational cemeteries have databases of their own. These are narrow collections, so treat them as a supplement to the cemetery search engines rather than a replacement.

The IPN register of veterans' graves

The register of graves of veterans of the struggle for the Freedom and Independence of Poland is kept by the IPN's Office for Commemorating the Struggle and Martyrdom under the Act of 22 November 2018 on the graves of veterans of the struggle for the freedom and independence of Poland (Dz.U. 2018 item 2529), in force since 1 January 2019 (api.sejm.gov.pl). It covers graves in Poland and abroad, and you can search by surname, first name, country, locality and municipality. As at 4 September 2026 it held 14,188 records (bip.ipn.gov.pl) — a deliberately narrow database.

War graves and war cemeteries — the voivode's records

War graves are a separate path, governed by the Act of 28 March 1933 on war graves and war cemeteries (consolidated text: Dz.U. 2018 item 2337). Under its art. 5a, matters relating to the records, repair and upkeep of war graves and war cemeteries fall within the remit of the voivode (api.sejm.gov.pl). The lists are published by the voivodeship offices — for example Wielkopolski Urząd Wojewódzki — so it is worth starting with the office covering the region of burial. We write about the ceremony in more detail in our article on the military funeral in Poland.

Denominational cemeteries

For Jewish cemeteries there is a gravestone search engine at cemetery.jewish.org.pl. It is run by Fundacja Dokumentacji Cmentarzy Żydowskich (the Foundation for the Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries), and the database was built from inscriptions recorded at the cemetery on ul. Okopowa in Warsaw (2006–2010), at cemeteries in Mazovia (2010–2011) and at others since. It is not a complete set of data, and the service does not publish the number of records. For Evangelical, Orthodox and other cemeteries, the parish or the religious community remains the primary address.

Burials from decades ago — state archives and civil status records

When a burial is very old, the starting point is often not the cemetery but the death certificate, which gives the date and place of death and so narrows down the cemeteries and parishes. The Civil Registry Office (USC) keeps death records for 80 years and then transfers them to the state archives; older documents can be found on Szukaj w Archiwach.

Where to look for a death certificate

Under art. 28 of the Act of 28 November 2014 — Civil Status Records Law (Prawo o aktach stanu cywilnego) (Dz.U. 2014 item 1741, as amended), birth records are kept for 100 years and marriage and death records for 80 years, counting from the end of the year in which the record was drawn up; the head of the USC then transfers them to the state archives within two years (api.sejm.gov.pl). The rule that follows is straightforward: a death record from the past 80 years is held by the Civil Registry Office, an older one by the state archives. How to apply for a copy is set out in our guide on how to obtain a death certificate.

Szukaj w Archiwach and the parish office

The szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl service, run by Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Państwowych (the Head Office of the State Archives), makes scans of archival collections available free of charge; the rules of use are set out in its frequently asked questions (szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl). It holds above all civil status records and parish registers from thousands of localities, and it is the single most important tool when all you have is a surname and an approximate period.

A parallel source is the parish registers of deaths, which have sometimes survived for periods no online database covers. Searching them is work done by hand, so it is worth giving as narrow a span of years as you can from the outset.

When the grave is gone or the family has lost touch

Sometimes a search ends with the news that the grave has been used again, or that the cemetery administration cannot release the details of the person who holds it. Both situations are common and understandable. The law allows a grave to be used again only after twenty years, and the data of living relatives is protected.

The grave may have been used again

Art. 7(1) of the Act on cemeteries and burial of the dead provides that 'a grave may not be used for further burial before 20 years have elapsed' (api.sejm.gov.pl). After that period, re-use of the plot becomes possible if nobody has lodged an objection and no further fee has been paid. The rules provide for exclusions, among them built tombs intended for more than one person and graves under conservation protection. We discuss how the fees and objections work in our article on cemetery plots and lease prices.

If it turns out that the plot has been passed to another family, please remember that nobody is at fault. For decades, information about payment deadlines did not reach relatives who had moved away, changed address, or never learnt that the grave existed at all. Remembering a person does not depend on whether a gravestone has survived.

The cemetery administration will not release the grave holder's details

It happens that the grave exists but is cared for by someone the family has lost touch with. The administration will usually not pass on that person's details, and it has grounds for this. Recital 27 of the GDPR states that the regulation does not apply to the data of deceased persons (eur-lex.europa.eu), which is why search engines may publish the first name, surname and date of death of the person buried. The data of a living person — the grave holder and the family — is protected. You can, however, ask the administration to pass your message on to the grave holder; some administrations act as intermediaries without disclosing either side's details.

You have found the grave — what next

Once you have found the grave, note down the section, row and number straight away, photograph the gravestone and check how long the plot has been paid for. If you are planning a visit before All Saints' Day, please bear in mind that in 2026 1 November falls on a Sunday, when cemeteries can be extremely crowded.

1. Record the exact location — the name of the cemetery, the section, the row and the grave number. Those three numbers are enough for the next person in the family to reach the place without searching all over again.
2. Take photographs — of the gravestone, and separately of the inscription plate, which is sometimes the only source of dates and names once the stone wears away.
3. Check the grave expiry date if the search engine gives it, as the Wrocław service does.
4. Establish who holds the rights to the grave and agree with that person how it will be cared for.
5. Plan your visit. 1 November is a statutory public holiday under the Act of 18 January 1951 on days free from work (consolidated text: Dz.U. 2025 item 296, api.sejm.gov.pl), while All Souls' Day (Dzień Zaduszny), 2 November, is not on that list; in 2026 it falls on a Monday. We write about the traditions of both days in our article on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.
6. Record what the register does not hold. An entry in the records gives the section, row and number. It will not preserve a face, a voice or a life story.

That last point is often the most important. Everything that made someone begin the search in the first place — photographs, memories, the stories relatives tell — fits into no register, and stays scattered across drawers and phones.

Add a QR code to the gravestone — visitors will see photos and a life story

A digital memorial on Kinmory lets you gather photographs, dates, memories and the location of the grave in one place, and a QR code placed on the gravestone leads to that page straight from the cemetery. Relatives living in other countries can add their own memories however far away they are.

See how a digital memorial works →

Frequently asked questions

Is there a single, central database of all graves in Poland?

No. As of September 2026 Poland has no state-run central register of graves and no nationwide map of burial places. The draft of a new act on cemeteries and burial of the dead (UD278) has not been passed and remains on the legislative work list of the Rada Ministrów (the Council of Ministers). The Act of 1959 still applies, and every cemetery administration keeps its grave records separately.

The search engine found no grave — does that mean there is no grave?

No. Most often it means that the cemetery has not been added to any online system, or that the burial is older than the digital records. Try other spellings of the surname, the maiden name, a search without the first name and a wider range of years. If that does not help, the next step is to contact the cemetery administration or the parish office directly.

Which burial records must a cemetery administration keep?

Under the regulation of the Minister of the Interior and Administration of 1 August 2001, a cemetery administration keeps three documents: the register of persons buried at the cemetery, the register of graves and an alphabetical index of those buried. Among other details they record the date and place of burial, with the exact section, row and number in the row. The registers are kept indefinitely, including many years later.

How do I find the grave of an ancestor buried several decades ago?

Start by establishing the place and date of death, which the death certificate (akt zgonu) records. The Civil Registry Office (USC) keeps death records for 80 years and then transfers them to the state archives. Older documents and parish registers can be viewed free of charge on Szukaj w Archiwach, run by the State Archives. Once you know the place of death, narrowing down the cemeteries and parishes is far easier.

Will the cemetery administration give me the details of the family caring for the grave?

Usually not. The data of deceased people is not covered by the GDPR, which is why a first name, surname and date of death may appear in search engines. The data of a living person who holds the rights to the grave is different, and is protected. Access to grave files varies: Zarząd Cmentarzy Komunalnych w Krakowie, for example, accepts requests from grave holders, co-holders and family members, assesses each one individually, and the documents may be anonymised — that is the practice of one administration, not a nationwide rule.

Is lighting a virtual grave lantern free of charge?

It depends on the cemetery. On some websites lighting a virtual grave lantern (wirtualny znicz) is free, while on others it carries a small fee that depends on how long the lantern stays visible. Before using the feature, check the information or the price list on that cemetery's website, because the rules are not the same across Poland.

Summary

• Poland has no central register of graves. The draft of a new act (UD278) had not been passed as of September 2026; the Act of 31 January 1959 applies (consolidated text: Dz.U. 2025 item 1590).
• Start with the three nationwide search engines — Grobonet, Mogiły and eCmentarze — and then a city or parish one. No database is complete, so the absence of a result in one settles nothing.
• The cemetery administration keeps three record documents — the register of persons buried, the register of graves and an alphabetical index — and retains them indefinitely. This is the most effective route to old burials.
• For very old burials, start with the death certificate. The USC keeps it for 80 years, after which it passes to the state archives; scans are made available free of charge on Szukaj w Archiwach. Veterans' graves, war graves and denominational graves have separate databases.
• We checked the data on 4 September 2026. The database counters rise, and every administration sets its own access rules and fees.

Related articles

• Cemetery plot — prices and lease in 2026 — The fee for a grave and what happens when it expires.
• How to obtain a death certificate — The starting point for a genealogical search.
• All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day — traditions — How to plan a visit to the cemetery.
• Military funeral in Poland — The course of the ceremony and the honours.
• How to create an online memory page — What to record once you have found the grave.