At Move To Prague relocation experts, we help about 1 000 foreigners a year to start their new life in the Czech Republic. We help them with visas, accommodation, health insurance, nostrifications and much more. We have worked with more than 100 different nationalities.
For this year we decided to team up with the Third Faculty of Medicine to make sure all their students, YOU, get their visas in time, find a perfect place to live, get the correct type of health insurance, simply that you can only focus on studying without worrying about anything else.
We have written this article that will provide you with plenty of useful information about the visa process, housing, health insurance and everything else you might need.
We have also created a special service packages just for you to help you make your move to the Czech Republic as smooth as possible.
Click on the specific topic you are interested in to get to that section of the article. Come back regularly since we will be updating this article based on your feedback and questions.
VISA PROCES
ACCOMMODATION
HEALTH INSURANCE
NOSTRIFICATION
SPECIAL PACKAGES
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
OTHER (EVENTS, CALLS, PRESENTATIONS)
STUDENT VISA
If you are from a non-EU country (i.e. Israel, Turkey, India etc.), you must get a visa or residence permit to study in the Czech Republic for longer than three months. There are two types of student visas:
Other visa
which applies to students of non-accredited courses/programs.
(Proper) Student visa
which applies to students of accredited programs.
You, students of the Third Faculty of Medicine, will be studying an accredited program, so you have to apply for a student visa/residence permit.
You have to apply for this visa/residence permit through a Czech Embassy.
Most nationalities can only apply through the Czech Embassy in the country of your origin (i.e. Turkish citizens can only apply in Turkey) or in the country where you have been legally residing for more than 2 years (i.e. Indian who has been living in UAE legally for 2,5 years can apply for the visa either in India or in UAE).
Some nationalities (such as Israeli) have a special exception though and can apply through any Czech Embassy in the world, as long as the Embassy accepts visa applications. For example Israeli can apply for their visa at the Czech Embassy in Israel before they leave, but they can also apply for their visa in Dresden (Germany) if they come to Prague using heir 90 days visa free stay.
Applying for a visa is a pretty complex thing so we have prepared a special service for you to help you with the whole process. Please fill in the form below and let us help you with everything 🙂
The visa approval process (after you have submitted your application) can take up to 60-90 days so you have to apply for your visa as soon as possible to be able to start in time.
FINDING ACCOMMODATION
If you need the accommodation proof for your visa application, we would recommend using a dorm accommodation since it will make the process way faster and easier for you.
If you do not need accommodation for your visa (i.e. you are an EU citizen, or you have your visa in process/approved already) or you do not want to live in a dorm, we’ll be happy to help you find a wonderful place to live in Prague 🙂
WHERE TO LIVE AS A STUDENT?
As much as we would like that, the answer to this question will not be the same for everyone. It depends on what you value the most. You will choose a different part of Prague to live in if you prefer to be as close to the Faculty as possible, different if you are looking for an area full of night life, and different if your main concern is price or being among other expats.
Proximity to the Faculty
If your main concern is to live close to the faculty, we would for sure recommend focusing on Prague 10 (Vrsovice or Strasnice), Prague 2 (Vinohrady) or Prague 3 (Vinohrady or maybe even Zizkov). All these parts are within 15 mins by a public transportation.
Restaurants, bars, clubs
If you do not care much about the location but you want to live close to restaurants, bars, clubs etc., we would recommend Prague 1 (Stare Mesto, Nove Mesto), Prague 2 (Vinohrady), Prague 3 (Vinohrady, Zizkov) or Prague 5 (Smichov). Some of the parts are also the most expensive parts of the city though (mainly Prague 1 and 2).
Expat communities
Most English speaking expats live in Prague 2 (Vinohrady), Prague 3 (Zizkov), Prague 6 (Dejvice), Prague 7 (Holesovice, Letna) and Prague 8 (Karlin). These parts are great if you want to get by with just using English, if you want to make new international friends. The general prices (housing + restaurants etc.) reflect the popularity as well though.
Price
If your main concern is about the price and you do not want to spend much money on housing, then you need to be ready to travel a bit further from the faculty. The areas which are far enough to be cheaper but still ok to travel to include Prague 4 (Nusle, Michle, Chodov), Prague 5 (Nove Butovice, Stodulky), Prague 6 (Veleslavin, Petriny), Prague 8 (Liben) and Prague 9 (Kobylisy, Strizkov). The main advantage of living in these areas is the cost of living, maybe proximity to nature, do not really expect a plenty of “social life” options there, maybe with exception of Nusle, Michle and Liben.
WHAT PRICES TO EXPECT?
Of course, the total price you will be paying depends on many things (such as location, size, quality of the apartment, type of heating etc.) but we want to give you a general idea of what to expect in Prague.
Room in a shared apartment
Prices might be different if you live in a dormitory or in a dormitory-like accommodation. The price range below is for a room in a “normal” (not a dormitory) shared apartment.
You can generally find rooms in the range from 10 – 15 000 CZK.
Studio (“garsonka”, 1+kk, 1+1)
Studio is a one room apartment where kitchen, living room and sleeping room are included in one room. Bathroom is generally separate.
The price of studios including all the bills ranges from 15 – 20 000 CZK mainly depending on the location and heating.
One bedroom apartment (2+kk, 2+1)
One bedroom apartments, marked as 2+kk (where you have a separate bedroom and the living room is combined with kitchen) or 2+1 (where you have a separate bedroom, separate living room and separate kitchen) are ideal for singles with higher budgets or for couples.
Prices of one bedroom apartments range from 18 – 25 000 CZK a month including all utilities.
Bigger apartments
If you are looking for a bigger apartment which you could share with your school mates, generally just take the range for a room (10-15 000 CZK) and multiple it by the number of bedrooms you are looking for – i.e. 3 (separate) bedroom apartment would be between 30 – 45 000 CZK.
Please fill in the form below with your requirements and we’ll get back to you with what we can offer. Generally, we do a custom made search to make sure we find a perfect flat for you 🙂
HEALTH INSURANCE
Every person living in the Czech Republic (including all foreigners) must be medically insured during their whole stay here. You, as students, can not become part of the public health care system (unless you get a job and your employer will cover you there), which means that once your visa/residence permit is approved, you will have to buy a private health insurance covering the whole validity of your visa/residence permit. The insurance must be of “Comprehensive coverage”, not just an emergency one.
As of now, the only insurance company allowed to sell comprehensive health insurance to foreigners is pVZP (do not confuse with VZP which is a public insurance company).
We can get you the insurance with a special price for students. Please fill in the form below and we’ll send you a quote. Just make sure to mention your age and for how long would you like to get the insurance.
NOSTRIFICATION
If you are starting your Bachelor’s studies, you will need to get your high school diploma recognized in the Czech Republic. Basically, someone has to say “We confirm that your education is equal to the same level of education in the Czech Republic).
This process is known as “Nostrification” in the Czech Republic.
Nostrification of your high school diploma in Prague is done by the Magistrat hl. města Prahy (Town Hall of Prague) and you need to have the following documents ready:
– high school diploma with apostille/superlegalization, officially translated into Czech,
– transcript of your subjects – apostilled/superlegalized, officially translated into Czech,
– proof of accomodation in Prague (ideally),
– filled in application form for the nostrification,
– 1 000 CZK fee for the Town Hall.
You have to deliver all these documents to the Town Hall and submit your nostrification application.
After submission, you just wait. Sometimes it can be couple days, but usually couple weeks or even months.
There are three possible outcomes of the nostrification process:
Denial
If your education is too different from the same level of education in the Czech Republic, the nostrification can be completely denied. This does not really happen in our experience.
Approval
If the subjects you studied and the amount of hours you had for your studies are basically the same as what you would study in the Czech Republic, the nostrification can be directly approved. That happens but not too often.
Nostrification exam
The most common scenario in our experience is that some of the subjects you studied are the same as what you would study here, but some are not. If there is a significant different in these, you will be asked to undergo a “nostrification exam”. For example, if all the subjects were the same, you just did not study Physics at all, you might be asked to pass a Physics exam to prove you have high enough knowledge there as well. You can be invited to a few exams at the same time as well.
The exam is done in the Czech Republic and in Czech language so you usually have to hire an interpreter for the time of the exam.
Generally, it is pretty difficult to deal with nostrification if you are not here yet, so we have prepared a special service for you which can get the nostrification done on your behalf.
Please fill in the form below and we’ll tell you more about the service. Please just mention what diploma you would like to get nostrified (level and country).
SPECIAL PACKAGES
We will be happy to help you with all the above mentioned parts of your relocation process – getting a visa, finding a place to live, getting health insurance, getting your nostrification done.
After speaking with the Faculty representatives and hearing from what your passed school mates were often looking for, we have decided to create some special packages just for you as well.
Please find their basic description below.
ALL IN
This package is for those who want to make sure everything is taken care of by professionals so there will be no mistakes or unnecessary delays.
Specifically we help you with:
– your visa application.
– picking you up from the airport after arrival,
– finding you a place to live in Prague,
– helping you with setting-up a bank account
– helping you with setting up your public transportation pass,
– helping you with setting up your health insurance.
ALL I NEED AFTER ARRIVAL
If you already have a visa or you do not need one (as an EU citizen) but you would appreciate help with all the other things that you will anyway need to set up after arrival, this package is exactly for you.
This package includes:
– picking you up from the airport and taking you to your temporary accommodation
– helping you find a long-term rental
– helping you with setting-up a bank account
– helping you with setting up your public transportation pass,
– helping you with setting up your health insurance.
Like any of the packages? Fill in the form below, let us know which one you like and we’ll send you more information 🙂
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
We will be constantly updating this section based on the feedback from your side and the most common questions you ask. So keep coming back, there might be new questions/answers every day.
OTHER (EVENTS, CALLS, PRESENTATIONS)
We will be organizing special events for you, live group calls where you can ask your questions and we’ll answer them live, we will also meet you for a presentation about the most common issues students face after arrival so you can prevent those from happening to you.
All these special events for you will appear in this section.
If you want to use services of Move To Prague, or if you just have some questions about them or about any of the processes, please fill in any of the forms above, below and on the side and we’ll be happy to speak with you 🙂
Areas, jak system works, some offers for them.
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