How to get Permanent Residence Permit For Non-EU Citizens in the Czech Republic

Getting a Czech Permanent Residence Permit can take zero years, two years, five years or even ten years depending on your situation. In this article we take closer look on all the options.

Getting Permanent Residence Permit in the Czech Republic without previously of living here

Getting a Czech Permanent Residence Permit without previously living in the Czech Republic is possible. In 99% percent of cases though, this exception only applies to children below 18 years of age. In our daily practice we primarily deal with these two scenarios:

 1. A parent lives in the Czech Republic but their child does not

In case at least one of the parents already holds the permanent residence permit in the Czech Republic, their child can apply for a permanent residence permit directly through a Czech Embassy without previously living here.

2. Children born in the Czech Republic

When a child is born in the Czech Republic, they do not get Czech citizenship. Instead, they have to apply for the same type of visa or residence permit at least one of the parents has, within 60 days from birth.

For example, one of the parents has a long-term business visa and the other parent has a long-term family reunification visa, the child must also apply for a long-term visa.

If both of the parents have say an employee card (long-term residence permit), the child must also apply for a long-term residence permit.

If at least one of the parents holds Czech permanent residence permit, the child can also apply for permanent residence permit in the Czech Republic.

Do you need help getting your child a residence permit? Contact us and let’s discuss your situation 🙂

Other options to get Czech Permanent residence permit directly without previously living in the Czech Republic

There are potentially other options to get Czech permanent residence permit without previously living here but they are very rare so we will not go into details for these. We just list them below to provide a complete overview:

• humanitarian reasons,
• for reasons of special consideration,
• your stay is in the interest of the Czech Republic.

Getting Permanent Residence Permit in the Czech Republic after 2 years of living here

There is a special case where you can get the Czech Permanent residence permit only after two years of living in the Czech Republic. This rule applies for Blue Card holders.

If you have been living in the Czech Republic under a Blue Card for more than two years, you can potentially apply for the permanent residence permit as well as long as you have three years under the Blue Card in some other EU country.

For example, you had lived in Germany under the Blue Card for three years before moving to the Czech Republic. These three years of Blue Card in Germany count toward the five years of Czech permanent residency which means you can only be in the Czech Republic for two years and still qualify for the permanent residency.

Getting Permanent Residence Permit in the Czech Republic after 5 years of living here

This is the most common scenario of getting the Czech permanent residence permit. You can get the permanent residence permit after five years of continuous stay in the Czech Republic. That means that there are no gaps in between your visa or residence permits.

Simply said, if you only submitted your first application through a Czech Embassy and then all the other subsequent applications were submitted in the Czech Republic, you are most likely good.

If your visa or residence permit expired and you had to go apply through a Czech Embassy again, then your continuity of stay was very likely disrupted and your five years start counting from scratch.

For example, you got a long-term business visa for a year, then switched to a business residence permit for two years, then switched to an employee card for 2 years, the continuity of your stay is there and you qualify for the permanent residency.

On the other hand, if you came here for example under a Working Holiday visa and then applied for a business visa after the WH expired, the continuity of your stay starts counting from the business visa only. The WH visa does not count since you had to submit your business visa application through a Czech Embassy again.

What visas or residence permits count towards the Czech permanent residency

Basically all long-term visa types (including a bridging visa) and all long-term residence permit types count towards the permanent residence permit. There are only a few exceptions:

• seasonal work visa or special work visa,
• employee card holders as deployed employees,
• au-pair stays,
• student visas or student residence permits – see the below section.

If you travel a lot, you stayed outside of the Czech Republic for an extended period of time (i.e. for work reasons or for example due to giving birth, or due to health related conditions), you should also be careful since these periods of time might not be counted towards the continuity of your stay!

Getting Permanent Residence Permit in the Czech Republic after 10 years of living here

!CAUTION! – your stay under a student visa or a student residence permit only counts as half towards the permanent residence permit. That means that if you have for example studied for Bachelors and Masters in the Czech Republic for 5 years, these five years only count as 2,5 years towards the permanent residence permit.

This means you would have to study for full ten years to qualify for the Czech permanent residency.

Important notes:

• this rule only applies to students of accredited programs who hold the actual student status and student visa or a residence permit, student years in non-accredited programs and hence under the “other” visa or residence permit count fully,
• it does not matter if you work along with your studies, the “half-time rule” is based on your purpose of stay, not on making/not making money – that means, if you have a student visa or student residence permit, these years will only count as half regardless of if you also work or not,
• you can combine student years and other years – i.e. if you studied Masters for two years, these two years only count as one year, if you then for example get an employee card, you must have the employee card for four years to qualify for the permanent residency.

History of Residence in the Czech Republic

If you are not exactly sure how long have you been in the Czech Republic, a document called history of residence can shed some light on that. History of residence is issued by the Ministry of the Interior upon request and it shows all your long-term visas and long-term residence permits in chronological order, with their durations and with the exact purposes of stay.

Then you can easily count the today months of your stay here and see if you already qualify for the permanent residence permit or not.

If you need assistance with obtaining the history of residence or with the actual Permanent Residence Permit application, contact us – we’ll be happy to take car of everything.

Recommended other reads

• General information about Czech permanent residence permit (advantages etc.).
• pr for eu citizens
• pr for family members of EU citizens

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