This article is the most extensive guide on Czech visa you can find on the Internet. You can find here all information about Czech visas and residence permits, along with information about how easy or difficult is it to get, what are the requirements and much more. Everything about Czech visa in a simple and understandable form. Read on!
Czech Visa – according to their validity
There are generally two types of Czech visa – short-term visa and a long-term visa.
Czech short-term visa
Short-term visa is meant for stays under 90 days and is mainly used for tourism purposes, even though it can have many other purposes of stay such as sport, medical, invitation, business, employment etc. Applications about Czech short-term visa are generally submitted either to a Czech Embassy or to VFS centers. Embassies make the decisions themselves and the proces usually does not take longer than 14 days.
Based on your nationality, you either do not need a short-term visa to visit Czech Republic at all (USA, Canada, Australia, Mexico and about 50 other countries), it might be relatively easy for you to get this Czech visa, or it might be almost impossible to get this visa for you.
Czech long-term visa
If you plan on staying in the Czech Republic for longer than 90 days and especially if you want to earn money in here, you can apply for a Czech long-term visa. This visa must always have some official purpose of stay accepted by the Ministry of the Interior. At this point, there are not too many purposes of stay available.
Czech visa – according to their purpose of stay
Based on the expected purpose of stay, the Czech Republic offers the following visa types.
Czech Student Visa
Czech student visa is primarily meant for students of accredited programs of Czech Universities. We describe the process and required documents for this type of Czech visa in our article here.
Czech Business Visa
You can find different names for this type of Czech visa on the Internet – zivno visa, freelancer visa, self-employed visa and many more. It all refers to the same thing though – that you either get a Czech trade license or set up Czech limited liability company and you will be making money this way. This type of visa is mainly used for English teachers but we have worked with all possible scenarios from Japanese clothes store, to a massage studio to business consultants to a quest house.
Read move about the Czech business visa in our Zivno Visa article.
Czech Family Reunification Visa
Family reunification visa is one of the visa types we deal with the most. The family reunification visa is meant for bringing close family members to the Czech Republic. Czech Republic has a pretty strict definition of who qualifies as a close family member so it is mainly meant for spouses and for children below 18 years of age.
Many clients ask us about bringing their parents under this type of visa but it is actually not really possible. Well, it is, but primarily for solitary parents (meaning you only have one parent alive) and only in case they are above some age limit and/or unable to take care of themselves.
Read more about the family reunification visa here.
Please get in touch if you have any questions about any of the Czech visas available using the form below. We will reply within 24 hours and will be happy to speak with you and explain everything. The article continues under the form, there is still a lot to cover 🙂
Czech Digital Nomad Visa
Digital nomad visa a brand new Czech visa option. Or, to be correct, it is not really a new visa option. How it generally works is that you need to get a confirmation from the Czech MIT that you fall under the Czech definition of a “digital nomad” and if you get it, you can apply for a standard business visa or the “other” type of visa (see below). Please read more about this option in our Digital Nomad Visa Czech Republic article.
Czech Cultural Visa
The cultural visa is meant for professions such as opera singers and actors. If you want to apply for this type of visa, you have to prove that there is some Czech cultural institution wanting you here for an extended period of time.
Czech Visa – Other purpose of stay
The “other” visa is probably one of the weirdest (or most versatile) Czech visas. You basically apply for this visa if you do not fall under any other category but you still feel like you should get a visa. You generally need to convince the Czech MOI that your reason for staying is good enough for them to grant you the visa. We used to use the other visa type for retired people with high enough social security income but that is no longer good enough for the MOI to grant you a visa.
The only pretty viable use of this visa is for non-accredited courses which do not qualify you for the student visa.
Seasonal work visa
From our experience, this is the visa most used for scamming people so be careful when someone offers you a “seasonal work permit”. The seasonal visa is a very specific type of visa originally meant for seasonal work (i.e. fruit picking, tourism etc.). The part where many people get scammed is that it is almost impossible to get an appointment for this type of visa in some countries so it does not really matter if you have all the documents ready since you might not be able to use it.
Another thing is that the Czech seasonal work visa cannot be extended, nor switched to another type of visa or residence permit in the Czech Republic. So, again, be careful if someone tells you to pay for this visa, come here and switch to another type of visa. That is simply not possible. The only type of residence permit you can in theory switch to is the Blue Card. The blue card requires a Bachelor’s degree, 62 000 CZK salary and a sponsorship from a company which might be pretty difficult to fulfill if you come here to pick up fruits.
Czech visa – important rules, extensions
All long-term visa applications must be submitted through a Czech Embassy. The actual visa is a sticker in your passport. The maximum validity of this type of Czech visa is 365 days and it can only be extended if you got it for less than 365 to match the 365 days (i.e. you got the initial visa for 200 days, you can extend it for 165 days). If you got the visa for full 365 days, it can not be extended but you can switch to a long-term residence permit (plastic biometric card).
We originally wanted to include information about the long-term residence permit options to this article even though the long-term residence permit is not technically a Czech visa (since it is not a visa sticker in your passport but a separate piece of ID). It would logically fit into this article. It would also make it super long.
As a better solution in our opinion, we’ll write an article about that topic soon and will link it here.
If you have any questions about Czech visa options, fill in the form below, we’ll get in touch with your within 24 hours and will be happy to discuss everything with you 🙂
Yours, Move To Prague – Czech visa experts
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