The term of zivno has become tremendously popular among the English speaking community in the Czech Republic within the last couple years. Despite it’s popularity, a lot of people are not clear on what zivno means and how it is related to their visa or residence status. Let’s dig deeper into this topic together!
What is a zivno
Let’s start with the basics – the word zivno does not really mean anything. If you ask Czech people about “zivno”, they will most likely not know what you are referring to. The word zivno is actually a short version of “Živnostenské oprávnění” or “Živnostenský list” which in Czech mean a trade license – license confirming you registered as a freelancer in the Czech Republic.
The whole thing though (živnostenské oprávnění) is so difficult to pronounce that people started shortening it first to ˇ”Zivnostensky” and then to zivno itself.
How is zivno related to your visa or residence permit
As mentioned above “zivno” only refers to a trade license, something that allows you to freelance in the Czech Republic. The connection to your visa or residence permit situation is where is gets a bit tricky. Let’s go through the most common situations starting with EU citizens and go through the standard “teaching English situation” to more specific cases of combining the zivno (trade license) with a student visa or an employee card.
Zivno and EU citizens
As we have mentioned in multiple other articles, everything related to EU citizens in the Czech Republic is pretty simple and straightforward. The same goes for the zivno. If you are an EU citizen and you want to freelance in the Czech Republic, you can simply get the trade license (zivno) and start.
Your trade license will be active instantly, even if you are maybe not even in the Czech Republic yet. In this case though, you would certainly need to give us (or someone) a Power of Attorney so we can get the trade license on your behalf. Getting the zivno distantly is still not really possible, neither are the subsequent registration with social security, health care and tax offices. Read more about the actual trade license process and required documents here.
Zivno and non-EU citizens
If you are a non-EU citizen trying to get the zivno, things get a little more complicated. Let’s look separately at two different scenarios – getting the zivno when you do not have a visa yet and getting the zivno when you already do have some visa or residence permit here.
Getting a zivno without a valid visa
If you are a non-EU citizen with no valid visa in the Czech Republic yet (the 90 days “tourist visa” does not count), you can get the zivno but the zivno will be inactive. That means it will not have a business registration number and you will not be able to use the zivno to invoice anyone.
The inactive zivno also has a limited validity of 180 days after which it gets automatically canceled if you do not activate it using some long-term visa or long-term residence permit.
This type of zivno is primarily used for the “Zivno Visa” process, typically for English Teachers, Digital Nomad Visa or other types of freelancers moving to the Czech Republic.
Getting a zivno when already holding a visa or residence permit in the Czech Republic
If you already hold a long-term visa or long-term residence permit (i.e. a student visa, family reunification visa, employee card or a Blue Card), you can generally always get an active zivno and can start freelancing right away. You need to be careful though and keep several things in mind:
- You always have to fulfill the purpose of your stay – for example, if you have an employee card, you can get the zivno ON TOP of the employee card, your zivno does not replace your employment though. That means you can not leave your job and just focus on freelancing. If you did that, your employee card would be canceled. Similar situation with a student visa – if you have a student visa, you primarily have to study. If you manage to freelance on the side, that is fine. You can not stop going to school though because you focus primarily on freelancing.
- Your zivno has the same validity as your visa – unless you hold a permanent residence permit or are a family member of an EU citizen, your zivno always has the same validity as your most recent visa or residence permit. WATCH OUT – the extension of your zivno do not happen automatically! This is where a lot of people make a crucial mistake – they extend their visa but forget to extend their zivno. Then, couple weeks or months later their clients stop paying them saying they do not have a valid zivno. Sortable but certainly not a pleasant situation to be in.
- Getting a zivno might not be possible when on bridge visa – even though this situation is not that common, we sometimes get inquiries to set up a zivno for someone who is currently on bridging visa. It is technically possible, but only if your bridging visa has validity of at least 91 days or longer. It also does not change anything on the fact that the zivno shares the validity of your visa, in this case a bridging visa. That means you will have to extend the trade license very soon again.
Zivno – conclusion
We hope this article helped you understand what zivno exactly means and how is it related to your visa or residence permit situation. If you have more questions and/or are looking to get the zivno for yourself, send us a message through any of the contact forms on this page (below and on the right) or through our general Contacts. We offer a free initial consultation where we can go through everything together and answer all your questions 🙂
Looking forward!
