If you want to stay in the Czech Republic past the validity of your initial business visa (aka zivno visa), you generally have two options. You can either apply for a simple extension of your business visa, or switch to a business residence permit. What are the main differences and advantages and disadvantages of each approach? Find out in the article below.
What is a Business Visa
Before we move on to the differences between submitting your visa extension and applying for a business residence permit, let’s define what the business visa actually is.
When we talk about business (or “zivno”) visa, we talk about a long-term visa with a business purpose of stay. It is a sticker in your passport and it looks like this:
In most cases, you will have “06” as a note in the notes field. This is a numerical code that identifies the purpose of your stay. If you got the visa as a freelancer, you have the “06” code there. You could have potentially got the visa based on being a director/shareholder of a limited liability company, in which case the code would be “36”. That is not very common though.
The maximum validity of this visa is 365 days.
Czech Business Visa Extension
Honestly speaking, most of you reading this article will never be in a situation that you would be actually extending your business visa. The reason for that is simple – the maximum validity of the business visa is 365 days. That means that if you got the visa for full 365 days, you can not extend it any further.
What you can do is to either let the visa expire and leave the CzechRepublic, or to apply for the business residence permit (see the below sections).
The maximum validity of Czech business visa is 365 days but the MOI can shorten it based on couple factors such as the validity of your passport or availability of your accommodation. If you for example submit a lease agreement that ends on Dec 31, 2026 and your visa gets approved on May 15, 2026, your visa will also expire on Dec 31, 2026 and not in May 2027.
You will hence get a visa with this validity: 15.5.2026 – 31.12.2026.
In this case, your visa will not be issued for full 365 days but only for 230 days. This means you could potentially apply for your business visa extension for the remaining 365 – 230 = 135 days.
