Czech ‘Partnership Visa’: Exactly How I Secured a Temporary Residence Permit in the Czech Republic

If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend that is a citizen of any EU country (or Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Switzerland, and sometimes the UK), you are eligible to apply for a visa called “Temporary Residence Permit of an EU Citizen’s Family Member” which allows you to live and work in the Czech Republic. Does this apply to you? Read on.

In June 2024, 9 months after applying, I secured legal approval to live in the Czech Republic alongside my Czech partner. Since I shared this on my social media channels, I’ve gotten so many questions from people with a Czech or EU partner on what it actually takes to apply for this visa and what to expect from the process. 

So, I thought I would write an article about my experience. Please note I am not an immigration professional or legal expert – this is completely based on my personal experience and your experience could be entirely different. For more tailored advice, contact Move To Prague and mention my name (TAYLOR) for a free, extended consultation to talk about your options.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you make a purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you. All opinions are my own!

Table of Contents

What is the Temporary Residence Permit of an EU Citizen’s Family Member AKA Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic?

The Temporary Residence of an EU Citizen’s Family Member is broken into two categories: close family members (spouses, same-sex registered partners, children, dependent parent) and distant family members (unmarried partner is in a long-term relationship with EU citizen, dependent family member). From now on, we will be talking about those who fall into the distant family members category – AKA partners of a Czech citizen.*

*The individual can be a citizen of any EU country or Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Switzerland, and sometimes the UK, but since my partner is a Czech citizen, in this article I will be specifically talking about Czech citizens and their non-EU citizen partners.

Who is eligible to apply for a Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic?

You are eligible to apply for a Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic if you can prove you are in a long-term relationship and that you now live with this person. The Ministry of the Interior doesn’t give a specific timeframe for how long you have had to be together, but most people I’ve spoken to who have pursued this permit have been together for at least 1-2 years. My boyfriend and I were together for a little over 5 years at the time we applied.

Yes, you need to be living together, in the Czech Republic, when you apply for this visa. I know it sounds a little strange, and is pretty unusual since for most other visas you have to apply from outside of the country. But for the Partner Visa, you essentially need to arrive in the Czech Republic on a tourist visa (Americans can stay in the Schengen Zone for 90 days in every 180 days), start living with your partner (either in their house/apartment or one you rent together), and apply for a Partner Visa as soon as possible.

One of the most important things to know is that with this permit you will have free access to the labor market, including when you are in the country waiting for your residence permit to be approved, which means you can get a job or be self-employed without needing to get an additional work visa. Employers usually just need evidence that you have a pending visa application, and it helps to have a Bridging Visa in your passport, too (more on this later).

How do I apply for a Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic?

As I mentioned, you apply for the Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic, once you already have a place to live. Once you have collected all of your documents (more on that in the next section), you call the Ministry of the Interior (+420974801801) to make an appointment, which will usually be scheduled within a week or two. Just be sure to tell them you need an appointment to apply for a Residence Permit.

When the day of your appointment comes, make sure to arrive at the Ministry of the Interior (the Ministry of the Interior will give you the address over the phone and you should also get a text to confirm) early and with your partner. If you have a lawyer or agency helping you with the process they may also be there, too. Most of the people I’ve encountered who work at the Ministry of the Interior speak English, but if you don’t speak English or Czech you will also need to hire a translator to come with you.

At the Ministry of the Interior, you will check in and wait until your number is called, then go through each document one-by-one with an office clerk, who will confirm you have everything or let you know if there is something you are missing. You will also pay a 200 CZK (about $10 USD) administration fee which you can now pay by card. 

Be sure to also ask them for a Bridging Visa, which will allow you to leave and re-enter the Czech Republic without issue while you are waiting for the Partnership Visa to be approved. Be sure to reserve a few hours of your day for this and don’t be in a rush to get anywhere afterwards!

What documents do I need to apply for a Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic?

To apply for a Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic, there are many documents you need, and you can find the full list on the Ministry of Interior website (click 1. Prepare the necessary documents and look under ‘Distant family member’). However, the website doesn’t have a ton of details so I am going to outline each document for you.

1. Application form: Print and fill in this application form which is in both Czech and English. It mostly has details like names, birthdates, addresses etc. and it doesn’t explicitly say everything you should write in Czech, but I did to be safe. For example, rather than writing my nationality is USA I wrote Spojené státy, and you can just look up translations of your home country or town if they have one and write that rather than the English word.

2. Travel document: This is just your passport.

3. Documents providing you are a family member of an EU citizen: This is the one I get the most questions about because it’s very vague when it comes to proving a non-married relationship. We called the Ministry of the Interior twice (in Czech) and asked what we needed to provide, and the only thing they said was photos of us throughout our relationship and as many as possible. When I said I have over 10,000 photos of us they just said print as many as you can.

Even with 50-60 photos over the course of our relationship printed, things got stressful once we actually submitted our application at the Ministry of Interior office. The woman working there said the photos weren’t enough and that they need to be dated, and that we should have known that. She said we would have to come back with text messages between us and letters of testimony from friends and family (all translated into Czech, as all documents in the application must be). 

Thankfully my partner was able to speak to her in Czech, and she ended up letting me self-date the photos, and for him to write a detailed letter in Czech about our relationship, like how we met and why we want to live together now in Prague, right there in the office. 

So, I would recommend preparing dated photos by taking a screenshot of the photo on your phone or computer so it includes the date. Also, if your partner is Czech, have them write a letter about your relationship, and bring one from a parent or friend too, and also some text messages from throughout your relationship. (All translated into Czech.)

4. Proof of accommodation: For this you need to prove you have somewhere to live and you are living with your partner. You can provide a rental with your name on it (you won’t have issues renting an apartment on a tourist visa, or being added to your partner’s existing lease). The lease will likely already be in Czech so you won’t need to get it translated, but be sure to ask the landlord for an additional copy that’s signed by all the parties because the Ministry of the Interior will keep it on file. If you are joining your partner, say, in their family’s house, you can have the owner of the house write a notarized letter that they give you permission to live in the house.

5. Medical insurance: This is where I messed up personally and is honestly the most illogical part of the entire process. It’s a bit of a Catch-22, because you need to purchase private Czech health insurance for the duration of the time you want your residence permit to last, and it must already be valid on the day you submit your documents. So, say you bought two years of health insurance – the validity of your visa starts counting down from the date of activation and includes the time it takes for your residence permit to be approved.

I bought two years of private health insurance with PVZP, but since my residence permit took 9 months to get approved, it only lasts for 1 year and 3 months because my insurance is only valid until September 2026. I asked if I could extend it, but they said I would have to resubmit documents and it would mean my permit would go back to being not approved yet. Two years of PVZP cost about $2800 USD but I got the most comprehensive plan, and it was a bit higher for me because I had a medication I’m on that I knew I would need to get in the Czech Republic.

The Czech Republic does have a great public healthcare system, but you do not have access to it yet because when you apply for this visa you are still here as a visitor, and therefore cannot be registered in the public system. One tip is that once your visa is approved, you must be registered in the public health system, but switch from PVZP (private insurance) to VZP (public insurance) and get reimbursed for the remaining time on your private insurance, but there’s a caveat: you must not have utilized the private insurance for anything beyond the very basic coverage limits. 

If I could go back, I would have purchased 42 months (3.5 years) of PVZP insurance, to include a buffer for the time the residence permit would take to get approved, with a hope that the validity would be close to the maximum of three years.

6. Proof of funds for the residence: For this you and your partner need to prove your total monthly income together as a couple to ensure you make over what they consider the living minimum. The latest I can find for a couple in a household in 2025 is 8510 CZK or $411 USD per month, so even if your Czech partner is currently the only one working, showing regular monthly income enough to cover you both should be easy. (When you apply for the Partner Visa there is a good chance you won’t have a job yet, since you only just recently started living in the Czech Republic.)

There are a few ways the Ministry of Interior says you can prove your total monthly income. In the case of employment, you (or in this case most likely your partner) can submit a confirmation from the employer of average net monthly income for the last year, or three months of payslips. For self-employment, you (or your partner) can submit a tax return for the last taxable period. You also are supposed to submit documents showing how much you paid to the Czech social security and healthcare system for this time period.

I’ll be honest, we had trouble following these hyper-specific guidelines, as my Czech partner lived in England all his life until we relocated to the Czech Republic, and I am self-employed and was planning to continue the same employment in the Czech Republic. All together, he submitted a letter from his Czech employer showing his salary and I submitted bank statements from the last three months and a letter from one of my clients showing my monthly retainer. (All translated into Czech). And this was sufficient!

7. Two photographs: Basically just passport photos. I took them at one of the photobooths in the metro in Prague and those worked fine.

How long does it take for the Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic to be approved?

The Ministry of the Interior states that applications are processed within 30 days. But don’t be fooled! After your application is processed, there are other things that need to be done internally before you are actually given a decision, such as an interview or a visit to your home by the Foreign Police. 

From the day we submitted the application to the day my visa was marked as approved on the government portal, it was about 9 months. I also didn’t receive any letter or nice that it was approved… I just regularly checked the status of my application on the aforementioned government portal and one day it was just approved.

I have been told that you can write complaint letters to try to get an approval quicker, but I’ve also heard that this doesn’t really help, so you just have to wait. And thankfully since you apply from within the country, you can start building your life legally as you wait for the approval!

What else can I expect while I am waiting for the Partnership Visa in the Czech Republic to be approved?

While you are waiting for the Partnership Visa to be approved, there’s a few things that could happen. You could be contacted by the Ministry of the Interior requesting more documents or asking you to come in for an interview. My partner and I did not get requested for more documents or to come in for an interview, but from what I have heard the interview asks you and your partner (separately) questions to prove you live together (i.e. what color is your partner’s toothbrush, what side of the bed do they sleep on?). 

You also may get a completely random visit from the Foreign Police, who do not speak English. This is really inconvenient, because if they visit and you are not home, you will need to reschedule and hope they can come back soon, otherwise it will delay your visa getting approved. It’s advisable to have framed photos of you and your partner around your apartment. In our case, they asked my partner a lot of questions about our relationship and jobs, and asked to see photos of us. But I’ve heard they can also walk around your house and look more closely at things.

Once the Partnership Visa is approved, what are my next steps in my Czech Republic residency journey? Can I become a Czech citizen?

Once your Partnership Visa is approved, you must call the Ministry of the Interior to make an appointment to get your biometrics taken (fingerprints, photo) for your residence card. They should provide a date, about two weeks or so in the future, for you to come back and pick up the residence card. Do not be late to these appointments as you could risk a hefty fine and lose your residence.

After that, about four months before your Partner Visa is set to expire, it’s time to apply for an extension, yay! And after five years of continuous residence, you will be eligible to apply for a Permanent Resident Permit, which lasts for 10 years, and after five more years, you can apply for citizenship. In the meantime, if you get married to your Czech partner, after 1 year of marriage and 2 years of continuous residence, you can apply for Permanent Residence. And after two more years, you can apply for citizenship. This is the path I’m on, and I hope to be a Czech citizen within the next four years!

Last updated: February 2026