Permanent Residency

It's official.  I finally received my new permanent residency ID card.  No more having to submit all of that paperwork to apply for Czech work visas ever again.  Go figure that that my Czech green card is actually blue and pink.

So here's the deal with permanent residency...

As a non-EU citizen with trvalý pobyt, I am now able to live and work in Czechland without ever having to apply for another work visa.  I've been paying in to the Czech social system since I moved here but now I'm actually eligible for benefits if I ever need them.  With permanent residency it is also much easier to apply for a bank loan or mortgage now.

In five years I will be eligible to apply for Czech citizenship (and no, I don't have to give up my American passport).  I'll just need to pass an advanced language test and a citizenship exam.  But who knows where I'll be in another five years?  

I'm Approved

This is my 1,000th blog post!  Who would have thought that this blog thing would still be going strong?  I guess it's appropriate that this is my 1,000th post because I got some great news today.

On 3 December I submitted my paperwork for permanent residency and today the Czech Interior Ministry called me to say that I've been approved.  Yeah!!  No more having to jump through hoops like a trained circus poodle every two years to request a visa extension.  This will give me almost equal status with Czech citizens except that I can't vote.  If I want to vote and get a Czech passport then I can apply for that in another five years.  And who knows what will happen in another five years?

I need to make an appointment to visit the ministry for a new photo and submit my biometrics.  I should get my new Czech green card in a couple of weeks after that.

My (Hopefully) Last Temporary Long-Term Visa

Today I received my new biometric long-term residency permit card.  Once again, it took me five visits.  These Czechs have got to figure out a way to streamline the bureaucracy.  It is absolutely maddening! 

The first visit was to submit my paperwork for another two-year extension.

Due to the delay in getting my work permit, I received a certified letter from the Interior Ministry that my visa renewal was put on hold until the work permit is finalized.  So when my work permit was finalized I had to go back to the ministry to provide them with a notarized copy.  That was the second visit.

I had to go back for a third time to get a temporary extension of my previous visa due to my Caucasus trip.  My previous visa would have expired while I was outside of the Schengen Zone.  I was told that it probably wouldn't be a problem since I have an American passport but I didn't want to risk it.  The temporary extension was another visa sticker that went in my passport.

My fourth visit to the ministry was to have a new photo and my fingerprints taken.

2500 Kč = $132

On my fifth, and thankfully final, visit I had to give them the 2500 Kč.  The only way to pay is with government stamps.

So I'm legal in Czechland until 2015.  Next year will be my fifth year so if I want I can apply for permanent residency.  This means that next year I'll have to go through all of this, (and a bit more), all over again.  On the upside, I will never have to deal with this again.

Another Visa Approval

My long bus ride from Baku to Tbilisi was pretty uneventful.  It was definitely easier leaving Azerbaijan than it was trying to get in.

The most exciting moment came when I got a call on my mobile from the Czech Interior Ministry.  My visa application was approved.  Yeah!!  I was given an appointment time for next week to have my photograph and biometrics taken for my new Schengen ID card. 

My new visa will allow me to remain in Czech Republic for another two years.  However, in one year I will be eligible to apply for permanent residency which means I won't have to deal with two year extension requests anymore.  However, I will still have to first pass the prerequisite Czech language exam at the A2, or higher, level.

Now it's bed time.  I have to be up in a few hours to catch my flight back home.

Need Another Temporary Visa

My work permit was approved last week which means that the government will continue to process my residency permit extension.  My current biometric ID card expires on April 30th.  This is and isn't a problem.  

I can be in CZ with my expired residency permit.  No worries.  If I'm stopped by the police or something then they can check in the computer to show that I have an extension pending approval and I'll be good to go.

The problem is that on the 26th I'm headed off to the Caucasus for a couple of weeks.  So I'll be outside of the Schengen zone when my ID card expires.  I've been told that, with an American passport, I probably won't have any difficulty coming back in CZ.  Americans can be inside the zone for 90 days every 180 days.  However, if I get an overzealous immigration officer who decides to start adding up the dates of my entry and exit stamps then I could be held up for a while.  In order to insure that I won't have any problems at immigration I need to pick up a three month temporary visa.

I've had to do this before so it's not a big deal.  The thing about getting a temporary visa is that it uses up a whole blank page in my passport.  One full page is prime passport real estate but, oh well, what can you do?  I prefer to guarantee that I won't have any problem coming back home.

Yesterday, I set off early in the morning so that I would be in front of the queue at the Interior Ministry.  Of course when I get there I was told that the computer system is down across the entire country.  So I need to try again next week before I fly out.

Biometric Residency Permit

Five visits! It took five trips to the foreign ministry but now everything is finally sorted. But damn! Five visits!?!?
The first visit was to submit my paperwork for a two-year extension on my green card.
The second visit was to request an extension on my previous visa because of the processing delay at the ministry.
The third visit was to pick up my visa but they only gave me a visa sticker until December.
The fourth visit was to have my picture and fingerprints taken.
The fifth visit was by far my favorite because now everything is finally sorted. But it was all worth it because now I can carry my new ID card and no longer have to carry my passport with me everywhere. Yeah!!
The ID cards are new so there's still a little confusion as to when it should be used. I was told to use the ID card, instead of my passport, when traveling within the Schengen zone. This means that at the airport I should stand in the EU citizen line. But use my passport when outside of Schengen. This sounds odd to me. I guess I'll find out what happens in September when I fly to Rome.
It seems that I'm not the only American to get a new residency card. According to Mladá fronta Dnes, so far this year, Americans have been issued more Czech residency permits than any other nationality. My fellow Americans must all be in Prague because they sure aren't here in Brno.
Again, I'm just glad that now I have my ID card. And it's a good thing that I really like my flat because if I ever move then I will have to go back to the ministry, at least twice, to have my address updated and a new card issued. Ugh!!

I'm Legal Again

Finally!! I'm legal again. I received a phone call from the Interior Ministry that my new long-term visa was ready and I went to pick it up this past Monday. I've been legal all along but now I have proof.

Czech bureaucracy is an odd thing. The clerk showed me that I'm legal in the system until 2013. However, the new visa sticker in my passport is only valid until this December. Apparently, I will get a phone call in October to return to the Interior Ministry for a biometric identity card.

I'm actually glad to be getting the ID card so that I don't always have to carry my passport around. What I don't know is if I will get a new visa sticker for my passport when I get my ID card. Since I'm not an EU citizen I don't want to have any problems traveling in and out of the Schengen Zone. I'm not sure if this ID card will work outside of the ČR. When I flew from England to Germany earlier this year, the officials in Hannover held my passport for 5 minutes. They took a magnifying glass to my visa to verify that that it was legitimate. I guess they were confused by an American passport with a Czech EU visa. Who knows?

I don't know why I had to provide the government with a new photograph because they used the same picture I gave them last year. This visa, and my temporary visa, also included my Czech birth number. But at this point I don't care. I'm just happy to be legal for another 2 years.

Temporary Visa

Well, it turns out I had to go back to the Interior Ministry to get a temporary extension to my visa. My current visa expires this Saturday but that's OK. Rather...OK, as long as I stay in the ČR because if I were stopped for some reason by the foreign police, then they could verify that my new two-year visa is pending.

The catch is that I just found out I have to participate in an IBM seminar in Bratislava next week. Since both countries are part of the Schengen area there are no passport checks when traveling from one to the other. However, what if something were to happen while I was in Slovakia? Not too sure if the Slovak officials would contact the Czech Interior Ministry to make sure that I'm legal.

I was able to go to the ministry yesterday but had to wait for 4 hours because there were no appointments available. I explained that I needed a short-term extension on my visa to cover me until my new long-term visa is ready. After my 4 hours in line, it was a quick 15 minutes to get everything sorted. The clerk printed off a new visa sticker that is identical to the one I received last year except that my new expiration date is 1 July 2011. I didn't even have to pay anything for the temporary visa since the delay on my new permanent visa is due to the backlog generated by the recent change in application procedures. Hopefully, I'll get my new visa sometime in May.

Visa Renewed

Woo-Hoo!!! I'z legal for another year!

I guess all of that running around last month paid off. I went back to the foreign police office today to see if my new visa was ready and it was. And just three weeks to the the day from when I submitted my application.

I was proud of myself too because I did everything at the office in Czech. But that's also because no one spoke English, German, French or Spanish.

Regardless, I can now stay in the ČR for another year. I don't have access here to a color scanner so the black & white picture will have to do. This one doesn't look anything like my original visa. From what I understand it's because the first one was a visa issued by a Czech embassy outside of the country and this one was a residency permit issued from within the country. So from now on they will look like this.

The only small problem is that this permit takes up a whole page in my passport. Pretty soon, I'll have to visit the American embassy in either Prague, Bratislava or Vienna, and pay to have extra blank pages added to my passport. Sounds like a really boring day trip.

Visa Extension Application

Well today I went to the Foreign Police office and submitted all of my paperwork to request an extension on my long-term visa. Again, since I'm not an EU citizen I have a lot more hoops to jump through.

My original work permit is good through April 28, 2011. So I have permission to work in the country until then. However, my original long-term visa, which allows me to live in the country, expires at the end of next month. Go figure...so here's what I had to submit.

1. A copy of my original lease.
2. An notarized amendment to my lease extending it from August until April 28, 2011.
3. Since my building is a co-op (Družstvo) I needed a notarized document showing that my landlord was allowed to rent the apartment to me.
4. Land registry statement
5. Business registry statement for the družstvo - 140 Kč (~$7.40)
6. Copy of my original work permit
7. Copy of my passport
8. Copy of my original visa
9. A new passport photo
10. Copy of my health insurance card
11. 4-page application form with a 1000 Kč (~$53) stamp that IBM provided

There are two foreign police offices in town. Fortunately, citizens of the EU, Americans, Canadians and Croatians get to use the smaller office at Cejl. Everyone else has to use the main office. I've been there before and it is crazy busy. I was told to come back in a couple of weeks to check on my application. I'm not expecting any problems so I should have my new visa by mid-April.

I's Legal Now!

Woo-Hoo!!! I received my green card (povolení k dlouhodobému pobytu) from the Czech Embassy. I can now legally enter the EU and stay more than 90 days without getting deported. And the cool thing is that I got my visa about 8 weeks ahead of schedule.

As I said in an earlier post, you can apply for your green card before you receive your work permit, as long as, you can prove that you have applied for a work permit (povolení k zaměstnání). The relocation company in Prague wanted me to wait for my work permit before even applying for my visa. In other words, they were going to have me apply for my visa this week and wait 3-4 months for it to process. Instead I applied about 5 weeks ago. IBS delivered my work permit to the foreign police on Wednesday, they approved my pending application on Thursday and I received my visa from the Washington Embassy on Friday. YEAH!!!!!

I can actually book flights now. I hope to leave Atlanta in about 3 weeks which will allow me to visit my family in California for about a week. I can then fly from L.A. the first week in July, register with the foreign police once I get to Brno and start working July 6th. Good grief! Move to Europe in 3 weeks!?! I have to get busy with packing up my stuff and figure out where I'm going to stay.