An employee card looks like a residence permit, and it is one. But it is tied to one specific job position: the employer, the type of work, the place of work. When any of that changes, your residence changes too. People find this out when they are given notice, when the company goes bankrupt, or when someone offers them a better job and they simply start.
Three deadlines that decide
- 60 days after the job ends. When your employment ends, the card does not expire at once. You have 60 days to notify the Ministry of a new employer. If you do not do so within that time, the card expires and with it your right of residence. The Supreme Administrative Court confirmed that even the right derived from the "fiction" while you were waiting for an extension expires.
- 30 days before a change. You must notify a change of employer or position at least 30 days in advance, and you may start only on the basis of a notice that the conditions are met. Anyone who starts earlier is working illegally, and the court also dealt with a company that employed such a person.
- 6 months from issue of the card. Before that, you cannot change employer, except after notice for organisational reasons, immediate termination, or termination during the probationary period by the employer.
A change can be notified only while the card is valid. Once it has expired, there is nothing left to notify, even if the new employer is waiting with open arms.
When a refusal arrives
Against a decision of the Ministry, an appeal lies to the Commission for Decision-Making in Matters of Residence of Foreign Nationals within 15 days. Against a decision of the Commission, an administrative court action within 30 days. A missed deadline is not excused. In the appeal you can no longer change the application, for example rewrite the position, so the application has to be right from the start: the details of the position are judged by employer, type and place of work, not by the vacancy number in the register.
The courts set aside decisions that are formalistic. The Supreme Administrative Court set aside a refusal issued to a woman from Donetsk whose original employer went into liquidation, because the authorities had considered neither her situation nor the impact on her family life. Proportionality is not a phrase, it is a duty of the authority, and it can be enforced.
What this rests on
No advice on this page is an opinion. Each one has a section of the law and a court decision behind it. Click through, the full text is on Europaius.
Statute
- § 42g zák. o pobytu cizincůemployee card: conditions of issue, notification of a change of employer at least 30 days in advance, change no earlier than after 6 months
- § 47 zák. o pobytu cizincůapplication for extension before the end of validity, no earlier than 120 days in advance; fiction of validity until the application is decided
- § 170b zák. o pobytu cizincůappeal against a decision of the Ministry to the Commission for Decision-Making in Matters of Residence of Foreign Nationals
- § 172 zák. o pobytu cizincůcourt action within 30 days of delivery of the decision at the last instance; a missed deadline cannot be excused
- § 83 správního řáduappeal period of 15 days
Case law
- 4 Azs 80/2025 (Nejvyšší správní soud, 17. 4. 2025)on the expiry of 60 days from the end of employment without notification of a new employer, the right of residence under the fiction also expires and the proceedings on extending the card are discontinued
- 2 Azs 281/2025 (Nejvyšší správní soud, 11. 12. 2025)a change of employer can be notified only by the holder of a valid card; the notification does not change the card's validity period, which can only be extended by application
- 4 Azs 170/2025 (Nejvyšší správní soud, 6. 8. 2025)the card is issued for a specific position defined by employer, type and place of work, not by the vacancy's register number; the application cannot be changed in appeal proceedings
- 4 Azs 257/2022 (Nejvyšší správní soud, 14. 10. 2022)the authorities decided formalistically on the situation after the employer's liquidation and did not consider the impact on family life; the Commission's decision set aside
- 32 A 9/2025 (Krajský soud v Hradci Králové, 13. 5. 2026)without a notice that the conditions for a change of employer are met, the card holder may not work for the new employer; the court dealt with a fine imposed on the employer
A different situation?
- Long-term residence: extension, refusal, fiction
- Permanent residence: application, refusal, revocation
- An administrative expulsion has arrived
- Citizenship: conditions, refusal, security grounds