Do you love me? Are you playing your love games with me? (EU Partnership Visa Guide)

You're here in the Czech Republic and you're having fun. Maybe you're teaching, maybe you're just traveling and partying it up. It's amazing, and your blog never looked so good.

It's super clichéd, but you've met someone. Maybe it's something, maybe it's nothing. You don't care because you're just looking for someone fun to be with and why shouldn't it be a hot and spicy someone from the EU!

But what happens when your travels come to and end? Should you do this long distance? Do you go a little crazy and get married? What if you want to stay but you're visa situation is kinda iffy at best?

I met my partner oddly enough way before I even had plans to move to Europe. We met on a random chance through couchsurfing in Canada, and have been solidly dating since then. It's been over 3 years as of this writing.

When I first met him, we knew it would be complicated once his visa was up, but we just decided to play it by ear and see how it went. Well, 1 year came and went, and suddenly it was time to drop my SO off at the airport. Our plan was to give ourselves more time through the Youth Mobility Visa (see my other post about it), so I would arrive once I finished school and our timer would reset.

Well, if you think you'd like to stay, or maybe this is an established relationship that you'd like to keep going without having to get married and figure THAT whole thing out, there's another way.

The EU recognizes 'like family relationships' as valid and makes it fairly easy for you and your EU boyfriend/girlfriend/partner to stay together. From my experience and the experience of others (mostly heard about through friends of friends or via other online posts), it is a relatively easy to apply for visa.

What is it?
Essentially this visa is a catch-all residency-ish type visa that is imposed on each member country of the EU via EU law. However, for this reason the specifics and precedence of what you need to apply vary according to each member country's residency laws. This guide for obvious reasons will be focusing on what you need for anyone looking to stay in the Czech Republic. This guide can also apply to non-Czech EU citizens looking to stay in the Czech Republic with their non-EU partner. It's a pretty quick and somewhat painless process which can be done with or without the help of a visa company.

What do I need to qualify?
This is where it gets a bit tricky. The word of the law is any 'like family' relationship. What does that mean? It means you and your partner must be in a relationship and have the same standard 'behaviours' as a family would.

Main requirements:

-The most obvious of these requirements is that you MUST live together. Both you and your partner must be recognized on your lease or your landlord must be willing to submit a letter in Czech recognizing you (whichever one of you is non-EU) as a resident in the flat/house. Both of your names must also be on the buzzer/door bell and/or on the entrance to your home.
I did not have to do this letter, but it probably should be notarized. Your name must also be

- Visa application (Temporary residency for EU family members).
  You will need to put that your reason is family unification. Fill out the form as required. I suggest speaking with someone from IC Praha or Inbaze for help with the specifics if you are really unsure. This must be filled out in Czech.

There are also several other 'supporting documents' you will need:

-Letter of the history of your relationship. This should include specific dates and details of things you have done together. For example, if you both went to visit your partners parents last month, include that. Detail how you met, when you moved in together, etc.

- Photos. Photos of you two together. Photos of trips. Photos of holidays. The more the better, especially if you can document and give specifics of your relationship over time.

- Support letters from friends and family. These are pretty self explanatory. There wasn't a tonne of info given on what we should include, but we went with super formal letters stating who was writing, what their jobs were, where they knew us from, if they had gone on any trips or activities we had done together, and a signature with the date and place of signature. The most important thing to remember is that these must be in Czech, it doesn't have to be an official translation. We had family abroad send us via email their English letters, we translated it, sent it back and they snail mailed us both hard copies signed and dated. These did not have to be notarized.

- 1 passport photo of the non-EU person.

- Extra knick-knacks. Anything else that shows things you have done together or things you share together. Tickets from trips, etc. If you feel comfortable to do this, a joint account looks really good. You will need a letter from your bank on official bank letterhead stating that both of you share this account. From what other people shared via online postings, joint accounts are solid gold.

Helpful tips:

- Book an appointment when applying. It will save you a tonne of annoyance. However, expect it to be at least a month or more before you can get an appointment. If you're not able to go to an appointment then you will want to arrive early to the Prague 10 MOI office. I heard a few horror stories of people standing in line all day and being told to come back another day.

- The information you give them in your application is what they will use to question and verify your relationship on. So if you show them receipts for furniture you bought together, they will ask things like "When did you buy this? Where did you buy it from?", etc. When did you two first get together, when did you move into this apartment? The lawyer at IC Praha advised me that they won't ask anything outside of this information so don't put in lies.

- Keep several copies of the paper they give you showing that your visa is in process. Keep one of these copies on you once your previous visa ends. If you get asked for your passport by the police or foreign police show it to them. You probably won't be able to apply for a zivnostensky list with just this paper though cause it doesn't have an end date of any kind and they require it at the office.

What to expect from the process? 

Once you get all your documents together, and you take them into apply. Expect to answer several questions about your original application right on the spot. The employee will go through your documents and file and record what you have brought. They will also ask for some of the information in the things you bring so they can enter it into their own form in their system. We spent about 30 minutes doing this. It was all in Czech.

After they accept your application they have at least 60 days to make a decision. However, this visa is fairly easy to apply for and doesn't require people to travel outside of the country so there are many applications. It may take longer than 60 days, but if it does you can speak with the lawyers at IC Praha or Inbaze and they can do a short write up asking for more information and to speed up the process (or so I was told when I spoke with them).

As part of the application process there will be a home visit and there may be a interview. The home visit is essentially to double check that you live together and where you say you do. This may be something as simple as the foreign police knocking on your door, asking a few quick questions and then leaving or a more in depth visit where they go over all passport documents and double checking information as presented in your application. They will also ask to see the documents of everyone else who is home. This means if your roommate's visa is kinda sketchy, they might want to get that fixed quickly or else they could randomly get surprised by this visit. For example, my roommate's visa was in limbo after several complications and the officers wanted to see all the paperwork she had because it wasn't clear to them that her visa was in process or if she was there illegally. If it is not immediately clear to the officers what your status is, they will take you to immigration jail until they figure out your status. This almost happened to my roommate and it wasn't even her fault and she probably would have been fine if she just hadn't been home when we were visited. Luckily, we talked with the officers and got them to look at all her paperwork and they finally agreed she was in visa processing and not there illegally.

If you are invited to an interview you will need to bring a Czech translator, and this translator cannot be your partner. This is because they will be questioning you about your relationship separately. I haven't actually heard of anyone who has had this happen to them, so make sure you really beef up your application with supporting documents so that this doesn't happen to you. My SO said he probably wouldn't be able to answer any of their questions because his memory is horrible. We joke that it's a miracle that he remembers my name.

How to check your application status:

So this is where it gets a bit tricky. No one will let you know when your visa is accepted, but you will probably receive a letter if you're denied. I don't have experience with that as my visa was accepted, but you can apply for an appeal, I would suggest contacting a visa agency in this case.

But, let's assume it's all well. Once your visa is approved it will appear on this MOI website in a downloadable excel document. You will use your application # (you will get it once you apply for the visa) to search the excel document. It will not have anything but the application #, and the document is updated weekly and some of the #'s will be deleted periodically (not sure how often this is). Keep an eye on this document. My visa was approved and we didn't notice for a long time!

My visa was approved! What do I do now?

YAAAAAAYYYY! Now you go back to the Prague 10 MOI office. If you're lucky you'll be able to book an appointment quickly, but probably you'll be going there and attempting to get your visa on your own. We arrived 40 mins early and there were still many people in front of us. Luckily, we were seen very quickly.

You will receive a new passport type document. It's cool and blue. They will process it all there and stamp it. You can carry this around as your ID now since it's not too hard to replace and unlike your passport, it only costs 100 CZK to replace!

With this visa you are allowed to live and work in the Czech Republic for up to 5 years. After 2 years you can apply to a permanent residency visa which is faster than the normal 5 years for everyone else. You can travel in and out of the country as you wish now. If you want to renew this visa you must apply several months in advance before it ends though. You will still need your normal passport when traveling outside of the country though. Keep both with you in this case.

In 2 months you will have to go back and they will give you a birth number, so you're basically like a real Czech person!

Anything else you need to know and you don't have the answer yet?

IC Praha  - I made several appointments with IC Praha and found them very helpful. They are not very quick via email so don't even bother. Just book an appointment.

Inbaze - The MOI office in Prague 3 has a Inbaze employee on site to offer drop-in help and translation services free of charge. The employee was very helpful! You can also go to their actual offices for an official appointment.

CZ visa and immigration - I never paid for their services, but they were really helpful via email consultation! They were even willing to meet up free of cost and look at my documents.


Traveling with your new visa. What should I expect? 
I travelled home recently, and had to put my visa into practice. Upon leaving the Czech R. it was fairly easy. I showed my passport and my visa to the customs officers and was waved through fairly easily.

Once arriving in my home country, it was also fairly easy. Apparently, you are to use your new visa as your declared country of living if that comes up on your entry forms. This is especially true if they want to know why you've been out of the country for so long. (last stamp in my passport was from over 2 years ago!)

Leaving Canada and re-entering the EU was also fairly easy. Upon arriving back in the Czech R. I once again showed my visa and passport. There was a bit longer of an inspection of my papers. I believe they scanned and searched for my visa to double check it before sending me off home.

Although I was really nervous about it, it was really easy.

There is no limit on the amount of time you can be away from the Czech Republic once you get  the visa, however, if you want to renew it  you must be back with plenty of time to do so (I think now it's moved from 45 days to 60 days before the ending date). You can also apply for a permanent residency visa after 2 years apposed to the normal 5 years. I have also heard mixed rumors and stories about whether or not you need to take a language test if you wish to apply for citizenship beyond that.


June, 2016 edit: Going back to get your birth number!
As per usual, I aimed to arrive at least 40 mins early and there were already 10 people in the line. By the time the doors opened there were at least 30 people in line. Granted, many of these people were in groups, but still! Better early than late. I've heard some horror stories of people arriving in the late morning, only to wait basically all day before being turned away due to closing. Heck, I've even spend more than my fair share of time queuing up only to be turned away for one reason or another.

As luck would have it, I got what I think was one of the only English speakers in the office. She was very lovely and helpful. All I had to do was sign a paper, give her my visa booklet and wait about 5 minutes. She printed off a smallish blue and red paper (about 4-5cm bigger than a passport) with a printed birth number on it. She also wrote the birth number into my visa on a blank space.

Now my visa was officially complete.