VisaCzechia requires full registration of foreign workers before their first shift
Foreign employees cannot use the partial preregistration option available for Czech citizens. Employers must distinguish reporting from immigration permission.
Official source date: 2026-10-08
Edited and checked by the VisaWand editorial team
Complete registration before the employee starts
Czechia’s Social Security Administration, ČSSZ, explains that foreign employees require complete registration before starting work. Its June 2026 notice distinguishes this from the partial preregistration option available only for Czech citizens when the wider registration rule took effect on 1 July. The full-registration requirement for foreign nationals had already applied from 1 April 2026.
For a person starting a job this November, the practical deadline is before the first performance of work, not the end of the first payroll month. Registration can be made no earlier than eight calendar days before the intended start. Use the ČSSZ notice to check the permitted sequence with payroll staff. This is an explanation of existing 2026 requirements, not a new November immigration announcement.
Check whether the employee or posting falls within the system
The Labour Ministry’s guidance on foreign-worker registration explains that the employee registration process, REGZEC, within the unified employer reporting system, JMHZ, replaced the former information cards and notifications. Its scope covers non-Czech employees, including EU nationals and people with free access to the labour market. The ministry says the reporting obligation covers dependent work even where it does not create sickness-insurance participation. A work-permit exemption therefore does not automatically mean an employer-reporting exemption.
Cross-border postings require a separate assessment. For postings connected with services within the EU internal market, the labour-inspection portal remains relevant. Tax liability or social-insurance participation can also bring a posting into JMHZ. The ministry’s specific registration guidance explains these combinations. A foreign company should check the actual posting, tax and insurance facts rather than assume that every arrival uses exactly the same reporting channel.
Collect the information needed for the employment record
The ministry’s employment-record guidance, updated on 30 September 2026, identifies the information employers must retain. It includes identification and nationality, relevant addresses, passport number and issuing authority, the work and workplace, employment relationship, education, permit validity and the employment’s start and end dates. Workers can help avoid an incomplete submission by providing accurate documents and making clear which residence or work permission they actually hold.
That resource also explains that changes to the recorded details are reported electronically through REGZEC using action 3, rather than on paper. Copies proving lawful residence must be kept during employment and for three years after it ends. Use the official record guidance to check the required data fields; a job contract alone is not the complete immigration and employment record.
Keep the right to work separate from the employer’s report
The ministry’s employer procedure for people without free labour-market access sets out the underlying vacancy and employment requirements. It describes reporting an appropriate vacancy and, for employee-card or Blue Card recruitment, inclusion in the relevant central vacancy register. Employee-card employment must provide at least fifteen hours a week and remuneration meeting the applicable monthly minimum-wage requirement. The employer must offer conditions consistent with the relevant Czech employment rules.
That procedure also identifies the electronic filing channels: the ČSSZ ePortal form, XML submission through the ePortal or data box, or an integrated payroll interface. It does not make a REGZEC filing a replacement for the employee’s required residence and employment permission. Before the start date, employer and worker should check both the underlying authorisation and the completed registration. Any immigration application fee remains a separate, category-specific question.
Direct unresolved reporting questions to the responsible office
The Labour Office’s JMHZ page, updated on 8 October, identifies foreign employment, including EU citizens and international postings, among the matters on which it provides assistance. It links the relevant ministry guidance and a contact form for questions about its responsibilities.
Use that page to describe a concrete uncertainty: the worker’s nationality and status, planned start, whether the employer is based abroad, and the type of posting if applicable. The form asks users to select the appropriate agenda and explain the important facts. Resolving the reporting route before the first shift is more useful than discovering afterwards that payroll used a process intended for a different category of employee.
