Country-wide policy
Permanent Residence Has a Language Examination at A2, and It Stops at Sixty
The national route to permanent residence is five continuous years, and it is not only a matter of time. Section 70(2)(h) of Act No. 326/1999 Sb. makes the applicant produce a certificate of the required knowledge of Czech, issued by a body authorised to hold the examination, in a scope set by an implementing regulation. Government Regulation No. 31/2016 Sb. sets that scope at A2 of the Common European Framework and describes it concretely: understanding the main idea of simple everyday texts spoken and written, holding a conversation about generally known facts and everyday situations, asking and answering simple questions, forming short sentences and writing simple texts. Section 70(5) then takes the examination away again from six groups, and the last of them is anyone who has reached the age of 60. The examination is held for a charge of no more than 3,200 CZK under section 5a(1) of the regulation. A Union citizen reaching permanent residence under section 87g takes no examination at all.
Topics it changes
What it requires
- Five continuous years of residence, for the ordinary route under section 68(1)
- A certificate of Czech at A2 from an authorised examining institution, unless an exemption applies
- Nothing, if you are over 60, under 15, schooled in Czech, or hold an equivalent certificate
At a glance
- Qualifying residence
- 5 continuous years
Section 68(1) of Act No. 326/1999 Sb., with study time counting half under section 68(2)(d).
- Language level
- A2
Section 2(1) of Government Regulation No. 31/2016 Sb., made under section 182a(1) of Act No. 326/1999 Sb.
- Age exemption
- 60
Section 70(5)(f) of Act No. 326/1999 Sb., which is a lower age than the 65 the nationality Act uses for the same kind of exemption.
- Maximum fee for the examination
- 3,200 CZK
Section 5a(1) of Government Regulation No. 31/2016 Sb., which sets it as the highest permissible charge rather than as the price.
- Union citizens
- No examination on the section 87g route
Section 70 applies to applications under section 68 and section 66; section 87g sets its own conditions and names no examination.
What the law says
«který ke dni podání žádosti pobývá na území nepřetržitě po dobu nejméně 5 let.»Our translation - not official
who on the day the application is made has been staying on the territory continuously for at least 5 years.
The residence condition. The subject of the sentence is a foreign national, and the word is printed twice in this reading, which is why the quotation starts here.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Czech state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of the Interior and in service since 1 January 2024, which publishes the Sbírka zákonů a mezinárodních smluv and maintains every Act as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same material and they behave differently. e-sbirka.gov.cz (to which www.e-sbirka.cz redirects with HTTP 308) is an Angular single-page application: every address answers with the same 1,040-byte shell, and the text only appears once JavaScript has run, so it is readable by the extraction service and by nothing else. e-sbirka.gov.cz/sbr-externi is the JSON API the application calls; /dokumenty-sbirky/{staleUrl}/obsah returns the table of contents for a version, where staleUrl is the URL-encoded /sb/{year}/{number}/{YYYY-MM-DD}, and /dokumenty-sbirky/{dokumentId}/detail-zneni returns the version's title, its citation and the dates it is in force between. opendata.eselpoint.gov.cz/esel-esb serves the same corpus as linked data under ELIs of the form /eli/cz/sb/{year}/{number}, where the act's page lists every version it has ever had, which is how the version in force on a given day is found rather than guessed. Each version is also generated as a clean PDF and DOCX: POST-free GET to /sbr-externi/stahni/informativni-zneni/{dokumentId}/PDF returns a JSON body carrying a file id that is stable across calls, and /souborove-sluzby/soubory/{id} then serves the document itself.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The PDF and the web page are two manifestations of one document and neither is quotable throughout.** The generated PDF is typeset with soft hyphens at every line break - 2,055 of them in the 781,000 characters of Act No. 326/1999 Sb. - so a sentence that crosses a line comes out as 'na úze[soft hyphen] mí', and a quotation spanning one is unreadable even though it verifies. The web page has no hyphenation but doubles every term the CzechVoc dictionary links: 3,200 occurrences in the same Act, where 'cizince' renders as 'cizincecizince' and 'zaměstnanecké karty' as 'zaměstnanecké kartyzaměstnanecké karty'. A quotation therefore has to be taken from whichever manifestation the sentence survives in, and some sentences survive in neither, so the quotation is cut short rather than tidied. The versions it serves are **informativní znění**, informative consolidations: the Collection as promulgated is what has legal force. A version carries no cut-off date inside the document - the date is in the file name, in the address and on the page that serves it, and that is where the consolidation dates recorded here come from. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the central register of vacancies open to employee-card holders is kept administratively, the government-approved migration programmes that Government Regulation No. 220/2019 Sb. relies on by name - the qualified employee programme, the highly qualified employee programme, the key and scientific personnel programme and a digital nomad programme - are approved by the government and published nowhere in it, and the per-embassy allowance actually remaining is published by each embassy under section 181b(3) rather than here. Section headings for repealed sections are omitted from a version entirely, so a gap in the numbering is a repeal and not a dropped page.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«doklad prokazující požadovanou znalost českého jazyka vydaný osobou uskutečňující»Our translation - not official
a document proving the required knowledge of the Czech language issued by a body holding
The sentence continues the examination in Czech in the scope laid down by the implementing regulation issued under section 182a(1)(a).
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Czech state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of the Interior and in service since 1 January 2024, which publishes the Sbírka zákonů a mezinárodních smluv and maintains every Act as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same material and they behave differently. e-sbirka.gov.cz (to which www.e-sbirka.cz redirects with HTTP 308) is an Angular single-page application: every address answers with the same 1,040-byte shell, and the text only appears once JavaScript has run, so it is readable by the extraction service and by nothing else. e-sbirka.gov.cz/sbr-externi is the JSON API the application calls; /dokumenty-sbirky/{staleUrl}/obsah returns the table of contents for a version, where staleUrl is the URL-encoded /sb/{year}/{number}/{YYYY-MM-DD}, and /dokumenty-sbirky/{dokumentId}/detail-zneni returns the version's title, its citation and the dates it is in force between. opendata.eselpoint.gov.cz/esel-esb serves the same corpus as linked data under ELIs of the form /eli/cz/sb/{year}/{number}, where the act's page lists every version it has ever had, which is how the version in force on a given day is found rather than guessed. Each version is also generated as a clean PDF and DOCX: POST-free GET to /sbr-externi/stahni/informativni-zneni/{dokumentId}/PDF returns a JSON body carrying a file id that is stable across calls, and /souborove-sluzby/soubory/{id} then serves the document itself.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The PDF and the web page are two manifestations of one document and neither is quotable throughout.** The generated PDF is typeset with soft hyphens at every line break - 2,055 of them in the 781,000 characters of Act No. 326/1999 Sb. - so a sentence that crosses a line comes out as 'na úze[soft hyphen] mí', and a quotation spanning one is unreadable even though it verifies. The web page has no hyphenation but doubles every term the CzechVoc dictionary links: 3,200 occurrences in the same Act, where 'cizince' renders as 'cizincecizince' and 'zaměstnanecké karty' as 'zaměstnanecké kartyzaměstnanecké karty'. A quotation therefore has to be taken from whichever manifestation the sentence survives in, and some sentences survive in neither, so the quotation is cut short rather than tidied. The versions it serves are **informativní znění**, informative consolidations: the Collection as promulgated is what has legal force. A version carries no cut-off date inside the document - the date is in the file name, in the address and on the page that serves it, and that is where the consolidation dates recorded here come from. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the central register of vacancies open to employee-card holders is kept administratively, the government-approved migration programmes that Government Regulation No. 220/2019 Sb. relies on by name - the qualified employee programme, the highly qualified employee programme, the key and scientific personnel programme and a digital nomad programme - are approved by the government and published nowhere in it, and the per-embassy allowance actually remaining is published by each embassy under section 181b(3) rather than here. Section headings for repealed sections are omitted from a version entirely, so a gap in the numbering is a repeal and not a dropped page.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Pro účely získání povolení k trvalému pobytu na území České republiky se požaduje znalost jazyka alespoň na úrovni A2 podle Společného evropského referenčního rámce pro jazyky.»Our translation - not official
For the purposes of obtaining a permanent residence permit on the territory of the Czech Republic, knowledge of the language at least at level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages is required.
The level the Act leaves to the regulation.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Czech state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of the Interior and in service since 1 January 2024, which publishes the Sbírka zákonů a mezinárodních smluv and maintains every Act as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same material and they behave differently. e-sbirka.gov.cz (to which www.e-sbirka.cz redirects with HTTP 308) is an Angular single-page application: every address answers with the same 1,040-byte shell, and the text only appears once JavaScript has run, so it is readable by the extraction service and by nothing else. e-sbirka.gov.cz/sbr-externi is the JSON API the application calls; /dokumenty-sbirky/{staleUrl}/obsah returns the table of contents for a version, where staleUrl is the URL-encoded /sb/{year}/{number}/{YYYY-MM-DD}, and /dokumenty-sbirky/{dokumentId}/detail-zneni returns the version's title, its citation and the dates it is in force between. opendata.eselpoint.gov.cz/esel-esb serves the same corpus as linked data under ELIs of the form /eli/cz/sb/{year}/{number}, where the act's page lists every version it has ever had, which is how the version in force on a given day is found rather than guessed. Each version is also generated as a clean PDF and DOCX: POST-free GET to /sbr-externi/stahni/informativni-zneni/{dokumentId}/PDF returns a JSON body carrying a file id that is stable across calls, and /souborove-sluzby/soubory/{id} then serves the document itself.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The PDF and the web page are two manifestations of one document and neither is quotable throughout.** The generated PDF is typeset with soft hyphens at every line break - 2,055 of them in the 781,000 characters of Act No. 326/1999 Sb. - so a sentence that crosses a line comes out as 'na úze[soft hyphen] mí', and a quotation spanning one is unreadable even though it verifies. The web page has no hyphenation but doubles every term the CzechVoc dictionary links: 3,200 occurrences in the same Act, where 'cizince' renders as 'cizincecizince' and 'zaměstnanecké karty' as 'zaměstnanecké kartyzaměstnanecké karty'. A quotation therefore has to be taken from whichever manifestation the sentence survives in, and some sentences survive in neither, so the quotation is cut short rather than tidied. The versions it serves are **informativní znění**, informative consolidations: the Collection as promulgated is what has legal force. A version carries no cut-off date inside the document - the date is in the file name, in the address and on the page that serves it, and that is where the consolidation dates recorded here come from. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the central register of vacancies open to employee-card holders is kept administratively, the government-approved migration programmes that Government Regulation No. 220/2019 Sb. relies on by name - the qualified employee programme, the highly qualified employee programme, the key and scientific personnel programme and a digital nomad programme - are approved by the government and published nowhere in it, and the per-embassy allowance actually remaining is published by each embassy under section 181b(3) rather than here. Section headings for repealed sections are omitted from a version entirely, so a gap in the numbering is a repeal and not a dropped page.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«dosáhl věku 60 let.»Our translation - not official
has reached the age of 60.
The last of the six exemptions in section 70(5). The others are being under 15, a school year or academic year taught in Czech within the last 20 years, an equivalent examination, an application under section 66, and a disability affecting the ability to communicate.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Czech state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of the Interior and in service since 1 January 2024, which publishes the Sbírka zákonů a mezinárodních smluv and maintains every Act as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same material and they behave differently. e-sbirka.gov.cz (to which www.e-sbirka.cz redirects with HTTP 308) is an Angular single-page application: every address answers with the same 1,040-byte shell, and the text only appears once JavaScript has run, so it is readable by the extraction service and by nothing else. e-sbirka.gov.cz/sbr-externi is the JSON API the application calls; /dokumenty-sbirky/{staleUrl}/obsah returns the table of contents for a version, where staleUrl is the URL-encoded /sb/{year}/{number}/{YYYY-MM-DD}, and /dokumenty-sbirky/{dokumentId}/detail-zneni returns the version's title, its citation and the dates it is in force between. opendata.eselpoint.gov.cz/esel-esb serves the same corpus as linked data under ELIs of the form /eli/cz/sb/{year}/{number}, where the act's page lists every version it has ever had, which is how the version in force on a given day is found rather than guessed. Each version is also generated as a clean PDF and DOCX: POST-free GET to /sbr-externi/stahni/informativni-zneni/{dokumentId}/PDF returns a JSON body carrying a file id that is stable across calls, and /souborove-sluzby/soubory/{id} then serves the document itself.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The PDF and the web page are two manifestations of one document and neither is quotable throughout.** The generated PDF is typeset with soft hyphens at every line break - 2,055 of them in the 781,000 characters of Act No. 326/1999 Sb. - so a sentence that crosses a line comes out as 'na úze[soft hyphen] mí', and a quotation spanning one is unreadable even though it verifies. The web page has no hyphenation but doubles every term the CzechVoc dictionary links: 3,200 occurrences in the same Act, where 'cizince' renders as 'cizincecizince' and 'zaměstnanecké karty' as 'zaměstnanecké kartyzaměstnanecké karty'. A quotation therefore has to be taken from whichever manifestation the sentence survives in, and some sentences survive in neither, so the quotation is cut short rather than tidied. The versions it serves are **informativní znění**, informative consolidations: the Collection as promulgated is what has legal force. A version carries no cut-off date inside the document - the date is in the file name, in the address and on the page that serves it, and that is where the consolidation dates recorded here come from. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the central register of vacancies open to employee-card holders is kept administratively, the government-approved migration programmes that Government Regulation No. 220/2019 Sb. relies on by name - the qualified employee programme, the highly qualified employee programme, the key and scientific personnel programme and a digital nomad programme - are approved by the government and published nowhere in it, and the per-embassy allowance actually remaining is published by each embassy under section 181b(3) rather than here. Section headings for repealed sections are omitted from a version entirely, so a gap in the numbering is a repeal and not a dropped page.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Zkouška se koná za úplatu nejvýše 3 200 Kč.»Our translation - not official
The examination is held for a charge of no more than 3,200 CZK.
A ceiling, not a price. What an examining institution actually charges is its own.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Czech state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of the Interior and in service since 1 January 2024, which publishes the Sbírka zákonů a mezinárodních smluv and maintains every Act as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same material and they behave differently. e-sbirka.gov.cz (to which www.e-sbirka.cz redirects with HTTP 308) is an Angular single-page application: every address answers with the same 1,040-byte shell, and the text only appears once JavaScript has run, so it is readable by the extraction service and by nothing else. e-sbirka.gov.cz/sbr-externi is the JSON API the application calls; /dokumenty-sbirky/{staleUrl}/obsah returns the table of contents for a version, where staleUrl is the URL-encoded /sb/{year}/{number}/{YYYY-MM-DD}, and /dokumenty-sbirky/{dokumentId}/detail-zneni returns the version's title, its citation and the dates it is in force between. opendata.eselpoint.gov.cz/esel-esb serves the same corpus as linked data under ELIs of the form /eli/cz/sb/{year}/{number}, where the act's page lists every version it has ever had, which is how the version in force on a given day is found rather than guessed. Each version is also generated as a clean PDF and DOCX: POST-free GET to /sbr-externi/stahni/informativni-zneni/{dokumentId}/PDF returns a JSON body carrying a file id that is stable across calls, and /souborove-sluzby/soubory/{id} then serves the document itself.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The PDF and the web page are two manifestations of one document and neither is quotable throughout.** The generated PDF is typeset with soft hyphens at every line break - 2,055 of them in the 781,000 characters of Act No. 326/1999 Sb. - so a sentence that crosses a line comes out as 'na úze[soft hyphen] mí', and a quotation spanning one is unreadable even though it verifies. The web page has no hyphenation but doubles every term the CzechVoc dictionary links: 3,200 occurrences in the same Act, where 'cizince' renders as 'cizincecizince' and 'zaměstnanecké karty' as 'zaměstnanecké kartyzaměstnanecké karty'. A quotation therefore has to be taken from whichever manifestation the sentence survives in, and some sentences survive in neither, so the quotation is cut short rather than tidied. The versions it serves are **informativní znění**, informative consolidations: the Collection as promulgated is what has legal force. A version carries no cut-off date inside the document - the date is in the file name, in the address and on the page that serves it, and that is where the consolidation dates recorded here come from. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the central register of vacancies open to employee-card holders is kept administratively, the government-approved migration programmes that Government Regulation No. 220/2019 Sb. relies on by name - the qualified employee programme, the highly qualified employee programme, the key and scientific personnel programme and a digital nomad programme - are approved by the government and published nowhere in it, and the per-embassy allowance actually remaining is published by each embassy under section 181b(3) rather than here. Section headings for repealed sections are omitted from a version entirely, so a gap in the numbering is a repeal and not a dropped page.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Permanent residence is the gate to naturalisation and to public health insurance alike, which is why the A2 examination reaches further than its own topic.
The A2 examination for permanent residence and the B1 examination for citizenship are set by different instruments and held by different bodies. Passing one does not discharge the other.