EU Blue Card and its advantages

What exactly is EU Blue Card and why it is better than more common Employee Card? Let’s take a closer look at the more valuable option for foreigner employees who fulfills the strict conditions to be allowed to get EU Blue Card.

Work and stay permit named EU Blue Card is a longterm residence permit for the purpose of employment in the Czech Republic under special conditions. It must be clear from the very beginning of the process of preparing the employment Visa application for an applicant, if the applicant is entitled to apply and get EU Blue Card.

A foreigner who is EU Blue Card holder is entitled to reside in the Czech Republic and work at a concrete job position for which the EU Blue Card was approved and issued. Beign EU Blue Card holder gives several advatages but only if its holder fulfills the requirements. Let’s take a look at those first.

EU Blue Card is meant only for employees with at least higher professional education. Only officialy finished school education is acceptable. Different special courses not similar or connected to a regular levels of school education are not acceptable. Most often, the employees who are applying for Blue Card have Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.

The reason is that EU Blue Card is meant only for job positions of specialists, managers and leading personnel. (For those of you who are familiar with Czech job positions official Laber Office agenda, only job positions with CZ-ISCO 1-2 are meant for Blue Card.) It is a must that the job position must be properly available in the database of vacancies available for Blue Card holders.

This type of permit is for those who have an employment contract for fulltime job for at least one year and for employees whose gross monthly or annual salary amounting is at least a 1.5 multiple of the gross annual salary in the Czech Republic. For the time period from May 1, 2023 until April 30, 2024 the minimum required salary for EU Blue Card is CZK 60.530 a month.

It is necessary to remember that the minimum required salary encreases every same time period so if you are reading this after April 30, 2024, it is already much higher.

Those, who meets these requirements and conditions and successfully obtain EU Blue Card, have the advantage of a smoother living in the Czech Republic. Let’s see what the advantages are.

First of all EU Blue Card application is processed and approved (if all is fine) much faster by the Ministryof Interior than ordinary Employee Card. Second, closest family members of the applicant are entitled to apply for Long-Term Residence Permits directly together with the Blue Card applicant, not only for Long-Stay Visas (or to wait 6 months to be allowedto apply for Long-Term Residence Permits) as the rule is for ordinary Employee Card holders families.

What are the other interesting advantages?

One of the very few disadvantages is that EU Blue Card holders are allowed to have one employment. Its holders may not have a secondary or part-time employment. However, there is an alternative option that the EU Blue Card allows. Blue Card holder can work as a freelancer with a trade licence.