After more than 10 years of complaints about bots, scalpers, and midnight refresh marathons, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) finally pulled the plug on its Visapoint booking engine at 00:00 on 1 December 2025. From that moment, anyone who needs a long-term visa, residence permit, or employee-card appointment at a Czech consulate must use a brand-new reservation platform that promises tougher CAPTCHA log-ins, multilingual instructions, and—crucially—a weekly lottery that randomises queue numbers instead of rewarding the fastest mouse-clicker. The MFA says the system handled 18,300 concurrent log-ins on day one without crashing and issued 4,700 queue numbers in the first six hours.
For global mobility teams, the change is more than an IT upgrade. Under Visapoint, skilled-worker slots at popular posts such as New York, Manila and Delhi routinely sold out within seconds, forcing HR departments to engage expensive “fixers” or to route staff through less-crowded consulates. Because the new platform assigns appointments at random, employers will need to build extra lead time into assignment planning and may have to stagger start dates when multiple family members need appointments. Companies with critical Q1 2026 start dates are already exploring back-up filings in Vienna or Bratislava where quotas are less constrained.
![Czech Foreign Ministry Retires “Visapoint,” Launches Smarter Visa-Appointment Portal]()
Early users did experience teething troubles. Applicants in India and the Philippines reported time-outs, while the Czech Consulate in New York warned on social media that all employee-card quotas were exhausted within 15 minutes. The MFA has opened a 14-day feedback window and says incremental patches will be pushed every 48 hours. In parallel, the ministry has circulated an FAQ confirming that Visapoint bookings made before 30 November remain valid but cannot be modified; any change requires a fresh slot in the new system.
Practical advice for corporates is straightforward: (1) clear browser caches and create new user profiles; (2) brief travellers that the process now resembles a ticket lottery, not a sprint; (3) monitor email vigilantly—queue numbers that go unclaimed for 24 hours expire. Mobility managers should also review data-privacy procedures because the new portal stores passport images and labour contracts on Czech government servers.
For global mobility teams, the change is more than an IT upgrade. Under Visapoint, skilled-worker slots at popular posts such as New York, Manila and Delhi routinely sold out within seconds, forcing HR departments to engage expensive “fixers” or to route staff through less-crowded consulates. Because the new platform assigns appointments at random, employers will need to build extra lead time into assignment planning and may have to stagger start dates when multiple family members need appointments. Companies with critical Q1 2026 start dates are already exploring back-up filings in Vienna or Bratislava where quotas are less constrained.
Early users did experience teething troubles. Applicants in India and the Philippines reported time-outs, while the Czech Consulate in New York warned on social media that all employee-card quotas were exhausted within 15 minutes. The MFA has opened a 14-day feedback window and says incremental patches will be pushed every 48 hours. In parallel, the ministry has circulated an FAQ confirming that Visapoint bookings made before 30 November remain valid but cannot be modified; any change requires a fresh slot in the new system.
Practical advice for corporates is straightforward: (1) clear browser caches and create new user profiles; (2) brief travellers that the process now resembles a ticket lottery, not a sprint; (3) monitor email vigilantly—queue numbers that go unclaimed for 24 hours expire. Mobility managers should also review data-privacy procedures because the new portal stores passport images and labour contracts on Czech government servers.
