Companies with U.S.-based assignees should prepare for manual fee payments after the Czech Consulate General in Chicago announced that its card terminals will be offline from 24 to 31 December. During the outage the consulate will accept cash only and, in a further blow to travellers, will suspend issuance of passports and ID cards on 30–31 December while systems are re-configured.
The Chicago post is one of the busiest Czech missions in North America, processing short-term Schengen visas for conference travellers and long-term employee cards for engineers heading to Czech automotive plants. Finance teams must ensure couriers carry the exact cash amount in USD—consular staff do not give change—and warn applicants that U.S. personal cheques are not accepted.
![Card-payment outage to disrupt visa and passport services at Czech Consulate in Chicago]()
Organizations looking for a smoother workaround can outsource the paperwork to VisaHQ, whose nationwide network of couriers routinely files Czech visa and passport requests on behalf of clients. The platform’s real-time tracking and pre-check service (https://www.visahq.com/czech-republic/) helps ensure the correct cash amounts and supporting documents reach the consulate the first time, sparing HR teams repeat trips during the outage.
Firms with urgent travel should consider redirecting applications to New York or Washington, though capacity is limited in the Christmas week. For employees whose Czech passports are due to expire within six months, mobility managers may need to switch them to U.S. travel documents or postpone January travel until the first week of 2026.
The consulate says the upgrade will pave the way for contactless payments and dynamic currency conversion from February. Until then, applicants should factor in extra queue time as staff handle cash reconciliations at the window.
The Chicago post is one of the busiest Czech missions in North America, processing short-term Schengen visas for conference travellers and long-term employee cards for engineers heading to Czech automotive plants. Finance teams must ensure couriers carry the exact cash amount in USD—consular staff do not give change—and warn applicants that U.S. personal cheques are not accepted.
Organizations looking for a smoother workaround can outsource the paperwork to VisaHQ, whose nationwide network of couriers routinely files Czech visa and passport requests on behalf of clients. The platform’s real-time tracking and pre-check service (https://www.visahq.com/czech-republic/) helps ensure the correct cash amounts and supporting documents reach the consulate the first time, sparing HR teams repeat trips during the outage.
Firms with urgent travel should consider redirecting applications to New York or Washington, though capacity is limited in the Christmas week. For employees whose Czech passports are due to expire within six months, mobility managers may need to switch them to U.S. travel documents or postpone January travel until the first week of 2026.
The consulate says the upgrade will pave the way for contactless payments and dynamic currency conversion from February. Until then, applicants should factor in extra queue time as staff handle cash reconciliations at the window.
