Mobility planners who depend on the Czech Visa Centre in Dresden woke up to an empty calendar this week. On 2 January the consulate quietly posted a notice declaring a ‘zero-quota’ for standard employee-card and long-term business-visa submissions. Only applicants from a shortlist of preferred nationalities—or those filed under Czech government talent programmes—can still obtain slots.
The Foreign Ministry says staff have been redeployed to process family-reunification and protection cases after Germany recorded record asylum numbers last autumn. Advisers see a second motive: Berlin has become a springboard for non-EU IT contractors who enter the Schengen Area on German short-stay visas and commute to clients in Prague or Brno, bypassing Czech labour-market tests.
For companies the freeze means detours and delays. Employers are already rerouting cases to Vienna, Bratislava and Warsaw, but those missions have smaller Czech quotas and longer queues. Projects with Q1 start dates may need remote onboarding or amended service contracts.
![Dresden Czech Consulate Halts Ordinary Employee-Card & Business-Visa Appointments]()
At this juncture, visa specialists such as VisaHQ can lighten the administrative load: their Prague-focused desk (https://www.visahq.com/czech-republic/) keeps live tallies of appointment quotas across Schengen posts and can coordinate document couriering and legalisation, helping HR teams swap cancelled Dresden bookings for open slots elsewhere without jeopardising project timelines.
Practical advice: check existing Visapoint or new MFA-portal bookings—any slot dated after 2 January is likely cancelled unless covered by a talent programme. Alternative consulates still require notarised copies of degree certificates, so build extra time into document legalisation chains.
The ministry promises a review by 31 January, yet insiders warn the freeze could last until Germany lifts its own internal-border checks in mid-March.
The Foreign Ministry says staff have been redeployed to process family-reunification and protection cases after Germany recorded record asylum numbers last autumn. Advisers see a second motive: Berlin has become a springboard for non-EU IT contractors who enter the Schengen Area on German short-stay visas and commute to clients in Prague or Brno, bypassing Czech labour-market tests.
For companies the freeze means detours and delays. Employers are already rerouting cases to Vienna, Bratislava and Warsaw, but those missions have smaller Czech quotas and longer queues. Projects with Q1 start dates may need remote onboarding or amended service contracts.
At this juncture, visa specialists such as VisaHQ can lighten the administrative load: their Prague-focused desk (https://www.visahq.com/czech-republic/) keeps live tallies of appointment quotas across Schengen posts and can coordinate document couriering and legalisation, helping HR teams swap cancelled Dresden bookings for open slots elsewhere without jeopardising project timelines.
Practical advice: check existing Visapoint or new MFA-portal bookings—any slot dated after 2 January is likely cancelled unless covered by a talent programme. Alternative consulates still require notarised copies of degree certificates, so build extra time into document legalisation chains.
The ministry promises a review by 31 January, yet insiders warn the freeze could last until Germany lifts its own internal-border checks in mid-March.
