Prague—Addressing reporters ahead of the GLOBSEC Forum on 21 May, Czech Chamber of Deputies Speaker Tomio Okamura proposed abolishing short-stay visa requirements between Czechia and China. In a morning briefing aggregated by Expats.cz, Okamura argued that Chinese visitors were "the highest per-day spenders" before the pandemic and that restoring pre-2019 volumes could pump "a billion crowns a year" into value-added tax receipts. Okamura—whose Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party is part of the governing coalition—says he will table a motion asking the Cabinet to open negotiations with Beijing on a reciprocal waiver for stays of up to 14 days. The move dovetails with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s broader push for pragmatic, trade-driven engagement with Asia. Tourism operators welcomed the idea, noting that Chinese arrivals collapsed from 620 000 in 2019 to fewer than 40 000 last year.
![Speaker Tomio Okamura Urges Visa-Free Travel With China to Revive Czech Tourism]()
Whether or not a full waiver materialises, individual travellers and businesses can already smooth the process through VisaHQ, which provides real-time guidance and application support for Czech visas as well as Chinese travel documents. Its Czech Republic portal (https://www.visahq.com/czech-republic/) consolidates requirements, fees, and processing times, giving tour operators and corporate mobility teams a single dashboard to track multiple applications at once.
"We’re still running at 10 % of capacity on Chinese group tours," says Kate Říhová of CzechTourism. "A visa-free regime would cut lead-times from eight weeks to five days and let us bundle Prague with Vienna and Budapest again." Corporate travel managers, however, see a different upside: smoother multi-stop itineraries for Czech exporters visiting partner plants in Shenzhen or Shanghai. "Negotiating contracts in-person is back, but visa bottlenecks cost weeks," explains Martin Dvořák, global mobility head at a Brno-based electronics firm. Visa-free access would allow last-minute trips for quality-control emergencies and speed up installation projects. Sceptics point to EU reciprocity constraints—any bilateral deal would need Brussels’ blessing because Czechia is bound by the common Schengen visa policy. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said only that it is "analysing options" and that discussions would have to cover security vetting, overstay monitoring, and pandemic-era health data sharing. Even if talks proceed, insiders say 2027 is the earliest realistic start date. Still, the proposal signals a political appetite to use mobility as an economic lever. As one Prague hotelier put it, "You can renovate a lobby, but without simplified visas the rooms stay empty."
Whether or not a full waiver materialises, individual travellers and businesses can already smooth the process through VisaHQ, which provides real-time guidance and application support for Czech visas as well as Chinese travel documents. Its Czech Republic portal (https://www.visahq.com/czech-republic/) consolidates requirements, fees, and processing times, giving tour operators and corporate mobility teams a single dashboard to track multiple applications at once.
"We’re still running at 10 % of capacity on Chinese group tours," says Kate Říhová of CzechTourism. "A visa-free regime would cut lead-times from eight weeks to five days and let us bundle Prague with Vienna and Budapest again." Corporate travel managers, however, see a different upside: smoother multi-stop itineraries for Czech exporters visiting partner plants in Shenzhen or Shanghai. "Negotiating contracts in-person is back, but visa bottlenecks cost weeks," explains Martin Dvořák, global mobility head at a Brno-based electronics firm. Visa-free access would allow last-minute trips for quality-control emergencies and speed up installation projects. Sceptics point to EU reciprocity constraints—any bilateral deal would need Brussels’ blessing because Czechia is bound by the common Schengen visa policy. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said only that it is "analysing options" and that discussions would have to cover security vetting, overstay monitoring, and pandemic-era health data sharing. Even if talks proceed, insiders say 2027 is the earliest realistic start date. Still, the proposal signals a political appetite to use mobility as an economic lever. As one Prague hotelier put it, "You can renovate a lobby, but without simplified visas the rooms stay empty."
