Anyone who promises Filipino workers in the Czech Republic in sixty days has not read the Residence Act, which gives the Ministry sixty to ninety days on its own. The honest number is three to five months from order to first shift, with first arrivals planned within 120 days when the parallel phases run together. This page lays the calendar out phase by phase and names the five things that stretch it.
Four phases run in parallel in the first four to six weeks: the employer and Orienta Czech define the position, the gross wage and the accommodation (one to two weeks); the vacancy is reported to the Labour Office and offered for thirty days; the programme application goes through a garant to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (two to four weeks, with the Philippine capacity taken at the next monthly release); and Prime Search sources, tests and interviews candidates in Makati with the employer's manager (two to four weeks). Then the sequence becomes serial: the candidate applies at the Czech Embassy in Manila within a week of the assigned appointment; the Ministry of the Interior decides within sixty days, ninety in complex cases, while the Philippine exit process — medical, MWO Prague verification, orientation, Overseas Employment Certificate — runs alongside; and the visa, the flight, biometrics, registration and the first shift take one to two more weeks. Three to five months in total; first arrivals planned within 120 days when nothing in the next section happens.
A Czech employer hires a Filipino on an Employee Card (zaměstnanecká karta) — one permit for residence and work, issued by the Ministry of the Interior for the length of the employment up to two years and renewable — and reaches the Czech Embassy in Manila through the Government's Qualified Employee Programme (Program kvalifikovaný zaměstnanec), run by the Ministry of Industry and Trade with the Chamber of Commerce, the Confederation of Industry, CzechInvest and the Agrarian Chamber as garants. The programme does not shorten the Ministry's statutory decision time of 60 days (90 in complex cases) and does not replace the 30-day labour-market test in the central vacancy register; what it does is guarantee the candidate an appointment within the Philippine annual quota of 10,300 places — set by Government Regulation No. 109/2026 Coll. for the Embassy in Manila (11,400 Employee Card applications a year, 10,300 of them for the programme), divided evenly into twelve months of 858 and assigned to named workers at a release at 10:00 on the published day; unused monthly places are not carried over. In 2025 the programme admitted 10,795 workers from thirteen countries, 4,791 of them from the Philippines — the largest group — and in July, August and September 2026 the monthly Philippine capacity was exhausted within hours of release. On 15 October 2026 Deputy Prime Minister Havlíček announced that the quotas for the Philippines and India will be raised; a figure of 12,000 a year from January 2027 circulated from the Brno engineering fair without ministerial confirmation, industry recommended at least 15,000, and until a government regulation is published the 10,300 quota applies. Wages must be at least CZK 27,328 gross a month in 2026 (1.22 × the minimum wage of CZK 22,400) — CZK 30,378 from 1 January 2027 — and not lower than comparable employees. The client is always the employer; Orienta Czech administers the process under power of attorney.
For a shift of fifty, plan two or three cohorts on consecutive monthly releases rather than one application for fifty names; file the vacancy for the full number at once so that the thirty days run only once; sign contracts before the release so that the codes are assigned the same day; and book the production start for the week after the third cohort's card collection, not the first's. Employers who plan this way have arrivals within 120 days of the order and a full shift within five months.
Recruitment runs through our own DMW-licensed agency, Prime Search Manpower Agency Inc. in Makati (licence DMW-027-LB-11182024): your company is accredited at the Migrant Workers Office at the Philippine Embassy in Prague — which sits in the same city as the Ministry of the Interior that decides the Employee Card, keeping contract verification and the immigration decision in one place — the job order is registered with the DMW, and every worker leaves Manila with a verified contract, medical clearance, pre-departure orientation and an Overseas Employment Certificate. Recruitment follows the employer-pays principle: no applicant pays for an interview, a trade test or a place on a shortlist. Your company is the employer from day one; Orienta Czech, the group's EU delivery entity licensed by the Czech Ministry of Labour, runs the recruitment and the immigration administration under your power of attorney and never employs or leases the workers.
Everything here is subject to the Act on the Residence of Foreign Nationals (326/1999 Coll.), the Employment Act (435/2004 Coll.), the Government's Qualified Employee Programme as published by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of the Interior's practice in force and Philippine DMW rules.
No, and nobody can lawfully: the Ministry of the Interior has 60 to 90 days by statute after the Embassy application. Three to five months from order to start, first arrivals within 120 days, is the honest plan.
A vacancy priced below comparable positions, which the Labour Office stops; then missing programme documents and a missed monthly quota release.
Yes — definition, the 30-day test, programme enrolment and selection in Manila run in parallel; only the Embassy application, the Ministry decision and the arrival are serial.
In cohorts on consecutive monthly releases, with one vacancy notification for the full number, contracts signed before each release, and the production start booked after the last cohort's card collection.
General information for employers, not legal or migration advice. Rules change; we re-verify before each hire.