Czech Work Visa question -Schengen rules

As long as he has work visa (or pending work visa) for Czech Republic he should not encounter any problem. To be 100% sure he should ask in Czech Embassy when he goes there Dec. 12th.

Definitely a question for the embassy to address.

Can his employer give him guidance?

Is he working in Prague without a Visa?

If he doesn't have a long term visa from either the Czech Republic or Iceland by December 20, he has to leave Schengen. The penalty for overstaying a visitor Visa is usually a fine and possibly the loss of his right to enter Schengen again for up to 10 years. Overstay of a visitor's visa may affect his getting a long term visa. If he can't get either residency visas by the 20th, he must get out of Schengen. Best bet would be to go to either the UK or Ireland.

A residency visas for Iceland does not give him the right to live and work in Prague. It only allows living in Iceland. The same for a Czech residency permit. It's only good for the Czech Republic. Schengen rules still apply in other countries.

As mentioned by Frank - there are two problems here. One is the authority to remain in the country, the other is working on a visitor visa waiver program.

I'm afraid he is sailing close to the wind.

He'll have to resolve it all, and it sounds like he is to a degree, but the big problem is when he gets caught the penalties are severe. Once an overstay or working without a work permit goes on his immigration history it stays there forever and can cause him problems decades later.

I hope that everything works out for him.

If he left Schengen before his 90 days and stopped for a few days in England or Ireland (not Schengen) at least he would have the Schengen problems off his back. As far as the Czech or Iceland permits I don't know.

Best to ask the Embassy.

He really needs to address this to the embassy rather than a travel board. More troubling is the fact that he seems to be working in the EU without proper documentation-work visa.

But again, this is your son’s lesson to learn as an adult and married man. Unfortunately you can’t rescue him from bad mistakes.

First, I don’t know anything about visa’s for either of the two countries.

But for Italy, where residency permits can take months and months, the official site states that you are not to transit through Schengen countries if your permit is in process. However, all you have here is a receipt from the Italian Post Office, and nothing in your Passport. I’m also a member of a Facebook site for American Expats in Italy, and various posters have stated Frankfurt pays more attention to documents than other countries. And if you are questioned, could take an hour or two, and you may not be allowed to renter.

I’d recommend getting official guidance to find out what is allowed or not to leave the country. Is the stamp in the passport sufficient?

Try posting this question on the expats.cz forum as well. Lots of US people have been dealing with Long Term Visa entry/access problems for years. Somebody there is likely to have had this experience, especially language teachers.

Enough responses for me to acknowledge and thank you all so far.

I will pass the link for this page to my son, and advise him to check for updates here , and also direct him to the expats forums .
Regarding his current working situation, he says the various schools teaching language are generally loose about this and pay under the table until the teachers are official, and that the program he was enrolled in to be certified to teach similarly advises the participants. What he had been led to believe, or would like to believe, is that having the work visa stamped as pending would be good enough. He also states to me (I don't know the accuracy) that having the spousal from Iceland allows him to be in Schengen with his wife. He is aware that the only place his passport would be examined is entering the secure area to board his flight to Iceland and again on returning, his de-boarding exits should not be through Passport controls as they are Schengen to Schengen flights only.

As I said, I think he is making a big mistake with the risk is way greater than the reward. Especially while flying out through the efficient German airport.

Ilja hits this immediately - that he should contact the Embassy - or the Czech government locally - now and see what they say regarding whether that pending stamp will allow him to not get kicked out (he does not have to tell them he is working under the table, they probably expect that anyway!)

This does beg an additional question - is the Schengen date information recorded digitally, or do agents have to examine the passport stamp by stamp? In his case, he first entered Schengen when they left from US and flew to Iceland sometime (I forget the exact date but the 90 days calculate to Dec 20) in August and spent a couple weeks there. At that point she left for school in Germany, and he left Iceland for a WWOOF farm in Cornwall for a month, as the teaching program had advised participants to have 30-40 days or so available on their Schengen stay after the end of the program to get the work visa app started. He reentered Schengen flying first to Cologne on I believe October 5 to be with her, arriving in Prague on October 11 (with the kicker for us being we had booked a Germany-Prague trip at the beginning of the year flying home from Prague on October 9 with no ability to hook up!) If it is this latter case and not in a computer system, how closely do passports get examined? I know on ours stamps are all over the place with no logical order.

Schengen border officers use a computer system to track entry and departure. Stamping is not done any longer at every entry point, but a computer record is done. I'm afraid he's put himself in quite a pickle. Having a European spouse isn't a free pass.

I think you (i.e. he), definitely needs to get some official advice. For example the Schengen rules may be less important than the Single Market/FoM rights and how far these extend (if at all), to spouses of Iceland nationals via EFTA since Iceland isn't in the EU. There could be a whole lot of issues which none of us here are qualified to advise on, including Czech residency permit rules (if there are any).

He's risking lots all the time, by the sound of it. It must be difficult for you watching him.

I take it that he didn't declare the WWOOFing to the UK immigration officer and didn't have a work visa for that either?

Nigel, as he explained WWOOF to us (they were first on farm here for 3 months this summer), it is essentially a form of indentured servitude with small stipends i cash added to them getting housed and fed for their services.

Seeing an attorney that deals with immigration issues may be the best thing he can do at this point

Time is short and there are so many moving parts, professional help is what is needed.

After reading your initial post and the follow up, my advice would be for your son to get out of the Schengen Zone ASAP if things don't go well tomorrow. He is running out of time and he is risking everything by staying there. I hope he doesn't mention anything about anything he's been doing in Europe since he's been there. He has worked "under the table" in Prague, wwoofed illegally (his "pay" was room/board which is working illegally for all intents and purposes), and is now about to overstay his visitor visa. His wife's status, even though he is married to her, has no bearing on his status. He needs to sort his own visa - many married couples in the same situation have to live apart in different countries until one or the other gets their visas in order for where they intend to live. This is not uncommon.
Like everyone here has said he is risking so much by thinking it's no big deal and that his status will be ignored. Not the case.
Please keep us updated and let us know how his meeting goes tomorrow...it will be informative to this forum as visa issues come up here frequently. If it were my kid, I'd be taking screen shots of this thread and forwarding them to him!
I truly hope things go well for him!

Just thought I would post some update on this.

First, by early last week he decided he should not travel out of CR, eat his airline tickets, and have his wife come visit him instead. I suspect this was a combination of reading what was said here along with as discussion with his wife (and mother-in-law perhaps) as to the most sensible and least risky course.

Second, he traveled to the Czech Embassy in Brussels last week, submitted his paperwork, they stamped his passport with "visa pending" or such and sent him on his way, to await the processing of this which will be 60-90 days. His plan is to continue on with his teaching per discussion with the program that certified him and with his various employers. and not leave CR. Yes, he will be illegally in the country, yes he will be working illegally. The program and the employers stress that nothing will happen, his wages are not reported (one even pays cash), and because of the need for English teachers there is a huge overlooking of this industry. As it says in movetoprague.com regarding overstaying while waiting for this, "In the real world, no one really leaves the Czech Republic." He reports that this is so commonplace that when someone's visa becomes available and they must travel outside CR back to the issuing embassy to retrieve it, to avoid any potential issues with passport examination it is routine for someone else involved with this the program who needs to go to that embassy to take their passport and a P.O.A. and pick up the visa. So since this is routinely done by the English program and the schools, we have no option but to trust in the process for him, and that he will have no problem staying out of trouble.

The program and the employers stress that nothing will happen, his wages are not reported (one even pays cash), and because of the need for English teachers there is a huge overlooking of this industry.

It won't affect him but up to two years ago many small businesses didn't declare cash payments for services because "nothing will happen". Then EET came along. I'm glad that he has got his "visa-pending" stamp but I ask respectfully that he finds a way of putting something in the public/charity pot as he is surely not going to be paying any kind of tax or social/medical insurance. Don't even think about going to the Foreign Police for anything if he is still on a "pending". All they have to do is ask for a bank statement and he'll be in trouble and the Foreign Police can kick him out. Still, good luck to him.