How to move the development center from Russia to the Czech Republic

I. Why the Czech Republic?

In early 2015, the company where I worked as an inhouse decided to transfer part of their Russian developers to Europe. Several goals were pursued: the motivation of Russian developers, the simplification of hiring engineers from the European Union, the convenience of servicing foreign contracts. The choice fell on the Czech Republic, namely on Prague. Why?
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Among the advantages of the Czech Republic for the localization of the development center were important:

• comfortable tax rates for doing business
• no obligation to hire local citizens
• convenient ways to interact with tax authorities,
• international agreements with Russia that simplify life (for example, the abolition of double taxation, the pension regime, the lack of apostil for official documents),
• registered capital from 1 kroon,
• the ability to officially have two, three managing directors.
• For employees who decide to move along the Blue Card, about which just below, the entire European Union opens, as having received a visa once, a highly qualified specialist will not be tied to one employer, but will be able to move freely throughout the EU, work without any additional visas and permissions and to have all set of the rights and freedoms of the citizen of the European Union.

In addition, the Czech Republic was chosen by us as a country where, until now, many people speak and understand Russian. Moving here for permanent residence, it is unlikely that you will encounter language problems. Old-timers say that in 2 years of classes, the Czech language can be passed at a very decent level in the state exam.

Ii. Opening a local company

The procedure of registration of a legal entity does not constitute something unusual or complex. In order not to go personally to Prague to notaries and to the Commercial Register (an analogue of our Incorporation), we with the help of intermediaries reregistered an empty limited liability company (Czech. SRO) to ourselves. Here you will need to pledge the power of attorney for Czechs from a Russian notary and get a certificate of no criminal record of directors in Russia. The rest of the documents are standard and are prepared by an intermediary company. When choosing a company, pay attention to the feedback from its customers and independently verify the information about the dummy offered to you in the Commercial Register.

After the “dummy” goes into your property, you need to get the so-called living-life sheet, which is also a license for activities. The scope of software development in the Czech Republic does not belong to the complexly licensed, and the sheet is issued without any problems, fees and checks.

With the statutory documents and the living-wall list, we are going to talk about ourselves with the tax inspectorate and receive a security vault (electronic personal account through which your company will communicate with fiscal authorities). If you are applying for exemption from VAT, then bring immediately upon registration at least one contract in which it is written. We brought the FEA contract in English, and we were not even asked to translate it into Czech, so we accepted no questions about VAT.

After tax registration, we opened a bank account for our company at a local bank. The maximum inconvenience that a bank can create for you is to ask a bunch of statements for all foreign legal entities that own a Czech company. Therefore, I advise you to pre-stock fresh statements with the seal of the Russian tax. The rest of the procedure is fast and standard.

Probably, in this place you had a question: “And who went and did all these things in Prague, if there are no employees in the company yet?”. The best way is to visit a lawyer and a Russian director of a company on a business trip for 90 days on a business visa. It is done in the same way as a regular tourist Schengen, but a call from your Czech company (signed by the director of the parent company) and documents showing where you will live all this time is added to the set of documents. We rented an apartment and attached the contract.

Having a package of state registration documents, a bank account, a living director in Prague, you can rent an office for a company, start signing contracts with local providers, buy property for the company and hire local employees (you can’t usually do without an accountant on the outsourcing you are taken by the same companies that helped to draw up the "dummy"). Thus, if your goal is real export of Russian employees to Europe, as we wanted, without a real office this is not feasible. When a visa check, the police will still come to see real jobs. We even demanded to hang a sign with the name of the company on the office.

Iii. We transport employees from Russia

Now about the most difficult: working visas. Since 2011, the Czechs have tightened the screws of the immigration law to cut off the arrival in the country with a view to a residence permit through the ownership of an empty company. Such a scheme was popular from the 90s to the 20s and led to a huge number of escheat foreign companies and people with a residence permit, which the Czech Republic was not particularly needed.

Now there are two types of work visas - Labor card (zaměstnanecká karta) and Blue card (modra karta). The first gives the right to work only in the Czech Republic, but for any salary and to any specialist (even a caretaker), the second gives the right to work in the entire European Union, only to very qualified specialists, traveling on a call to a company with at least one-year contracts and a substantial salary. In 2016, this salary should start at 1,350 euros. We decided to try strength in both directions.

Embassies where applications for these visas are received are in Moscow and Yekaterinburg. In St. Petersburg, too, accept, but only among residents of the region. Get ready to fly at least twice. Reception of documents is exclusively personal, although a representative by proxy can already pick up your visa. In Moscow, when submitting to the Blue Card is interviewed in the Czech language. We used the services of an interpreter, the interview takes about half an hour.

The basic list of documents for a work visa is on the website of any Czech embassy. From the nuances: nostrifikatsii diploma of higher education and a one-year rental agreement in Prague, coinciding with the terms of the working contract. Nostrification is the procedure of recognizing the identity of a diploma obtained in one country by a diploma (level of education) for the same specialization in another country.

We received all nostrifications to our employees at the Prague Technical University in about a month. The programs of any Russian university at the Faculty of Informatics roughly coincide with Czech standards, so there were no problems. It is free and you can find the application form on the university website. Of course, all documents must be translated into Czech in advance and sealed by a sworn translator. This can be done remotely, Google on request issues such interpreters to the crowd and everyone is ready to send documents by express mail. By the way, it will be cheaper than using the services of a sworn translator at the embassy.

At the interview, the ambassador asks both general questions (why do you want to move, is there a family, how do you plan to live in the Czech Republic), and tricky ones. For example, our guys asked what tram number goes to their office in Prague, how much milk costs in the Czech Republic and why they don’t want to serve in the Russian army. The main thing is honesty and self-confidence: I am going from a Russian company to a Czech one, I will work, develop Internet technologies in the European Union and pay taxes.

Iv. What we get in the end?

We waited for approved visas for almost a year (from February to October 2015), twice, as a representative by proxy, I flew to the police for foreigners in Prague, the consulates of Moscow and Yekaterinburg to inquire about current affairs and bring some documents at the request of authorities. Separately, I wrote letters to the police and ministries with a request to speed up the issuance of visas on behalf of the Czech company.

Feature of the Czechs - they do everything very slowly and reluctantly, with an abundance of papers, with the difficulty of translation and explanation. At some point, we even despaired of breaking through this visa defense, but everything worked out. As a result, we spent a year from the opening of the company to the departure of our first engineers. By the way, couples need, together with the application for a work visa, to immediately submit documents for family reunification, so that there is an opportunity to leave together.

After the letter about the approved visa, you need to come back to the embassy, ​​get permission to enter the passport and with him in Prague at the police for foreigners get a biometric visa card. Your Czech company must register a new employee in the labor inspectorate independently. At the same time from the Russian company you will be dismissed. Pension experience will now flow in the Czech Republic, but in Russia over the years you will receive a pension.

Since the beginning of 2016, three engineers from Russia with their families came to our new Prague office to work with, the programmers have already been joined by programmers from the European Union (Romanian and French). Periodically, employees from the parent company come to visit. The process is cumbersome and lengthy, but the result is worth it. Do not be afraid to develop.

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