FRS now in Brno
Due to its agenda – immigration – Ministry of Interior represents one of the governmental offices most foreigners living in Brno eventually have to get in touch with. Whether you need to visit it just once or on a regular basis, you only have two choices: make a reservation for a particular day and hour or come unannounced and wait until a free spot opens. Logically, having an appointment makes things easier for both sides. However, arranging such an appointment – by phone and in Czech (or Slovak), which are the only official languages in this office – can be quite a challenge. But things are about to change – hopefully for better!
Following the example of Prague, the Immigration office MOI in Brno has recently introduced FRS: Foreigners Reservation System. The new online reservation system which can be switched into English aims to both smoothen the whole appointment-making process and make it more foreigner-friendly. It can only be used by EU or nonEU foreign nationals who have been granted long-term or temporary residency permits, temporary residency certificate or permanent residency. If you have never registered with the Immigration office and you don’t exist in the database, you cannot use the online reservation system.
The new website itself provides some useful links leading to information that you may need when going through the immigration process such as the status of your application, the invitation of foreign visitors, general info concerning residency of EU / nonEU citizens and their relatives or employment.
In order to be able to arrange an appointment online, one needs to create an account on the website. Make sure all the data entered through the registration website matches the data that the office already has e.g. the type and the number of your ID document. (While testing the system, we found out that although one of the registration lines says Passport No, one can enter their ID card number too, and should do so especially if they used their ID card, not their passport during their last contact with the Immigration office.)
Once the data match is confirmed, you are free to continue and book your spot. There are four basic steps in the reservation procedure – the number of people accompanying you (close relatives only), agenda, date and time. The possibility to add one´s close relatives on the reservation and the options on the list of available agendas automatically vary depending on the life and residency situation of the applicant.
In general, one is only allowed to make an appointment in their own name, max 3 appointments per 60 days and 24 h before the appointment at the latest. It is also possible to cancel the reservation (max 48 h before the appointment). The system keeps track of the numbers of your open reservations as well as your cancellations (max 10 in 90 days) and no-shows (max 3 in 180 days). If you exceed these limits, your account will be blocked for 90 or 180 days respectively.
You can create your online account right away but the earliest appointment available at the time is after June 18th 2018 when the website should be fully operational. Until this date, you can still make an appointment via phone or visit the office with no reservation at all. So far, it is not clearly stated that after June 18th you are not allowed to call the office anymore for appointments, but it will be most probably set up so that you may only call during selected hours. Eventually, reservations over the phone should be fully replaced by the online reservation system.
The Immigration office is currently in the process of extending and testing the new FRS, so things may not be perfect just yet. This means you can still call the office for any assistance with your online profile or any appointment discrepancies. Also, the maintenance team welcomes any kind of technical or functional feedback so feel free to contact them with tips or problems on webmaster.frs@mvcr.cz.
Link to the system: FRS – Foreigners Reservation System