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From January 2012 important changes were introduced in the procedure related to applying for a work permit in the Czech Republic. According to this change, all diplomas issued by universities from non-EU states shall have a certification from a Czech authority that such diploma has an equivalent in the Czech Republic.

In case a non-EU citizen wants to apply for a work permit for a job where a higher education is required, he/she will have to present a certificate of higher education that is not only legalized/apostilled, but also that has an equivalent in the Czech Republic. To obtain such recognition, which is called "nostrification" the foreigner will have to submit an application at the rector's office of a university in the Czech Republic, which offers the study programme he/she studied abroad. If a foreign school certificate does not clearly show the subjects studied, the applicant shall provide a document stating the content and scope of programmes he/she studied. The only exception applies to citizens from countries, which the Czech Republic concluded an agreement on mutual recognition of equivalence of educational documents with (the list of these states can be found here ). Time limit for issuing of a decision by the relevant university regarding the granting or non-granting of the nostrification is 30 days, which can be in difficult cases extended for additional 30 days. This means that the procedure of applying for a work permit will be much longer and complicated than procedure up to now.
This basically means, that if a non-EU foreigner has a foreign school certificate from a field that is not offered by Czech university programmes, he/she might have problems to obtain a nostrification of his/her diploma. This can greatly influence Czech labor market and also economy, because from now on local employers will not have chance to hire a foreign professional, who has an education in an area that is not possible to study here.