At the turn of May and June 2025, the Centre for Public Opinion Research of the Institute of Sociology of the CAS conducted a probabilistic Our Society Panel as part of its regular survey on a number of attitudes of the Czech public towards foreigners. This report is devoted to attitudes towards the settlement of foreigners, i.e. opinions on allowing foreigners to reside in the Czech Republic, the possibility of permanent settlement, opinions on the adequate proportion of foreigners living here, and under what circumstances it is acceptable or less acceptable to allow foreigners to reside here.
The most common opinion among the Czech public is that foreigners should be able to stay in the Czech Republic for a long-term, but only if certain conditions are met (87%), while only 7% of respondents expressed their support for the possibility of staying without conditions.
According to less than half (48%) of respondents, anyone who intends to come to the Czech Republic and live here should be allowed to do so. However, consent is overwhelmingly reluctant. The opposite view is expressed by the same proportion (48%) of the Czech public, but there is a significantly higher proportion of strongly negative responses.
The Czech public is divided into two similarly sized groups when it comes to the adequacy of the numbers of foreigners residing here. Half think that there are a reasonable number of foreigners living here (51%) and more than two-fifths (43%) think that there are too many foreigners living here. Only 2% think that there are too few foreigners living in the Czech Republic.
54% of Czechs have friends and acquaintances among foreigners living in the Czech Republic, and the most frequent friendships with foreigners are among university students and the 20-29 age group.
The survey also included questions on the perceived legitimacy of the seven reasons given for long-term residence of foreigners in the Czech Republic. All seven situations surveyed were perceived as legitimate reasons for long-term residence by more than three-fifths of Czech citizens. The most accepted reason was study or work experience (89% agreed), followed by justification of war, famine or natural disasters in the home country (81%) and long-term stay for employment (78%).
On the other hand, a quarter or more of respondents did not consider persecution in the home country for religious, racial, political or similar reasons (25%), business (28%) and more than a third disagreed with the simple preference that the potential new resident likes and wants to live here (35%) as a legitimate reason for long-term residence.
Due to a change in the CVVM survey methodology, the results of the present survey are not directly comparable to the results of previous surveys. More information about the new methodology can be found in this press release.
>> Full text is available in Czech only <<
- Download the full press release here: ov250724.pdf
- All reports from this survey: 25-05_2
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