#LifeInCzechia Do you have a TV or/and a radio in your home? Are you in Czechia on either long-term residence permit or a permanent residence permit? Then you’re most likely obligated to pay what we call “concessionary fees”. These fees are used to finance public television and radio institutions in Czechia and have to be paid monthly by every household and business that owns a TV or a radio. Read this article to learn more.

 

Some foreigners aren’t exempt from paying TV and radio fees in Czechia.

 

What are concessionary fees

Concessionary fees (also known as media fees) are used to finance the public TV and radio broadcast. They are collected from all those who receive TV or radio signals or own a medium that is capable of it. 

In Czechia, these fees finance the Czech TV (Česká televize) and the Czech Radio (Český rozhlas). (The rest of the Czech media (e.g. TV Nova or TV Prima) are owned privately and are therefore financed through advertisements.)

 

Some foreigners aren’t exempt

A large portion of foreigners living in Czechia need to pay these fees. Namely, if you’re in Czechia on either long-term residence permit (this includes e.g. employee cards/blue cards, long-term residency for the purposes of family reunifications, etc.) or have a permanent residence permit, you are obligated to participate!

Good to know: You have to pay these fees even if you own TV or radio but aren’t using them (even if they’re just gathering dust in your closet).

You can get an exemption. For example, if you don’t own a radio or a TV. If that’s your case, you still need to contact Czech TV and Czech Radio with the declaration of the word of honour that you don’t own these media so that they won’t think you owe them money. If you’re listening to the radio or TV through your computer or mobile phone rather than actual TV or radio, you don’t have to pay the fee either. Other groups who don’t have to pay the fee include low-income households (whose incomes are lower than 2.15 times the living minimum) and blind and deaf people.

 

How often, how much, and how to pay

Concessionary fees should be paid once a month. You have to sign up for them within 15 days from purchasing a TV or a radio or moving to a new address. 

The radio fees are currently 35 CZK per month and the TV fees are currently 135 CZK per month. Each household pays one fee regardless of how many people live in the apartment/house and regardless of how many radios or TVs you own. (By the way, there can be more than one household in one house, so make sure you know how many there are in yours.)

Businesses have to pay one fee for each medium they own.

Ready to start paying your concessionary fees? You need to sign up first. There are two options:

• You can sign up for both at Czech Post – they will give you all the instructions about how to make the payments
• You can sign up online by registering on two different portals. For TV fees, register and sign up here, for radio fees, register and sign up here.

GOOD TO REMEMBER:

• Don’t forget to notify each institution if you change your address. You can do so either at the post office or online on their portals.
• If you ever decide to move away from Czechia again, don’t forget to contact Czech TV and Czech Radio about cancelling your account! Otherwise, the institutions might see you as a debtor when you suddenly stop paying.

 

 

What happens if you don’t pay

We do not recommend ignoring this obligation. If these two institutions find out that you haven’t been paying the fees when you should have, you might need to pay a fee of 5 000 CZK to Czech Radio and 10 000 to Czech TV. You might have to pay these repeatedly until you rectify the issue. If you don’t pay them within the agreed-upon time frame, you could end up in court.

If you want to learn more about other mandatory fees, check out our article about dog fees and our article about waste fees. In the meantime, sign up for our newsletter to keep yourself informed about other aspects of Czech bureaucracy.

Picture source: Ketut Subyianto, pexels.com
Article source: pruvodcepodnikanim, Czech TV, Czech Radio