How to Pay Bills Like a Pro

Utility bills and rent

Your monthly payments to your landlord will consist of agreed monthly rent and utility payments. In some cases, utilities are included into monthly rent, which means you transfer money to the landlord and he/she proceeds with the payment to the provider. A different situation is, when the utility payments have been transfered from the actual apartment owner to the tenant (yourself). In this case, every month, apart from paying the rent to the owner, you’ll be proceeding payments to the electricity, gas and Internet providers.

How to pay

And what are the ways to proceed your payment, whether it’s monthlyrent or utilities?

• Bank transfer. To use this method you first need to open a bank account in one of the Czech banks.
• Online. This only works for paying energies or Internet fees. Some companies do provide an option to proceed a payment online with your credit card. Each month you should receive an email with a link for credit card payment. This is probably the fastest option, however, only a limited amount of providers offer it to customers.
• At the post office. If you don’t have a Czech bank account, there is also an option to pay cash at the post office. The payment can be processed at any Czech post office branch. A special form (složenka) needs to be filled in with name, address, bank account number of the receiver and the total amount you’d like to send. You then pay the amount in cash + some additional fee to the post office.
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Pay like a pro

No wonder, if at first you feel lost among all the opportunities. It usually pays off to get some expert help. Foreigners.cz can help you arrange a SIPO or assist you while opening a bank account. SIPO is a service provided by the Czech Post, allowing to associate several payments from various companies (electricity, gas or Internet) into a single payment, which will be deducted monthly from payer’s account. So no stress, together we’ll manage the bills like pros 🙂