Refinancing a mortgage in Czechia: what to do when your fixed rate ends

When the fixed rate on your mortgage ends, the bank sets a new rate for the next period, and you choose what to do. You can take it, negotiate, pay part of the loan off, or move the loan to another bank (refinancování). The bank must send its new rate at least three months before the fixation ends. For three months after it does, you can repay the loan or move it without a fee. Outside that window, the law caps what the bank may charge.

What happens when your fixed rate ends?

A Czech mortgage runs for decades, but its rate is fixed only for a period, the fixation (fixace). When the fixation ends, the loan carries on with a new rate for the next period. Czech has a word for each way forward:¹

• Refixace: you stay with your bank, at the new rate it offers or one you agree.
• Refinancování: a new loan from another bank pays off the old one.

So you have four choices:

1. Accept your bank's new rate.
2. Negotiate with your bank: a better rate, a different fixation or a different term.
3. Repay part of the loan, or all of it, from your savings.
4. Move the loan to another bank.

You can combine them: pay part off and move the rest, for example. The law gives you a window to do any of them without a fee.

When must the bank send its new rate?

For a mortgage whose rate is fixed for at least a year, followed by another fixed period of at least a year, the bank must tell you at the latest three months before the fixation ends:²

• the new rate;
• the new instalment;
• the new number and frequency of instalments, if they change.

Keep the letter and note the date it reached you, because the fee-free window counts from it. If nothing has come three months before the end, ask your bank in writing.

Read what your contract says happens if you don't reply. The loan may simply carry on at the rate in the letter, so doing nothing is a choice too.

When can you repay or move the loan without a fee?

You may repay a mortgage, in full or in part, at any time, and what you pay off early stops costing you interest.³ In these cases the bank can't charge you anything for it:⁴

The three months run from the bank's letter, not from the end of the fixation. That's how the law is written.⁴ A letter that comes exactly three months ahead gives you until the fixation ends. One that comes earlier closes the window sooner, and a late one moves it later. Plan the repayment or the move inside it.

Your contract may allow more than the law does. It can't allow less.⁵

What can the bank charge outside those windows?

Only the costs it reasonably incurs because you repay early, and the law caps them.⁶ For a mortgage taken to buy, build or renovate a home, or to repay such a loan, and for a building-savings loan (úvěr ze stavebního spoření), the charge can't exceed any of these:⁷

• 0.25 % of what you repay for each year, or part of a year, left in the fixation, and never more than 1 % of it;
• the interest you'd have paid on it until the fixation ends;
• the bank's costs worked out as the law sets: its administrative costs of at most 1,000 Kč (as in force in 2026), plus the interest it loses.

The interest the bank loses is the interest you'd have paid until the fixation ends, less the interest you'd pay at ČNB's average rate for comparable loans. ČNB publishes those averages every month.⁸ If the average is above your rate, the bank loses nothing by getting its money back early, and the charge falls to its administrative costs or less.

For a loan secured on a home but not taken for housing, such as an American mortgage (americká hypotéka), the cap is 1 % of what you repay. When a year or less is left until the loan's agreed end, the cap is 0.5 %. Neither may exceed the interest until the fixation ends.⁹

These caps, the free repayment on a sale or on settling spouses' property, and the free first 25 % of a larger anniversary repayment have applied since 1 September 2024. For a mortgage signed before then, they apply from the first fixation that began after that date. In an earlier fixation, the bank may charge its reasonable costs, up to the interest until the fixation ends.¹⁰

Ask for the figures before you decide. Tell your bank you intend to repay early. It must then send you, without undue delay:¹¹

• what you'd owe, split into principal, interest and costs;
• the charge it expects, and how it worked it out;
• what else repaying early means for you, including when it may charge nothing.

Stay with your bank or move to another?

Both can be right. Here's how they compare:

Staying is simpler. Moving is how you find out whether your bank's offer is any good. Use both: ask other banks for written offers first, then take the best one to your bank. It may match the offer, or you may move.

Before you sign a new mortgage, the bank must give you a European Standardised Information Sheet (ESIS).¹⁶ Don't compare only the rate, or even the annual percentage rate of charge (RPSN), which counts the fees as well as the interest. Above all, work out the total you'd repay, as ČNB advises.¹⁷

Think about the length of the next fixation too. A short one brings the next fee-free window sooner. A long one keeps your payment the same for longer.

If your home is worth less now than when you bought it, that alone doesn't stop a move. ČNB's binding cap on how much a bank may lend against a home's value doesn't apply to a new loan no bigger than the principal you still owe on loans secured on the same home.¹⁸ Add fees or anything else to the new loan, and the cap applies. The new bank still values the home and applies its own rules.

What does moving to another bank involve?

1. Offers. Ask other banks, or an adviser, for written offers, each with its ESIS.
2. The payoff figures. Tell your current bank you intend to repay early and ask for the figures above.
3. The application. The new bank checks your income, your debts and your papers.
4. The valuation. The new bank's valuer (odhadce) values the home. Before the loan contract, a bank may charge you only taxes, official fees and the reasonable cost of the valuation. If you pay for the valuation, it must give you the result and the reasons for it.¹³
5. The contract and the new lien. You sign the loan contract and a pledge agreement (zástavní smlouva), and an application to enter the new bank's lien (zástavní právo) goes to the cadastre. The lien exists once it's entered.¹⁹ The cadastre office may enter it no sooner than 20 days after it tells the owner about the application.²⁰ The contract says when the new bank pays out.
6. Your current bank's consent. If your bank also registered a ban on selling or encumbering the home (zákaz zcizení a zatížení), the cadastre can't enter a new lien without its consent. Part C of your title sheet (list vlastnictví) shows whether there's one. Your loan contract may require its consent even if there isn't, so ask your bank early.²¹
7. The payoff. The new bank pays off the old loan, usually straight to your current bank. When the debt ends, so does the old lien.²²
8. The deletion. Your current bank must ask the cadastre, without undue delay, to delete its lien, and its ban on selling or encumbering if it registered one, unless your contract says otherwise. You can also apply yourself with its written confirmation that the lien has ended. If it won't confirm that when you ask, it answers for the damage.²³ Each application costs 2,000 Kč in 2026.¹⁴

Afterwards, check part C of your title sheet. A lien still entered after the loan is paid is a defect on the home, and it gets in the way when you sell.²⁴

When should you start?

The law sets the fixed points: the bank's letter at least three months before the end, three fee-free months after it, and at least 20 days at the cadastre for the new lien. The new bank adds its own time for the application and the valuation.

So don't wait for the letter. Find the date your fixation ends in your loan contract. In the months before it, ask other banks or an adviser for offers, and have a new loan ready to sign when your bank writes. Six months before the end leaves time to compare, and to move without hurry.

Should you pay off more at the end of the fixation?

The fee-free window is the time to do it. Any part you repay stops costing interest. Before you do:

• Keep a reserve. Money paid into the loan is hard to get back out.
• Ask what changes. Ask the bank whether a part repayment lowers the instalment or shortens the loan, and pick the one you want if you can.
• Mind the anniversary. If you miss the window, you can still repay up to 25 % of what you borrowed each year without a fee, in the month before the anniversary of your contract.⁴

Should you add other loans to the mortgage?

Refinancing is a chance to fold a car loan or a credit card into the mortgage, at a mortgage's rate and over its term. The instalment falls. Be careful all the same:

• You may pay more in all. A debt spread over decades costs interest for decades. Compare the total you'd repay, not just the instalment.
• Your home secures all of it. If you fall behind, the bank can enforce against your home for the car loan too.
• It's a bigger loan. Once the new loan is larger than the principal you still owe on loans secured on the home, ČNB's binding cap on lending against its value applies again,¹⁸ and the bank checks again whether you can repay.¹²
• Different rules may apply. When a loan is partly for housing and partly for something else, its main purpose decides which rules apply to it, including the caps on early repayment charges. If the main purpose can't be determined, the rules for a loan not taken for housing apply, with their higher cap.²⁵

What can a mortgage adviser do?

Refinancing is where an adviser earns their place. A good one:

• asks several lenders for offers and sets them beside your bank's letter;
• tells you which lenders they compared, and how they're paid;
• arranges the valuation and the papers;
• coordinates the payoff, the new lien and the deletion of the old one with both banks.

An adviser is paid a commission by the lender or a fee by you, never both. Before the loan contract, they may charge you only taxes, official fees and the reasonable cost of a valuation.²⁶ Check them in ČNB's register before you share your papers. Our guide to choosing a mortgage adviser explains how, and what to ask at the first meeting.

Is your fixed rate ending? Bytky doesn't arrange loans, but it's choosing a few mortgage advisers registered with the ČNB. Leave your details and we'll write to you when one is ready:

What if you're a foreigner?

Much may have changed since your first mortgage. Before you move the loan, think about:

• Your residence. A new bank assesses you as a new applicant, with the residence permit you have now and the time left on it. Each bank sets its own rules. Staying with your bank can be simpler, since the law requires the full check only for a new contract or a significantly larger loan.¹²
• Income in another currency. Each bank weighs it its own way, and the exchange rate decides what your instalment costs you. Ask each bank how it counts your income.
• Papers. Ask which papers the new bank needs translated, and whether it wants certified translations (úřední překlad).
• The Czech. The offer, the ESIS and the contract are usually in Czech. Ask whether the bank will give them to you in English too.

What banks ask of foreign applicants, and how much ČNB lets them lend, is in getting a mortgage in Czechia as a foreigner.

Work out the new payment

The mortgage calculator shows what a rate and a term mean for the monthly payment, and what you'd still owe year by year. Try the rate in your bank's letter, then the rates in the offers you have.

Sources

1. Czech National Bank, Refixace a refinancování hypoték, note 1. ↩

2. Consumer Credit Act (Act 257/2016 Coll.), §102(1) and (3). ↩

3. Consumer Credit Act, §117(1). ↩

4. Consumer Credit Act, §117(3)(a) to (h), as in force in 2026. The amount you borrowed is the "total amount of credit" under §3(2)(e). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §1812(2). ↩

6. Consumer Credit Act, §117(2). ↩

7. Consumer Credit Act, §2(2)(b) and (c), §117(4) and (5) and §117a(1) and (2), as in force in 2026. Czech National Bank, consumer credit, early repayment. ↩

8. Consumer Credit Act, §117a(1)(d), (f) and (g) and §117a(3). Czech National Bank, average interest rates under §117a. ↩

9. Consumer Credit Act, §117(4), first and second sentences, and §117(5). ↩

10. Act 462/2023 Coll., Art. XIV and XV(2). Czech National Bank, consumer credit, early repayment. ↩

11. Consumer Credit Act, §117(6). ↩

12. Consumer Credit Act, §86(1): a full check of whether you can repay before a loan contract, or before a significant increase in the amount lent. ↩ ↩² ↩³

13. Consumer Credit Act, §83(1) and (2). ↩ ↩²

14. Administrative Fees Act (Act 634/2004 Coll.), annex, item 120(a), as in force in 2026. ČÚZK, administrative fees. ↩ ↩²

15. Czech National Bank, official communication of 27 November 2025 on the risks of housing loans, recommendation C.2, applied from 1 April 2026. ↩

16. Consumer Credit Act, §95(2) and Annex 4. ↩

17. Czech National Bank, ten things to watch when taking out a loan, point 4. ↩

18. Act on the Czech National Bank (Act 6/1993 Coll.), §45a(1) and (3). ↩ ↩²

19. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §1316. Cadastre Act (Act 256/2013 Coll.), §11(1)(d). ↩

20. Cadastre Act, §16(1) and §18(1). ↩

21. Civil Code, §1761. Cadastre Act, §11(1)(n) and §17(1)(f). ↩

22. Civil Code, §1376. ↩

23. Civil Code, §1379. Cadastre Act, §11(1)(n). ↩

24. Civil Code, §1378. ↩

25. Consumer Credit Act, §2(4) and (5). ↩

26. Consumer Credit Act, §80, §83(1) and §93(1). See choosing a mortgage adviser. ↩