What it costs to live in Prague turns on one line more than any other: the rent. It's the biggest single cost of a month, and the one that changes most with the part of the city and the space you need. So the budget below starts from the median asking rent, with the charges, of the flats on offer in Prague today, for the size you pick and the part of the city you want. Every other line is an official figure: PID's fares, the radio and TV fees set in law, and what Czech households spent per person in the latest household budget survey of the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ). Pick your household and see the month add up.
What a month costs, household by household
Pick who lives with you, the size of flat you'd rent and, if you know it, the part of Prague. The rent and the total change as you go. Each line says where its figure comes from, with a link to the source.
The total is an estimate built from medians and averages. Half the flats on offer ask more than the median rent, half less, and what a flat finally lets for can differ from what it asks. The other lines describe an average household in Czechia, not yours. Treat the total as a starting point, then change the lines you know better.
Rent: the line that decides it
The rent in the budget is the median asking rent with the charges: the monthly advances for heating, hot water, water and the building's services that a Czech tenant pays on top of the rent. Comparing flats on rent and charges together is the only fair way, because a low rent with high charges can cost more than the other way round. What renting a flat in Prague really costs explains the charges, the deposit and the yearly settlement.
The table under the budget lists Prague's parts by their median rent for the size you picked, cheapest first. A part needs at least five flats of that size on offer to get a figure. When the part you picked has fewer, the budget uses all of Prague's median and says so. Each part links to its own page, with its market, transport and schools, and to its flats on the map.
To go the other way, from a salary to a rent, the salary to rent calculator shows what you can afford and where. The neighbourhood finder ranks Prague's neighbourhoods by your budget, your commute and what matters to you. For other Czech cities, rents and prices by city compares the same medians side by side.
Getting around: public transport
Prague's trams, metro, buses, the funicular and the ferries all run on one ticket system, PID. The budget counts an annual pass for Prague for each adult, spread over twelve months, because it's the cheapest way to travel every day.1 You buy it on a Lítačka card or in the PID Lítačka app.
Children travel free in Prague: from 6 to 10 without proof, and from 10 to 15 with proof of age, such as an ID with a photo or PID's own card for children.2 That's why a family's transport line counts only the two adults. Teenagers from 15 to 18, students up to 26 and people aged 60 to 65 get a reduced pass, and people over 65 ride free, each with proof.2 If that's you, your line is smaller than the one in the budget.
The budget leaves out a car. The pass stands for the transport line, and what a car costs to run depends too much on the car to put one figure on it.
Energy, phone and internet, and the fees
Heating, hot water and water from the building usually come with the charges, so they're already in the rent line. Electricity, and gas where a flat has its own, are contracts in your name with a supplier of your choice. Electricity, gas and internet in a Czech flat explains how to take them over, switch and read the bills.
The budget's electricity and gas lines are what households spent per person in the latest household budget survey, averaged over every home, with gas and without.3 A flat heated by its own gas boiler costs more in gas than the average, and one without gas costs nothing for it. Phone and internet are the survey's spending on mobile plans, home internet and bundles, per person.3
The radio and TV fees are set in law and paid once per household, by whoever in it owns a device that can play radio or television broadcasts.4 The budget counts both.
Food and everything else
Food is the survey's spending per person on food and soft drinks bought to eat at home.3 Meals out sit in the last line, “Everything else”, with clothes, furnishings, health, leisure, insurance, personal care, education, and phones and computers: everything households bought that the other lines don't cover.3 It leaves out what the budget counts elsewhere: housing and energy, transport, and phone and internet services.
These are national averages for the whole of Czechia, not Prague's, and they describe the survey year's prices. Read them as a floor: what an average household spends, not what Prague costs a newcomer who eats out often.
What the budget leaves out
- Moving in. Before the first month, you usually pay the deposit, the first rent and perhaps an agency's fee. The move-in costs calculator adds them up for a flat.
- The waste fee. Prague charges it per property, by the size of its bins. The owners' association, or the owner, pays it to the city and collects it from the people who live there.5 Ask the landlord whether your charges include it.
- Health insurance. An employee's comes out of their pay. If you're self-employed or outside the public system, you pay your own, and that varies too much to give one figure.
- The yearly settlement. The charges are advances, settled once a year against the real cost. A cold winter can turn them into a bill.
- Price rises since the survey. The survey's figures are the survey year's, as published. Bytky doesn't adjust them by a guess.
How much does it cost to live in Prague a month?
It depends mostly on the rent, so on the size of flat and the part of Prague. The budget on this page adds the median asking rent with the charges, live from the flats on offer today, to the cost of public transport, the radio and TV fees, and what Czech households spend per person on food, energy, phone and everything else.
Where do the figures come from?
The rent is Bytky's median of the flats on offer in Prague today, rent plus charges. The transport line is PID's annual pass, the fees are set in Act 348/2005 Coll., and the rest is the Czech Statistical Office's household budget survey, per person. Each line links to its source.
Why is the rent the asking rent?
Because it's the figure that's public and current. What a flat finally lets for can be lower or higher, and Bytky doesn't know it. The median shows the middle of the market: half the flats ask more, half less.
Do children pay for public transport in Prague?
No. Children travel free in Prague up to 15, from 10 with proof of age. That's why a family's transport line counts the adults only.
Is it cheaper to live outside the centre?
Usually the rent is, and the table of Prague's parts shows by how much for the size you pick. Weigh it against the commute: the neighbourhood finder ranks areas by your travel time and your budget together.
What isn't in the total?
Moving-in costs such as the deposit, the waste fee where the landlord passes it on, health insurance outside a payslip, a car, and price rises since the survey year.
Sources
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PID, fares from 1 January 2026: the annual pass for Prague (zones P, 0 and B) for an adult. ↩
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PID, discounts: children, juniors, students and seniors, and the proof each needs. ↩ ↩2
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Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ), household consumption expenditure, 2025 (Statistika rodinných účtů), table 1b: consumption expenditure per member of a household, all households. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
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Radio and TV Fees Act (Act 348/2005 Coll.), §3, §5 and §6, as in force from 1 January 2026. ↩
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Prague's ordinance no. 17/2021 on the local fee for leaving municipal waste from a property, §1, §2 and §4. ↩
