Selling a flat in Czechia, step by step

Selling a flat in Czechia takes from a few weeks to a few months once you've found a buyer. You stay the owner until the land register (katastr nemovitostí) enters the buyer, and that entry counts from the day the application reached the office.¹ Until then the price waits in escrow, so neither side can walk off with the other's money. This guide takes the steps in order, then the tax, and then the special cases: a mortgage, a tenant and a cooperative flat. It isn't legal or tax advice: have a lawyer draft or read the contract.

How long does a sale take?

Step 1: Set the asking price

Start with what similar flats nearby ask: the same layout, a similar size and condition, close to yours. The price check does that for any address in Czechia. Type yours, pick the layout and the size, and get a free estimate of the flat's asking price and rent, with the range and the flats behind it:

Try itPrice check: pick a place on the map, then describe the home.

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Karte. Klick, um die Immobilie zu platzieren; die ähnlichen Immobilien sind nummeriert.

Such eine Adresse oder klick auf die Karte, um die Immobilie zu platzieren.

Such eine Adresse oder klick auf die Karte, um die Immobilie zu platzieren.

An asking price isn't the price you'll sign. Buyers compare, and a flat priced well above its neighbours waits. Here's how asking prices for two-room flats in Prague have moved:

If your buyer takes a mortgage, their bank has the flat valued by its own valuer, and it lends on that value, not on the price you agreed. A free estimate from the listings doesn't replace that, and neither does an agent's opinion. Is the asking price fair? explains how buyers read a price. The price check shows the rent too. If that tempts you to keep the flat, letting a flat in Czechia covers the lease and the tax on rent.

Step 2: Get the energy certificate (PENB)

The energy certificate (průkaz energetické náročnosti budovy, PENB) rates the whole building from A to G. As the owner of a flat in a block, you have four duties:⁴

• Ask for it in writing. Ask the owners' association (SVJ) or the building's administrator for the building's certificate, and keep proof you asked.
• Show it before signing. Show it, or a copy, to a buyer before you sign anything.
• Hand it over at signing. Give it, or a copy, to the buyer at the latest when you sign.
• Put the class in every listing. State the energy class in every ad, and give your agent the certificate's graphic page.

The association must hand it over within 30 days if it has one, or within 60 days if it has to have one made.² If it doesn't hand it over after your written request, you can use the flat's electricity, gas and heat bills for the last 3 years instead. In that case you don't have to state the class in your ads.⁵ An agent who has no certificate must state the worst class, G.⁴

A certificate is valid for 10 years, or until a major renovation or a change of the heating, cooling or hot-water system. Only a registered energy specialist can make one.⁶ The Ministry of Industry and Trade publishes the list of specialists.⁷ Listed cultural monuments and buildings in a heritage reserve don't need a certificate.⁸ Neither does a building built and last majorly altered before 1947, if you and the buyer both agree to that in writing.⁹ A unit owner who breaks these duties can be fined up to 200,000 Kč (2026).¹⁰

Buyers read the certificate beside the building type. Panel, brick and the energy label explains what each class means.

Step 3: Choose an agent, or sell it yourself

What an agent's contract must say

A contract with a real estate agent (realitní makléř) must be in writing. If it isn't, you can claim it's invalid. Only you can make that claim, not the agent.¹¹ It must name the flat, the price you want and the commission or how it's worked out. Without these, the contract is invalid on the same terms.¹² The agent must carry liability insurance and show you the policy if you ask.¹³

Before you sign, get these in writing:

• Whether it's exclusive. The law doesn't define an exclusive contract (výhradní smlouva). It's what the contract says: who else may sell the flat, and whether you owe the commission if you find the buyer yourself.
• How long it runs and how you end it. If the contract sets no term, either side can end it by notice.¹⁴ If you sell later to a buyer the agent found, the commission can still be due.¹⁵
• The commission and when it's due. Unless the contract says otherwise, it's due on the day the brokered contract is signed. If it's signed with a condition, it's due when the condition is met.¹⁶ An agreed commission is presumed to include the agent's costs.¹⁷
• What the agent does. Pricing, listings and marketing, viewings and the building's documents are the usual services. For the contract and the escrow, the agent arranges a lawyer, a notary or a bank.¹⁸
• Whether the agent also charges the buyer. The agent must tell you what commission it has agreed with the other side.¹⁹ An agent who works for the buyer against your contract loses the commission.²⁰

An agent may not offer escrow. It may hold the price only if you ask in writing on a separate document, under a written contract, in a separate account for each payer, and never in cash.²¹

Selling without an agent

You can sell a flat yourself. The duties above stay yours: the energy class in every listing and the certificate at signing.⁴ You write the listing, show the flat and agree the price. Pay a lawyer to draft the reservation agreement and the purchase contract, hold the escrow and file with the land register. That's the part that protects the money.

Step 4: Reserve and sign

A buyer who wants the flat usually signs a reservation agreement (rezervační smlouva) and pays a reservation fee. You then take the flat off the market for an agreed time. Write down what happens to the fee if the buyer's mortgage falls through, if the papers show a problem or if you pull out.

The purchase contract (kupní smlouva) must be in writing, with both signatures on the same document.²² It names the flat by its land register details, the price, how the price is paid through escrow, when the keys change hands and how any mortgage of yours is paid off. The signatures are usually officially verified, at a notary or a Czech POINT office, or by a lawyer's declaration that has the same effect.²³

Step 5: Take the price through escrow

The buyer pays the price to an escrow holder (úschova), not to you. There are three kinds:

The escrow contract says when the money is released to you. Usually that's once the land register shows the buyer as the owner, with no new entries against the flat. If the entry is refused, the money goes back to the buyer.

Step 6: The land register

The application for entry (návrh na vklad) goes to the cadastre office with the signed contract, usually filed by the lawyer. The fee is 2,000 Kč per application (2026). The contract says who pays it.²⁶ The office marks the flat as having a change pending, and tells you, as the current owner, at the latest the next day.²⁷ It may enter the buyer no sooner than 20 days after sending that notice.³ Once entered, the buyer is the owner from the day the application reached the office.¹

ČÚZK, which runs the land register, publishes each month how long entries take, so check it before you agree a moving date.²⁸ There's no transfer tax on the sale: it was abolished in 2020.²⁹

Step 7: Hand over the keys

At the handover you give the buyer the keys and you both sign a handover record (předávací protokol). It lists the meter readings, the keys and anything you've agreed to leave. The handover record fills one in for you. Then end your energy contracts and tell the building's administrator.

Property tax follows ownership on 1 January. You pay the whole year's tax for the year you sell, and the buyer pays from the next year.³⁰

Do you pay tax on the sale?

Income from selling a flat is taxed as other income, unless an exemption applies.³¹ Under the 2026 rules, these sales are tax-free:³²

"Lived there" means it was your home (bydliště). A flat that includes no non-residential space other than a garage, a cellar or a storage room counts, with the land that goes with it. If you and your spouse own the flat jointly, it's enough that one of you meets the conditions.³² The holding period isn't broken when co-owners split the property, when the building is divided into units or when a couple settles its joint property.³⁴ If you inherited the flat from your spouse or a relative in the direct line, such as a parent or a grandparent, their years of ownership count towards your 10 (or 5).³²

The exemptions don't apply to a flat you held as a business asset, within 2 years (the home rule) or 10 years (the other rule) of taking it out of the business. Nor do they apply to a future sale agreed within 2 years (the home rule) or 10 years (the other rule) of acquiring the flat, even if the purchase contract is signed later.³² For a flat you acquired before 2021, read 5 years for 10 in both cases.³³

Spending the money on your own housing

Your own housing (vlastní bytová potřeba) includes buying a flat or a house, building one, repairing it and paying off a loan you took for these.³⁵ You must spend the money by the end of the tax year after the year you received it, or have spent it already, but no earlier than the year before.³⁶ Tell the tax office that you received the money by the deadline for that year's tax return.³⁷ If you don't spend it in time, the unspent part becomes taxable income in the following year.³⁸

There's no yearly cap on a home sale

In 2025 a cap of 40,000,000 Kč a year applied to tax-free income from selling shares, securities and crypto-assets. A cooperative share was within it, but a flat in personal ownership never was. From 2026 the cap applies only to crypto-assets.³⁹

Report a large tax-free sale

If a single tax-free income, such as this sale's price, is more than 5,000,000 Kč (2026), report it to the tax office by the tax return deadline for the year you received it. You don't have to if the tax office publishes that it can see it in the public registers.⁴⁰ For a couple, one of you reports. If you forget, the fine is 0.1% of the income if you report late on your own, 10% after the tax office asks you, and 15% if you never do.⁴¹

If the sale is taxable

You pay income tax on the price minus your costs: what you paid for the flat, the cost of its improvements and repairs, and the costs of the sale, such as the agent's commission. If you depreciated the flat while letting it, its remaining tax value is the cost instead.⁴² A loss doesn't reduce your other income.⁴³ The rate is 15%, and 23% on the part of your yearly income above 36 times the average wage.⁴⁴ File your return within 3 months of the year's end, 4 if you file online and 6 through a tax adviser.⁴⁵ If you aren't tax-resident in the EU or EEA, a company buying from you may have to hold back 10% of the price as security for your tax. Ask a tax adviser.⁴⁶ As a foreigner, read taxes for foreigners first: where you're resident changes what you file.

Selling a flat with a mortgage

You can sell a flat that still has a mortgage on it. The buyer's money pays off your loan first, and you get the rest:

1. Ask your bank for a payoff statement. It must tell you promptly what you owe, the early repayment fee it expects and its conditions.⁴⁷
2. Agree the order in the contract. The escrow pays the bank first. The bank then confirms it releases its mortgage (zástavní právo), and the land register deletes it.
3. Check the fee. Your bank can't charge a fee for repaying a housing loan early when you sell the flat that secures it, if at least 24 months have passed since you signed the loan.⁴⁸ Before that, it may charge its reasonable costs, within the limits the law sets.⁴⁹ Even then, repaying is free while your rate isn't fixed, within 3 months of the bank telling you a new rate, and for up to 25% of the loan in the month before each anniversary of the contract.⁵⁰

If the buyer takes a mortgage too, their bank pays its part into the escrow once its own conditions are met. Ask your lawyer to line the two banks up early. That's where sales with mortgages lose time.

Selling a flat with a tenant

A lease doesn't end when you sell. The tenant's rights and duties pass to the buyer with the flat.⁵¹ You can't end a lease because you're selling, and a clause in the lease that says otherwise doesn't count.⁵² The buyer is bound by extra promises you made the tenant only if they knew of them, so give the buyer the lease and everything you've agreed in writing.⁵³

• The deposit goes with the lease. The buyer will owe the tenant the deposit at the end. Agree in the purchase contract that you hand it over, with any interest.⁵⁴
• Viewings need the tenant's cooperation. The law lets you in to inspect the flat and to repair it, with notice.⁵⁵ Agree viewing times with the tenant, and keep them to a minimum.
• Tell the tenant who the new owner is, where to pay the rent from which month, and how to reach them.

A flat with a tenant suits a buyer who wants to let it. A buyer who wants to live there needs the lease to end first, by notice on a reason the law names. The Czech lease, clause by clause covers those reasons.

Selling a cooperative flat

A cooperative flat (družstevní byt) isn't real estate you own. You sell your share in the cooperative, which carries the right to lease the flat. The sale is a transfer contract between you and the buyer. It takes effect towards the cooperative when the cooperative receives it, and nothing goes to the land register.⁵⁶ Even after the transfer, you stay liable, alongside the buyer, for debts tied to the share.⁵⁷ The cooperative can't block a transfer to a buyer who meets its articles' conditions for membership.⁵⁸

Selling a cooperative share is tax-free if you held it for more than 5 years. If you inherited it from your spouse or a relative in the direct line, their years count too. Within 5 years, the profit is taxable, and the home rule above doesn't apply to it.⁵⁹ Buyers check the cooperative's papers before they pay. Buying a cooperative flat lists what they ask for, so have it ready.

Sources

1. Cadastre Act (Act 256/2013 Coll.), §10, and Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §1105. ↩ ↩²

2. Energy Management Act (Act 406/2000 Coll.), §7a(2)(f). ↩ ↩²

3. Cadastre Act (Act 256/2013 Coll.), §18(1). ↩ ↩²

4. Energy Management Act (Act 406/2000 Coll.), §7a(3). ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Energy Management Act (Act 406/2000 Coll.), §7a(7). ↩

6. Energy Management Act (Act 406/2000 Coll.), §7a(4). ↩

7. Ministry of Industry and Trade, list of energy specialists, mpo.gov.cz. ↩

8. Energy Management Act (Act 406/2000 Coll.), §7a(5). ↩

9. Energy Management Act (Act 406/2000 Coll.), §7a(10). ↩

10. Energy Management Act (Act 406/2000 Coll.), §12(1)(i) and §12(2)(a), as in force in 2026. ↩

11. Real Estate Brokerage Act (Act 39/2020 Coll.), §9. ↩

12. Real Estate Brokerage Act (Act 39/2020 Coll.), §10. ↩

13. Real Estate Brokerage Act (Act 39/2020 Coll.), §7 and §8. ↩

14. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2453. ↩

15. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2454. ↩

16. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2447. ↩

17. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2449. ↩

18. Real Estate Brokerage Act (Act 39/2020 Coll.), §3(2). ↩

19. Real Estate Brokerage Act (Act 39/2020 Coll.), §12. ↩

20. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2450. ↩

21. Real Estate Brokerage Act (Act 39/2020 Coll.), §4. ↩

22. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §560 and §561(2). ↩

23. Cadastre Act (Act 256/2013 Coll.), §7(2), and Advocacy Act (Act 85/1996 Coll.), §25a. ↩

24. Advocacy Act (Act 85/1996 Coll.), §52e(1) and §52g. ↩

25. Notarial Code (Act 358/1992 Coll.), §81(1)(c) and (2). ↩

26. Administrative Fees Act (Act 634/2004 Coll.), annex, item 120, as in force in 2026. ↩

27. Cadastre Act (Act 256/2013 Coll.), §16(1). ↩

28. ČÚZK, monthly statistics of the cadastre offices, cuzk.gov.cz. ↩

29. Act 386/2020 Coll., Article I(1), in force from 26 September 2020. ↩

30. Property Tax Act (Act 338/1992 Coll.), §12c and §13b(1). ↩

31. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §10(1)(b). ↩

32. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §4(1)(a) and (b), as in force in 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

33. Act 386/2020 Coll., Article IV(2): for property acquired before 1 January 2021, Income Tax Act §4(1)(b) applies as in force until 31 December 2020. ↩ ↩²

34. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §4(2). ↩

35. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §4b(1). ↩

36. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §4b(2). ↩

37. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §4b(3). ↩

38. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §4b(4). ↩

39. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §4(3), as in force in 2025 (covering §4(1)(q), (u) and (zk)) and in 2026 (covering §4(1)(zk) only). ↩

40. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §38v. ↩

41. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §38w. ↩

42. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §10(5). ↩

43. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §10(4). ↩

44. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §16. ↩

45. Tax Code (Act 280/2009 Coll.), §136(1) and (2). ↩

46. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §38e(1)(c) and §22(1)(d). ↩

47. Consumer Credit Act (Act 257/2016 Coll.), §117(6). ↩

48. Consumer Credit Act (Act 257/2016 Coll.), §117(3)(e). ↩

49. Consumer Credit Act (Act 257/2016 Coll.), §117(2), (4) and (5), and §117a. ↩

50. Consumer Credit Act (Act 257/2016 Coll.), §117(3)(c), (d) and (h). ↩

51. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2221(1). ↩

52. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2222(1) and §2224. ↩

53. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2221(2). ↩

54. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2221(1) and §2254(2). ↩

55. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2219(1). ↩

56. Business Corporations Act (Act 90/2012 Coll.), §601(2) and §610(d), and Cadastre Act (Act 256/2013 Coll.), §3(1). ↩

57. Business Corporations Act (Act 90/2012 Coll.), §601(1). ↩

58. Business Corporations Act (Act 90/2012 Coll.), §735(1) and §736(1). ↩

59. Income Tax Act (Act 586/1992 Coll.), §4(1)(q) and §10(1)(c). ↩