Your rights as a tenant in Czechia

If you rent a flat to live in, the Civil Code gives you rights that your lease can't take away. A clause that cuts them is disregarded, as if it weren't there, even if you signed it. The same rules protect every tenant of a home, Czech or foreign. This page sets out each right, the rule behind it and the tool on Bytky that applies it. It isn't legal advice: for your own case, free legal help lists who can look at it with you.

Can a lease take these rights away?

No. The Civil Code's rules on leases of a home protect the tenant, and a clause that cuts your rights under them is disregarded. So is a clause that puts an obviously disproportionate duty on you.¹ The one exception is a flat let for a holiday or another obviously short stay.¹

The lease still matters where the law leaves the two of you to choose: the rent, how long the lease runs, how the rent rises and the deposit, within the limits below. How a Czech lease works goes through a lease clause by clause, and the lease template prints one that leaves out what the law disregards.

What does the law say about the deposit?

The deposit (kauce, or jistota in the Code) and any contractual penalties the lease sets can't add up to more than three months' rent. When the lease ends, your landlord returns it, keeping back only what you owe from the lease, and you're owed interest on it from the day you paid it.²

Beyond the rent, the service charges and a deposit within that cap, your landlord can't ask you for any other payment, whatever it's called.³ Getting your deposit back explains what can come off it and what to do if it doesn't come, and move-in costs checks a deposit against the cap before you pay.

When can your landlord come into the flat?

Only when they've told you in good time, and only as far as needed to inspect the flat or to repair or maintain it. Without notice, only to prevent damage or when delay would be dangerous, such as a burst pipe. If a visit causes you more than minor trouble, you're entitled to a rent discount.⁴

In the last three months of a lease whose end date you both know, you let people who'd like to rent the flat see it, with both you and your landlord there, after notice in good time.⁴ Entering your home without your consent or a lawful reason can be the crime of unlawful entry into a home.⁵

Who pays for repairs?

Your landlord keeps the flat and the building fit to live in. You pay only for routine upkeep and small repairs.⁶ A government regulation lists repairs that are small whatever they cost. Since 1 January 2026, any other repair is small if it costs up to 1,500 Kč, and once your small repairs in a calendar year pass 150 Kč per m² of the flat, further ones that year are your landlord's.⁷

• Report a defect: one that needs urgent repair at once, any other that stops normal living without undue delay.⁶
• If your landlord doesn't fix it without undue delay and properly, you can fix a substantial defect yourself and claim the reasonable cost, or ask for a rent discount.⁶
• Claim a discount within six months of when you found the defect or could have. Later, a court refuses it if your landlord objects. You can set off up to one month's rent against what you're owed.⁸

Report late and you lose the claim to the cost, and to a discount too if you fixed it yourself.⁶ The repair check says whose a repair is and prints the letter in Czech that reports a defect, claims the cost or asks for a discount.

How can your rent go up?

As your lease says, if it sets a yearly increase, often by inflation. If it says nothing about increases, your landlord can propose a rise in writing, up to the usual rent for similar flats nearby, and by no more than 20 % together with any rises in the last three years. A proposal within 12 months of the last rise, or one that doesn't give the new rent and show it meets these rules, is disregarded.⁹

You have two months from the proposal reaching you to agree in writing. If you don't, your landlord has three more months to ask a court to set the rent. If you agree, you pay the new rent from the third month after the proposal reached you.⁹ The rent increase check tests a proposal against these rules and drafts your reply in Czech.

What about the service charges?

Your landlord settles the year's advances against the real costs and delivers the settlement (vyúčtování) within four months of the billing period's end. You have 30 days from receiving it to ask for the bills behind it and to object, and your landlord answers within 30 days. Any overpayment or shortfall is paid within four months of the settlement reaching you. A late settlement, or a request left unanswered, can cost your landlord up to 50 Kč for each day it's late.¹⁰

The service-charge check works out these days for your settlement and prints your request or objection in Czech.

Can your landlord end the lease?

A lease with an end date simply ends then. If you stay on for three months after that and your landlord doesn't ask you in writing to leave, it's renewed for the same period, up to two years. Before the end date, or on a lease with no end date, your landlord can end it only for a reason the law names, given in writing. You can end a lease with no end date with three months' notice and no reason.¹¹

A landlord's notice must reach you in writing, name its reason and tell you that you can object and ask a court to review it, or it isn't valid. The notice period starts on the first day of the month after it reaches you, and you have two months from receiving it to go to court.¹¹ A notice without a notice period is disregarded if your landlord didn't first ask you to put things right.¹² End of lease checks a notice you've received against these rules.

Can your landlord lock you out or cut off your utilities?

No. Your landlord must let you use the flat undisturbed for the whole lease. The law allows someone to enforce their own right only when the authorities would come too late, and a landlord can always go to court.¹³ The law lets a landlord hold back your belongings in the flat for a debt, but no rule lets them keep you out of your home.¹³

• Changing the locks or keeping you out of your flat can be a crime, with up to two years in prison.¹⁴
• Cutting off your services: since 2026 only a housing co-operative or an owners' association can stop services, and only to its own member after three months' arrears.¹⁵ Your landlord can't, but if your landlord is the member who's behind, the cut reaches your flat.
• Going to court: you can sue for the disturbance within six weeks of learning of it and who did it, and within a year at most, and the court decides within 15 days, without a hearing if it isn't needed.¹⁶

The lawful way to make a former tenant leave runs through a court, and since 2026 it's faster: an eviction order gives you 15 days to leave or object.¹⁷ Problems with your landlord takes you through what to do, step by step.

Can a landlord refuse you because you're a foreigner?

Housing offered to the public is covered by the Anti-discrimination Act. Its grounds include race, ethnic origin, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability and religion or belief, and a court can order the discrimination to stop, its effects to be put right and compensation to be paid.¹⁸ The Public Defender of Rights says that turning someone away just because they're a foreigner is discrimination.¹⁹

The act names citizenship as a ground only in matters of free movement of workers, so how a court sees a refusal can depend on the case. When the refusal is about race or ethnic origin and you show facts that suggest discrimination, it's the landlord who has to prove they didn't discriminate.¹⁸ Free legal help lists who helps with discrimination, the Public Defender of Rights among them.

Who can live with you, and can you keep a pet?

You can take anyone into your household. Tell your landlord when more people move in: not telling them within two months is presumed to be a serious breach. A lease can require your landlord's consent to a new member, but not for close family, and the number of people must suit the flat's size.²⁰

If you live in the flat yourself, you can sublet part of it without asking. Subletting the whole flat needs your landlord's written consent.²⁰ You can keep an animal as long as it doesn't cause your landlord or your neighbours unreasonable trouble.²¹ Pets covers the rest.

What changed on 1 January 2026?

The deposit rules didn't change: the three-month cap has applied since 2017, with penalties inside it since 2020.²²

Sources

1. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2235 and §2239. ↩ ↩²

2. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2254. ↩

3. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2251(2). ↩

4. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2219 and §2233. ↩ ↩²

5. Criminal Code (Act 40/2009 Coll.), §178. ↩

6. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2257, §2264 and §2265. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

7. Government Regulation 308/2015 Coll., §5 and §6, as amended by Government Regulation 493/2025 Coll. from 1 January 2026. ↩ ↩²

8. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2208. ↩

9. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2248 and §2249. ↩ ↩²

10. Services Act (Act 67/2013 Coll.), §7, §8 and §13. ↩

11. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2231, §2285, §2286, §2288 and §2290. ↩ ↩²

12. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2291. ↩

13. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §14, §2205 and §2234. ↩ ↩²

14. Criminal Code (Act 40/2009 Coll.), §208(2). ↩

15. Services Act (Act 67/2013 Coll.), §9a. ↩ ↩²

16. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §1003, §1007 and §1008; Civil Procedure Code (Act 99/1963 Coll.), §176 and §177. ↩

17. Civil Procedure Code (Act 99/1963 Coll.), §175a, §195 and §196, in force from 1 January 2026. ↩ ↩² ↩³

18. Anti-discrimination Act (Act 198/2009 Coll.), §1(1)(j), §2(3) and §10; Civil Procedure Code (Act 99/1963 Coll.), §133a. ↩ ↩²

19. Public Defender of Rights, leaflet on equal treatment, January 2026. ↩

20. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2272, §2274 and §2275. ↩ ↩²

21. Civil Code (Act 89/2012 Coll.), §2258. ↩

22. Act 176/2025 Coll., art. XIV, adding §2239(2) to the Civil Code; Act 460/2016 Coll., art. I point 27; Act 163/2020 Coll., art. I. ↩ ↩²

23. Housing Support Act (Act 175/2025 Coll.), §10 to §12. ↩