Ending a lease: notice template and deadlines

To end a Czech lease with no end date, you give three months' notice in writing, and the three months start on the first day of the month after your landlord receives it. So the day the notice arrives decides the day you leave: a letter that lands on 1 November instead of 31 October costs you a month's rent. A lease with an end date simply ends on it. The tool works out each date, checks a notice your landlord gave you, dates your deposit and prints your letter in Czech.

How to use the tool

Pick the tab that fits.

1. I want to leave. Say whether your lease has an end date. If it hasn't, choose how the notice reaches your landlord, by hand, by post or by post abroad, and the day you hand it over or post it.
2. My landlord gave me notice. Put in the day it reached you, then answer the questions about its form and its reason.
3. Getting the deposit back. Put in the day you hand the flat over and the end of the billing period for the service charges, usually 31 December of the year you move out.

Each tab keeps its dates in the page's address, so you can share the result. Below it, a letter fills in from your details, which never go into the address: your notice, an offer to end a lease with an end date by agreement, or a request for the deposit.

Reading the result

I want to leave. The big date is your lease's last day, which is also your handover day. Under it are the day your notice counts as delivered, the day the notice period starts and the last day to send it for the same end. A green box shows if ending a month sooner is still possible. For a lease with an end date, the tool shows when it ends, how to leave sooner and when staying on renews it.

My landlord gave me notice. The tool says either “It has what the law asks for” or “This notice doesn't hold”, with each fault and its section. Then come the day the lease would end, the handover day and the last day to ask a court. It checks the notice's form, not whether its reason is true: that's for a court. A notice that reached you on Monday 2 November 2026 gives you until Monday 4 January 2027, since 2 January is a Saturday.

Getting the deposit back. You get the day the deposit is due, the latest day the service charges' settlement may arrive, and the latest day its money must be paid.

A worked example

Say it's Sunday 25 October 2026. Your lease has no end date, you'd like to be out by the end of January, and you plan to post your notice on Tuesday 27 October.

• Delivered. Wednesday 28 October is a public holiday and weekends don't count, so the third working day is Monday 2 November.
• The notice period runs from 1 December, for three months.
• The lease ends on 28 February 2027, a month later than you wanted.

The tool flags it under “A month sooner”: post it by Monday 26 October and the lease ends on 31 January 2027. Handing it to your landlord by Saturday 31 October does the same.

So you post on Monday 26 October and hand the flat over on 31 January 2027, a Sunday, at a time you agree with your landlord. On “Getting the deposit back”, put in 31 January 2027 and a billing period ending 31 December 2027:

• The deposit is due back on 31 January 2027, with interest, less anything you owe.
• The service charges for 2027 must be settled by 2 May 2028: four months after the year's end is Sunday 30 April, and 1 May is a public holiday.
• The money must follow by 4 September 2028 at the latest, if the settlement comes on its last day.

The last of your money can come more than a year and a half after you leave. Give your landlord an address and an account that will still work then.

The rules behind it

Your notice. A lease with no end date ends on three months' notice from either side, and yours needn't give a reason.¹ It must be in writing and reach your landlord, and the period runs from the first day of the month after it does.² A posted letter is presumed delivered on the third working day after posting, or the fifteenth if it goes abroad, unless it arrives sooner.³ Working days skip weekends and Czechia's thirteen public holidays.⁴

A lease with an end date. It ends on its date. You can give notice before then only if things changed so much that you can't reasonably be asked to stay.⁵ If you stay at least three months past the end and your landlord doesn't ask you in writing to leave, it renews for the same term, at most two years.⁶

A landlord's notice. A landlord may give three months' notice only for a reason the law lists, such as a gross breach of the lease. Moving in, or moving a relative in, counts only on a lease with no end date, and a landlord who then doesn't use the flat that way within a month of you leaving must let it to you again or pay your losses.⁷ The notice must state its reason and tell you that you may object and ask a court to review it, or it's invalid. You have two months from receiving it to go to court, moved to the next working day if they end on a day off.⁸ For an especially serious breach, and only after asking you to put it right, a landlord may end the lease with no notice period: you then hand the flat back within a month.⁹

The deposit and the service charges. When the lease ends, your landlord returns the deposit with interest from the day you paid it, at least at the statutory rate, less what you owe from the lease.¹⁰ The service charges are settled within four months of the billing period's end, and the money paid within four months of the settlement reaching you. You have 30 days to ask for the bills behind it and to object, and a late settlement costs the landlord up to 50 Kč a day.¹¹

Mistakes people make

• Counting three months from the day you write. The period starts on the 1st of the month after the notice arrives, so notice given mid-month runs for about three and a half months.
• Keeping no proof of the day it arrived. Without a signed copy or a delivery note, it's your word against your landlord's.
• Ignoring a notice that looks invalid. The two months for going to court run anyway. Answer in writing, and talk to a tenants' association or a lawyer before the deadline.
• Leaving without a handover record. The record of the flat's state and the meter readings is what the deposit is settled on.

What to do next

On the day you leave, fill in the handover record with your landlord. Check your last settlement with the service-charge check, and if your landlord keeps part of the deposit for a repair, the repair check shows whose it was. Read how a Czech lease works for the rest, and move-in costs adds up the cash for your next flat. Signing a new lease? The lease template prints a whole Czech lease with English under each clause, and leaves out what the law disregards.

If the deposit doesn't come back, getting your deposit back explains what can come off it, how the interest works and how to claim it in court.

Moving out? Our guide to moving house in Prague covers the moving firm, parking the van, bulky waste and reporting your new address.

Sources

1. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2231. ↩

2. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2286(1). ↩

3. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §573. ↩

4. Public Holidays Act (245/2000 Coll.) §1 and §2. ↩

5. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2287. ↩

6. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2285. ↩

7. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2289. ↩

8. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2286(2), §2288 and §2290, with §605 and §607 for the last day. ↩

9. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2291. ↩

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

11. Act 67/2013 Coll. on services connected with the use of flats, §7, §8 and §13. ↩