How many years to save the deposit?

Years to save the deposit asks the question most first-time buyers actually face: not whether a whole year's pay would buy a flat, but how long it takes to put together the part of the price a bank won't lend, plus the fees, out of what's left each month after rent and living. The tool works it out for each of Czechia's 77 districts (okresy) and, on a map of its own, for each of Prague's 57 city parts, for one person or two. This guide explains what the figure means, why it differs so much from place to place, and what it leaves out.

Why count years to save rather than years of pay?

Because nobody buys a flat with all of their pay. Most buyers borrow most of the price and save the rest, and they save it out of what's left after paying rent and living. Years of pay divides a flat's whole price by a whole year's pay, which is a fair way to compare prices with pay, but it says nothing about the wait. A good pay with little left at the month's end means a long wait, however good the pay looks. Counting what's left also compares places, and pay in different places, on a fairer footing, because tax, rent and living have already come off.

What does the deposit include?

The deposit is the part of the price a bank won't lend. The Czech National Bank limits a mortgage on a home to 80 % of its value, or 90 % for buyers under 36 buying a home they'll live in,¹ so you find a fifth of the price yourself, or a tenth. On top come the one-off costs: the cadastre fee, the escrow, a lawyer and the bank's valuation. There has been no tax on buying a home since 2020.² The tool adds these the way buying costs does, for the price of a typical flat of the size you pick in each place.

What does it count as left over each month?

Take-home pay, less the rent you pay while you save, less what you spend on everything else.

• Pay. Until you type yours, each district uses the take-home of its region's typical gross pay from the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ),³ under this year's rules for an employee without children. For two of you, two such pays. Every Prague city part uses Prague's. Type your pay, gross or take-home, and every place uses it.
• Rent. Until you type yours, the place's typical rent with charges: a one-room flat for one person, a two-room flat for two. Type what you really pay if you're staying put.
• Living. What a person in a working household without children spends a month on everything but the rent and its charges: food, energy, transport, clothes, phone, going out. It comes from ČSÚ's household budget survey,⁴ and it's counted for each of you. If you spend more or less, change it.

If you already know what you put aside each month, type that instead, and pay, rent and living costs step aside.

Why does the wait differ so much from place to place?

Because three things move at once: the price of the flat you save for, the rent you pay while you save, and the pay you save from. In the big cities flats ask far more, but rents are high too, so each month leaves less to put aside, and the two effects stack. In a town where flats and rents are both cheap, the deposit is smaller and more is left each month.

Here is Prague's market at a glance, and then Brno's:

Inside Prague the switch to the city-part map shows the same thing on a smaller scale. Every city part uses Prague's typical pay, so the gap between them is the gap in what flats ask and what they rent for. A city part where you'd rather rent while you save can be different from the one where you'd buy: type the rent you'd really pay.

What does this mean for me?

It turns a price into a plan: how long until you can sign, and what would shorten it.

• Put more aside. The readout shows what an extra amount each month would do to the wait in the place you're looking at.
• Rent somewhere cheaper while you save. Type a lower rent and see the years drop everywhere at once.
• Buy together. Two pays and one rent change the answer more than anything else.
• Look at a smaller flat or another place. Switch the size, or follow the map to the places where the wait is shorter.

Once you know the wait, the mortgage calculator shows what the rest would cost a month and whether a bank would lend it on your income.

What does years to save leave out?

• Interest and inflation. Savings may earn interest, and prices may grow faster than your savings while you wait. Either changes the wait.
• Pay rises. The figure assumes you put aside the same each month until you're there.
• Whether a bank would lend. Banks also check your income against the payments. The mortgage calculator works that out.
• Your own life. Children, a car loan or help from family all change what's left. Type your own living costs, or what you really put aside.
• Differences inside a place. A district's price is estimated from its region's, scaled by its own price per m². A Prague city part's is its own flats' typical asking price; where too few of its flats of a size are on offer, it's estimated from Prague's, scaled by how the city part's flats and its neighbours' compare. Asking prices can differ from what flats sell for.

This is how the asking price per m² of two-room flats in Prague has moved, the kind of change that can lengthen a wait:

How do I use it in a real decision?

1. Pick who's saving, type your take-home pay and the rent you'd pay while you save, and pick the size of flat you're saving for.
2. Find your place on the map, or switch to Prague's city parts, then look at the places you could live in instead.
3. Try what would shorten the wait: more aside each month, a cheaper rent, buying together or under 36.
4. Check what the mortgage would cost with the mortgage calculator and every fee with buying costs.

Mistakes people make

• Saving everything into the deposit. Keep back a reserve for the move, furniture and the first repairs.
• Forgetting the fees. The deposit isn't the whole cash bill: the cadastre fee, the escrow and a lawyer come on top.
• Counting one person's living costs for two. Each of you spends, even when you share a rent.
• Comparing with figures from abroad worked out differently. Other countries' banks ask for other deposits, and their figures often leave rent or living out.

What to do next

What buying a flat costs covers every fee on the way to the keys, and getting a mortgage in Czechia walks through the deposit by age, the papers and the valuation.

Sources

1. ČNB, binding limits for mortgage loans: LTV at most 80 %, 90 % for applicants under 36 buying their own home; left unchanged on 4 June 2026. ↩

2. Act 386/2020 Coll. repealed the property acquisition tax: a buyer pays no tax on buying a home. ↩

3. ČSÚ, Struktura mezd zaměstnanců 2025, table B1 (released 22 May 2026): gross monthly pay by region, the middle of each region's pay scale. ↩

4. ČSÚ, Spotřební výdaje domácností 2025 (Statistika rodinných účtů, released 31 July 2026), table 5b: spending a person in a working household without children, less rent and the services relating to the dwelling. ↩