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Study at state and public universities in Czechia carries no tuition fee if the program is taught in Czech, and this rule applies to citizens of any nationality. But it has a price: the route starts not with a university but with a year of Czech. Public providers sell 800 contact hours of language per year for entry at A2, and the path from zero to B2 is 1 600 hours over two years. And admission after the course is still decided by the faculty, usually through an entrance exam in Czech.
The short answer: a condition, not an exception
The condition is confirmed by three independent sources. The Study in Czechia portal of the Czech National Agency for International Education (DZS) writes that higher education at public and state institutions is free for citizens of any nationality. The Institute for Language and Preparatory Studies of Charles University (ÚJOP UK) adds the condition: free for everyone, including foreigners, if you study in Czech. And Act No. 111/1998 Sb. lists in § 58 the fees a public university is allowed to charge, and tuition for study in Czech is not among them; § 58 does not mention citizenship at all.
Everything was verified against official sources on July 28, 2026. The amounts in koruna derive from the ministerial base, which is announced every January.
What is free and what is still paid
| Item | Rule under the law | Amount for a year starting in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Study in Czech at a state or public university | The law provides for no tuition fee | 0 |
| Admission procedure fee, per application | No more than 20 percent of the ministerial base | no more than 1 055.60 CZK |
| Assessment of a foreign school certificate by the university | No more than 20 percent of the base, § 48(7) | no more than 1 055.60 CZK |
| Study longer than the standard period plus one year | At least 1.5 times the base for each further 6 months | at least 7 917 CZK |
| Study in a foreign language | The university must set a fee; the limits of § 58(1)-(3) do not apply to it | set by the university |
The base for 2026 is 5 278 CZK, set by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in a letter dated January 22, 2026.
Here is how it looks at one university: the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (AVU) set its admission procedure fee for 2026/2027 at 1 050 CZK per application for programs in Czech. Meanwhile, tuition for its own foreign-language program, Art in Context, is set at 5 000 EUR per year. The same public university, and the entire difference is the language of the program. Exact amounts are always checked with the specific university: § 58(5) obliges a public university to publish its fees no later than the application deadline.
The preparatory year: how much Czech it really delivers
| Provider | Program | Cost | What is included |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZČU, University of West Bohemia | One-year course, September 1, 2026 - July 15, 2027 | 130 000 CZK, about 5 200 EUR | Czech A2-B2, 800 contact hours, plus mathematics, physics and informatics at 26 hours each. Entry level A2 |
| ZČU | Two-year option, until July 15, 2028 | 230 000 CZK, about 9 200 EUR | Czech from zero to B2, 1 600 hours. No entry level required |
| ZČU | Half-year course from January 2027 | 70 000 CZK, about 2 800 EUR | Czech B1-B2, 400 hours. Entry level B1 |
| ÚJOP UK, Charles University | One-year programs starting September 2026 | 167 000-182 000 CZK, 7 167-7 811 EUR | Intensive Czech plus subjects. The COMPLEX option has 1 250 hours, target B2 (C1) |
| ÚJOP UK | Options starting in November | 113 000-115 000 CZK, 4 850-4 936 EUR | A shorter program |
Prices and dates were taken from the ZČU and ÚJOP UK pages on July 28, 2026; the EUR amounts are shown as the universities themselves publish them. Providers reprice their programs about once a year, in spring. This is the cost of study with the provider: housing, insurance, visa fees and flights are counted separately.
There is one detail about hour volumes that breaks plans. The frequently cited figure of “750 hours of Czech per year” matches no public provider and is below what they sell. ZČU requires A2 at entry for its 800-hour course to B2, and sells the path from zero to B2 as 1 600 hours over two years; COMPLEX at ÚJOP UK is 1 250 hours. If a student starts from zero, there is only one conclusion: either more hours or a two-year plan.
Level B2, meanwhile, is better treated as the program’s target rather than its result: no provider guarantees the exit level; it depends on the student’s attendance and work.
What happens after the preparatory year
The language year ends not with enrollment but with admission to an exam. There is no single national threshold for Czech in the law: under § 49, additional admission conditions are set by the faculty, which usually checks them with an entrance exam, and for a program in Czech that exam is held in Czech.
Some programs set the bar higher. Applicants to general medicine and dentistry at the First Faculty of Medicine of Charles University, as well as at the medical faculties in Hradec Kralove and Pilsen, must present a C1 certificate, not B2. So “B2 is enough for Czech universities” is an incorrect blanket statement: for the most sought-after programs it is not enough. Neither ZČU nor ÚJOP UK promises admission; the faculty makes the decision.
Recognition of the school certificate is a separate step
The certificate must be recognized before enrollment, and there is more than one route. Act No. 111/1998 Sb. lists in § 48 what a public university can accept as proof of secondary education: a general decision under the school act, a European or International Baccalaureate, a foreign certificate automatically equivalent under an international treaty, or the university’s own assessment, for which it may charge no more than 20 percent of the base, that is, no more than 1 055.60 CZK for a year starting in 2026.
There is no single price and no single processing time for certificate recognition in Czechia, and Polish figures cannot be carried over here: it is a different country and a different procedure. How EEC handles document recognition: nostrification and document recognition.
Deadlines come earlier for an applicant from Kazakhstan
This is the most underestimated date in the route. For the ZČU one-year course for 2026/2027, the application deadline for applicants from countries outside the EU was March 31, 2026, while for EU applicants it was July 31, 2026. Kazakhstan is not in the EU, so the early date applies, five months earlier.
ÚJOP UK also ties its visa support to early application: if the application arrives before its date, the institute has time to arrange everything needed for the visa before classes start, and if it comes later, it cannot guarantee that. The dates shift every cycle, so the deadline for the next year is checked on the provider’s pages, not in last year’s articles. EEC prepares the visa package as a separate service: visa support.
English-taught programs: why that is a separate conversation
Here the law works in the opposite direction. § 58(4) prescribes: if a public university runs a program in a foreign language, it sets a tuition fee, and the limits of § 58(1)-(3) do not apply to its amount. In other words, an English-taught program at a state university in Czechia is paid by law, not by an administration’s decision.
The spread is wide. Study in Czechia cites a country-wide range for foreign-language tuition from 0 to 22 350 USD per year, and the AVU example above is 5 000 EUR per year at one university. This can only be checked program by program.
What the route through Czechia costs
Three items are verifiable. Study in Czech at a state or public university involves no tuition fee. The admission procedure fee is capped at no more than 1 055.60 CZK per application in 2026. Preparation with public providers costs from 113 000 CZK for the short November program at ÚJOP UK to 182 000 CZK for the one-year program at the same institute, and the two-year ZČU option costs 230 000 CZK.
This page does not restate the contents and price of the EEC support package: they are on the Czechia page.