The Czech minimum wage in 2026

22,400 CZK a month (approximately EUR 920) and 134.40 CZK an hour (approximately EUR 5.52), in force from 1 January 2026. Both figures come from sdělení MPSV č. 356/2025 Sb., published in the Sbírka zákonů, and both bind every private-sector employer in the country.

The monthly rate rose by 1,600 CZK from the 2025 figure of 20,800 CZK. The hourly rate is not a separate policy decision: § 111 odst. 4 zákoníku práce derives it from the monthly rate by dividing by the average number of working hours per month in that calendar year, leaving out hours that fall on public holidays landing on working days, and rounding up to ten haléře.

Which of the two applies to a particular employee depends on what the parties agreed. Where they have not agreed in advance whether the monthly or the hourly minimum governs, the hourly minimum is the one used to test compliance and to compute any shortfall.

The minimum wage is a floor on pay, not a guide to the market. Český statistický úřad recorded an average gross monthly wage of 51,966 CZK for the second quarter of 2026, released on 3 September 2026, and the last published median was 45,523 CZK for the fourth quarter of 2025. A Czech salary set at the statutory minimum is well under half of either figure.

Koruna figures in this post are 2026 figures unless another year is stated. Where a euro figure appears in brackets it is converted at 24.350 CZK, the ČNB fixing for 21 September 2026.

By formula, and that is new. Until the end of 2024 the government set the minimum wage by nařízení vlády at whatever figure it negotiated, with no arithmetic behind it at all. Zákon č. 230/2024 Sb. rewrote § 111 zákoníku práce with effect from 1 January 2025 and replaced that discretion with a calculation.

The monthly minimum wage is now the Ministry of Finance’s prediction of the average gross monthly wage in the national economy for the coming year, multiplied by a government coefficient, rounded up to whole hundreds of koruna. For 2026 the prediction used was 51,497 CZK and the coefficient was 0.434, fixed by § 1 odst. 2 nařízení vlády č. 285/2024 Sb. Rounded up, the result is 22,400 CZK.

The coefficient is set for a two-year period at a time, after discussion in the tripartite Rada hospodářské a sociální dohody, and may be changed inside a period only on a substantial change in national economic conditions. The statute also names an orientation reference value of 47% of the average gross wage as the benchmark against which the adequacy of the minimum wage is assessed. That 47% is a figure to steer by rather than a binding ratio: the 2026 rate sits at 43.4% of the average wage, with a stated policy path towards 47% by 2029.

Two dates matter to anyone budgeting a Czech payroll a year ahead. The Ministry of Finance publishes its wage prediction by 31 August, and MPSV publishes the resulting monthly and hourly minimum wage by 30 September, both by sdělení in the Sbírka zákonů. Until that sdělení appears, next year’s figure is a proposal rather than a rate.

One protection is built into the formula. The minimum wage can never fall: if the arithmetic produces a figure below the last announced one, the last announced one is re-announced instead.

One floor, and only one: minimální mzda. Zaručená mzda, the system of eight groups of work each carrying its own binding minimum, was abolished for private-sector employers on 1 January 2025 by zákon č. 230/2024 Sb. A private employer paying mzda in 2026 tests every salary against 22,400 CZK a month or 134.40 CZK an hour, whatever the job is and whatever skill it demands.

What survives is zaručený plat under § 112 zákoníku práce, and it applies only to employees paid a plat: the state, territorial self-governing units, state funds, school legal persons established by the state or a municipality, and the other bodies listed in § 109 odst. 3. It runs to four groups rather than eight, each priced as a multiple of the minimum wage. It has no application to a private employer at all. A group table presented as binding on private-sector pay is describing a system that stopped applying to private employers on 1 January 2025, and our post on the abolition of the Czech guaranteed wage covers what changed and what to do about pages that still carry it.

A kolektivní smlouva can still set a higher floor for the employees it covers, and where one applies it binds the employer as a contractual matter. Czech sector-level bargaining is real but nothing like the near-universal systems some employers arrive expecting, so for most private employers the statutory minimum is the only floor in play.

Basic pay counts. Premiums do not. When testing whether an employee has been paid the minimum wage, § 111 odst. 1 zákoníku práce excludes overtime pay, the public holiday premium, the night work premium, the difficult-working-environment premium, the increased-burden premium in healthcare, and the Saturday and Sunday premium.

That exclusion is the whole point of the rule. An employer cannot reach 22,400 CZK by counting the night shifts an employee worked, or the weekend cover they picked up. The premiums sit on top of a wage that already clears the floor, and an employer who folds them in has paid below the minimum wage even though the total looks adequate.

Where pay does fall short, the employer must pay a doplatek to bridge the gap. It is a statutory duty, not a negotiating position, and where the parties never agreed whether the monthly or the hourly minimum applied, the hourly figure is used to calculate the top-up.

The statutory premiums themselves are minimums, and a contract or a collective agreement may set more. Overtime carries pay earned plus at least 25% of average earnings, or, by agreement, compensatory time off of equal length instead. Work on a public holiday carries pay earned plus compensatory time off, with a premium of at least 100% of average earnings as the agreed alternative. Night work and Saturday or Sunday work each carry at least 10% of average earnings, and unlike the overtime and holiday figures both of those can be varied by agreement. Work in a difficult environment carries at least 10% of the basic minimum wage rate per hour for each separate aggravating influence, which is 13.44 CZK an hour for 2026, cumulative where several influences are present and with no statutory ceiling.

Ordered overtime is capped at 8 hours in an individual week and 150 hours in a calendar year, and anything beyond that needs the employee’s agreement.

Proportionately, and the mechanics differ depending on which rule shortens the week. Where the statutory weekly working time is itself shorter under § 79 odst. 2 or 3 zákoníku práce, for instance the 37.5-hour week that applies in a continuous shift regime, the hourly minimum wage rises proportionately so the employee is not left worse off across the week.

Where an individual employee has contractually shorter hours under § 80, or simply did not work a full month, the monthly minimum wage is reduced proportionately instead. MPSV’s own worked example for 2026 is an employee on an agreed 20-hour week, whose monthly minimum is 11,200 CZK (approximately EUR 460), half of 22,400 CZK. The hourly figure of 134.40 CZK does not change for that employee.

Kratší pracovní doba has to be agreed in writing under § 80, and pay corresponds to the shorter hours. A part-time arrangement that was never written down is not a part-time arrangement, which matters when a payroll is being tested against the monthly floor rather than the hourly one.

One knock-on effect is easy to miss when a part-time salary is set anywhere near the floor, because it sits in the health insurance system rather than in the zákoník práce. The next section takes it in turn.

In health insurance, first and hardest. The minimum assessment base for veřejné zdravotní pojištění is the monthly minimum wage, 22,400 CZK for 2026. If an employee’s assessment base falls below it, 13.5% of the difference has to be topped up through the employer, and where the shortfall was caused by an obstacle on the employer’s side, the employer pays that top-up itself (§ 3 odst. 4, 6 a 10 zákona č. 592/1992 Sb.).

That is the trap in a genuinely small part-time hire. A twelve-hour week at a decent hourly rate can clear the hourly minimum wage comfortably and still leave the health insurance assessment base below 22,400 CZK, and the top-up is then real money against a small salary. Health insurance has no ceiling at all, so this floor is the only edge the system has. How the two contribution systems are calculated and paid is set out in our post on Czech payroll explained.

The daňový bonus keys off the same figure. A taxpayer needs income under § 6 or § 7 of at least six times the minimum wage in the year, which is 134,400 CZK for 2026 (approximately EUR 5,520), before the refundable child bonus can be claimed at all.

For 2027 the rate is set by an MPSV sdělení due by 30 September. It had not been published when this was written, so any 2027 figure quoted elsewhere should be checked against the Sbírka zákonů before it goes into a budget. Budget on the 2026 figures and revisit in October. What a Czech hire costs in total, once the 33.8% employer contributions and compulsory accident insurance are added, is worked through in our post on the cost of hiring in the Czech Republic.

If you would rather someone else tested every payslip against the floor, Employer of Record Czech Republic employs your people through our own Czech company on Czech employment contracts under the zákoník práce, and runs the payroll that applies these rules each month.