Czech sick pay rules for 2026

Two payers cover a Czech absence. For the first 14 calendar days of temporary incapacity for work or quarantine, the employer pays náhrada mzdy. From the 15th calendar day, ČSSZ pays nemocenské as a sickness-insurance benefit, and the employer’s payment stops.

There are no unpaid waiting days. The three-day waiting period was abolished in 2019 and has not come back, so the employer pays from the first working day of the absence that falls inside the 14-day window.

The two periods are counted in calendar days, while the employer’s payment is made for the employee’s working days. That distinction catches foreign payroll teams: a fortnight of sickness beginning on a Thursday uses the whole 14-day window whatever the shift pattern, but only the days the employee would have worked are paid.

Both payments are calculated from a reduced figure rather than from gross pay, which is why Czech sick pay is lower than the headline percentages suggest. Sections three and five below set out how the reduction works and what it does to a senior salary.

The rules described here are those in force for 2026. The percentages have been stable for several years, but the reduction thresholds are re-set every January, so any sick pay figure without a year attached to it should be treated with care.

The employer pays náhrada mzdy at 60% of reduced average earnings, for the employee’s working days within the first 14 calendar days of incapacity or quarantine, and for public holidays that would otherwise have been paid. The obligation sits in § 192 zákoníku práce.

The 60% is a floor rather than a fixed rate. An employer may agree a higher rate in the contract, or provide for one in an internal regulation, up to but never beyond 100% of average earnings. Topping up the first fortnight is common in professional roles in the Czech Republic, and it is a contractual choice rather than a statutory duty.

The average earnings used are not the employee’s gross salary. They are average earnings reduced using the sickness-insurance reduction thresholds, each first multiplied by a coefficient of 0.175 and rounded up to haléře, because the employer’s payment is worked out per hour of missed shift rather than per calendar day.

One protection travels with the same 14 days. An employer may not end employment in probation during the first 14 calendar days of an employee’s temporary incapacity for work or quarantine. Outside probation, temporary incapacity is a protected period during which employer’s notice is generally barred, with the exceptions set out in our guide to terminating employment in the Czech Republic.

The payment runs through the ordinary payslip, is subject to the usual reporting, and does not attract a separate filing of its own.

The reduction thresholds, redukční hranice, cut the daily assessment base into bands before any percentage is applied. For 2026 ČSSZ sets them at 1,633 CZK (approximately 67 EUR at 24.350 CZK to the euro, ČNB fixing for 21 September 2026), 2,449 CZK (approximately 101 EUR) and 4,897 CZK (approximately 201 EUR).

For sickness benefit the bands are then counted at different rates: 90% of the part up to the first threshold, 60% of the part between the first and the second, 30% of the part between the second and the third, and nothing at all above the third. Only after that reduction is the 60%, 66% or 72% rate applied.

The employer’s 14-day payment uses the same three thresholds, each multiplied by the 0.175 coefficient described above, because it is calculated on hours rather than on calendar days. The shape of the reduction is the same in both periods.

The effect runs in the opposite direction from income tax. An employee earning near the minimum wage keeps most of their assessment base inside the 90% band. An employee on several times the average wage has most of their base in the 30% band, or above the third threshold where it is not counted at all.

Maternity benefit uses the same three thresholds with a different counting rule, at 100%, 60% and 30%, which is why peněžitá pomoc v mateřství and nemocenské produce different amounts from the same salary. ČSSZ publishes the thresholds each January at cssz.gov.cz.

From the 15th calendar day of incapacity, ČSSZ pays nemocenské, and the rate rises with duration. Calendar days 15 to 30 are paid at 60% of the reduced daily assessment base. Days 31 to 60 are paid at 66%. From day 61 onwards the rate is 72%.

The maximum support period, podpůrčí doba, is 380 calendar days counted from the start of the incapacity. For recipients of an old-age pension or a third-degree invalidity pension the support period is 70 calendar days instead.

The benefit is paid by ČSSZ directly to the employee, so it does not run through the employer’s payroll and does not appear as a cost line in the employer’s monthly contributions. What funds it is nemocenské pojištění, the sickness component of the social security contribution, at 2.1% of the assessment base inside the employer’s total of 24.8% social security for 2026. Employees contribute 0.6% for sickness inside their own 7.1%.

The employment relationship continues throughout. A long absence does not end it, and the employee keeps their contractual entitlements, their accruing dovolená and their place in the payroll. The employer’s practical role from day 15 is administrative: passing the incapacity documentation to ČSSZ so the benefit can start, and keeping the employment record current.

Above a daily assessment base of 4,897 CZK for 2026, additional salary produces no additional sick pay at all. That figure is the third reduction threshold, and earnings above it are not counted in either period.

In monthly terms the 2026 ceiling sits at roughly 149,000 CZK (approximately 6,119 EUR at 24.350 CZK to the euro, ČNB fixing for 21 September 2026) of gross pay. A senior hire earning well above that receives the same statutory sickness benefit as a colleague sitting at the ceiling, and therefore a much smaller proportion of their usual take-home pay.

That gap is the reason many Czech employers top up the first 14 days towards 100% of average earnings, or arrange private income protection for senior roles. Neither is required by statute, and both are better decided before the offer letter goes out than during a first long absence.

The contributions side behaves differently again, and the contrast is worth holding in mind when modelling a senior salary. Social security is capped for 2026 at an annual assessment base of 2,350,416 CZK (approximately 96,526 EUR), so contributions stop above it for employer and employee alike where there is a single employer. Public health insurance has no ceiling at all, and 13.5% applies to the whole of pay. Our guide to Czech social security and pensions covers both systems.

Maternity and paternity money comes out of the same sickness insurance system and follows the same reduction mechanics, which is why it belongs in the same picture as sick pay. Both benefits are paid by ČSSZ rather than by the employer, and both sit alongside a separate leave entitlement under the zákoník práce.

Mateřská dovolená, maternity leave, runs for 28 weeks, or 37 weeks where two or more children are born at the same time. It normally begins at the start of the sixth week before the expected date of birth, and at the earliest the eighth week before. It can never be shorter than 14 weeks, and it can never end before six weeks have passed since the birth.

The payment that goes with it is peněžitá pomoc v mateřství, paid by ČSSZ at 70% of the reduced daily assessment base for each calendar day of the same 28 or 37 weeks. It requires participation in sickness insurance for at least 270 calendar days in the two years before the benefit starts. The reduction uses the same three 2026 thresholds as sick pay, but counts the first band at 100% rather than 90%, which is why the same salary produces a different daily figure under each benefit.

Otcovská dovolená is a leave the employer must grant for the duration of the benefit. The benefit runs for 14 calendar days, taken continuously, at 70% of the reduced daily assessment base, and it must be taken within six weeks of the birth or of the child being taken into care. Employees apply through their employer and ČSSZ pays.

For the employer, all three benefits work the same way administratively: the leave is granted under the zákoník práce, the payment comes from ČSSZ, and the employer’s job is to keep the employment record correct and get the paperwork to ČSSZ on time.

The employer’s obligations sit in payroll rather than in the benefit itself. It registers the employee with ČSSZ at the start of employment, deducts and remits contributions every month, pays the 14 days of náhrada mzdy through the payslip, and passes the employee’s incapacity documentation to ČSSZ so that nemocenské can begin on day 15.

Social security contributions for each calendar month are remitted between the 1st and the 20th day of the following month, to the account of the competent územní správa sociálního zabezpečení. The health insurance half goes somewhere else entirely, to whichever of the seven health insurers the employee has chosen. Our guide to Czech payroll sets out both channels and the monthly calendar.

For a company with no Czech entity, that is the work an employer of record takes on. Our own Czech company employs your people on Czech employment contracts under the zákoník práce, runs the monthly payroll, pays the first 14 days of sick leave at the statutory rate or at a better rate you decide on, and deals with ČSSZ on the benefit from day 15. You keep the work and the working relationship. More on how that operates is on Employer of Record Czech Republic.

One caution on the figures in this article. The thresholds and the contribution rates given here are the 2026 ones. ČSSZ re-sets the reduction thresholds each January, and the employee’s absence may straddle two calendar years, so a sick pay estimate written in one year should be recalculated rather than carried forward.