Czech employment contracts: what has to be in them

Yes. A pracovní smlouva must be in writing, and each party must receive one copy. § 34 odst. 2 a 5 zákoníku práce states it plainly, and Czech practice treats the signed contract as the opening document of the relationship rather than as a formality to be caught up with later.

The contract is also the point at which several other things must be agreed if they are to exist at all. Probation must be agreed in writing no later than the day the employment arises. A fixed term must be agreed in writing, or the relationship is for an indefinite period. Individually reduced hours, kratší pracovní doba, must be agreed in writing. None of these can be added by email in the second week.

Before the employee starts, the employer keeps a narrow right to withdraw. If the employee does not turn up on the agreed start date without an obstacle, or the employer does not learn of the obstacle within a week, the employer may withdraw from the contract. The withdrawal must be in writing, and it is available only until the employee has actually started work. Once work has begun the relationship exists, and ending it means using one of the statutory termination routes.

A Czech contract is short by the standards many foreign employers expect, because most of the terms sit outside it. That is a design feature rather than an oversight, and the next two sections explain where the rest of the content lives.

Three elements, and only three, are mandatory content of the contract itself: druh práce, the type of work; místo nebo místa výkonu práce, the place or places of work; and den nástupu do práce, the start date. That is § 34 odst. 1 zákoníku práce, and a contract carrying those three is validly formed.

Everything else may be in the contract, or somewhere else entirely. Pay is often set in a separate mzdový výměr, a wage assessment issued by the employer, which can then be reissued when pay changes without reopening the contract. Working time, leave and notice may be governed by an internal regulation or by a kolektivní smlouva where one applies. The employee must still be told about all of it, but the vehicle is the employer’s choice.

Each of the three elements constrains the employer afterwards, which is why they repay careful drafting. The druh práce defines what the employee can be required to do, and work outside it needs agreement. The místo výkonu práce matters for travel rules, for remote-work arrangements and for the relocation ground in § 52 písm. b). The den nástupu do práce fixes the date the relationship arises, which is the date probation runs from and the date the start-of-employment registration deadlines are counted from.

A place of work drawn too narrowly turns ordinary flexibility into a contractual change. Drawn too widely, it can make travel and expense rules harder to apply. Most Czech contracts name a municipality rather than a street address, and add the employer’s seat as an alternative where the role genuinely moves.

Within seven days of the employment starting, the employer must inform the employee in writing of everything listed in § 37 zákoníku práce that the contract does not already contain. That duty is the reason a three-element Czech contract is not the whole of the paperwork.

The list covers the employer’s name and seat; a closer specification of the type and place of work; the leave entitlement and how its length is determined; the duration and conditions of any probation; the procedure both sides must follow on termination, together with the running and the length of the notice period; any professional development the employer provides; the set weekly working time and how it is scheduled, including the balancing period where hours are unevenly spread, and the extent of overtime; the minimum daily and weekly uninterrupted rest and meal breaks; pay, the method of remuneration, when pay is due, the pay date, and the place and method of payment; any collective agreements governing the employee’s conditions and who the parties to them are; and which social security authority the employer pays contributions to.

Most of that can be delivered by reference. Items c) to i) and k) may be replaced by a reference to the relevant legislation, collective agreement or internal regulation, which is how Czech employers keep the document to a readable length. Changes must be notified in writing without undue delay and at the latest on the day they take effect, except where the change is a change in legislation, in a collective agreement or in an internal regulation.

Electronic delivery is allowed, with two conditions: the information must reach the employee in a form they can save and print, and the employer must keep proof of delivery. A parallel duty applies to workers on a dohoda o provedení práce or a dohoda o pracovní činnosti, within seven days of starting work. Posting an employee abroad triggers a further written information duty before departure, covering the state, the expected duration, the currency, the benefits and the return arrangements.

On starting, the employee must also be acquainted with the work rules, the health and safety rules, the collective agreement and the internal regulations that apply to them.

Probation, zkušební doba, now runs to a maximum of four consecutive months for an ordinary employee and eight consecutive months for a vedoucí zaměstnanec, a managerial employee. Any page still saying three months and six months is describing the position before 1 June 2025, when the flexinovela, zákon č. 120/2025 Sb., raised both limits.

The surrounding rules are unforgiving. Probation must be agreed in writing, or it does not exist. It must be agreed no later than the day the employment arises, including on appointment to a managerial post, so it cannot be added after the start date has passed. On a fixed-term contract it may not exceed half the agreed term. It may be extended by written agreement during the probation itself, but only within those caps.

It also extends by operation of law. Any working day on which the employee did not work a full shift because of an obstacle, leave or unexcused absence adds to the probation, so a period interrupted by illness ends later than the calendar suggests.

Ending employment in probation is the one genuinely simple route out. Either side may do it for any reason or none, in writing, and it takes effect on the day of delivery unless a later day is stated. The single restriction is that the employer may not use it during the first 14 calendar days of the employee’s temporary incapacity for work or quarantine. The other four routes, and the grounds an employer needs for each of them, are set out in our guide to terminating employment in the Czech Republic.

The default is indefinite. A Czech employment contract runs for an indefinite period unless a fixed term is agreed in writing, and § 39 zákoníku práce then limits how far a fixed term can be stretched.

The shorthand is three by three. A fixed term may be agreed for at most three years. Between the same parties it may be repeated at most twice, and an extension counts as a repetition. Three terms of three years is therefore the ordinary ceiling, and the statute now states the nine-year total expressly. Where three years pass after the end of a fixed-term relationship, earlier terms between the same parties are disregarded and the counter resets.

Two carve-outs exist. Where the fixed term covers an employee temporarily absent on maternity, paternity or parental leave, there is no limit on the number of repetitions, but the total duration of fixed-term relationships between the same parties still may not exceed nine years from the start of the first one. And where serious operational reasons or the special nature of the work make an indefinite contract unreasonable, the limits can be disapplied only under a written agreement with the trade union, or an internal regulation where no union operates at the employer, specifying the reasons, the alternative rules, the group of employees covered and the period of the arrangement.

Breach has a sharp consequence. If the employee notifies the employer in writing before the agreed term expires that they insist on continued employment, the relationship is deemed to be for an indefinite period. Either party may ask a court to rule on whether the conditions were met, but only within two months of the date the relationship should have ended. Letting an employee carry on working after the term has expired, with the employer’s knowledge, also turns the relationship indefinite.

A Czech employment file is a set of documents rather than a single one. Beyond the contract, written form is required for the items below, and several of them are disregarded entirely if they are not in writing.

• Zkušební doba, agreed no later than the day the employment arises
• A fixed term, without which the relationship is indefinite
• Kratší pracovní doba, individually agreed reduced hours
• A dohoda o práci na dálku, the remote-work agreement
• A konkurenční doložka, including any withdrawal from it
• Výpověď, okamžité zrušení, zrušení ve zkušební době and a dohoda o rozvázání pracovního poměru

The sequence of registrations and notifications that has to happen around the start date, rather than inside the contract, is a separate exercise, and our guide to hiring an employee in the Czech Republic walks through it in order.

Where there is no Czech entity to sign the contract, that is the gap we fill. Our own Czech company employs your hire on a Czech employment contract under the zákoník práce, issues the § 37 information, runs the monthly payroll and holds the employment file, while you direct the work and decide who does it. The employing company holds a Czech employment agency licence, the povolení ke zprostředkování zaměstnání that MPSV issues.

Two clauses sit outside the mandatory three and are worth settling before the contract is signed rather than after. A konkurenční doložka is only valid if the employer pays for it, and the default position on work the employee creates is set by statute rather than by your template. Our post on protecting IP when hiring in the Czech Republic sets out both.

The fee is €499 per employee per month, which is approximately 12,151 CZK at 24.350 CZK to the euro, ČNB fixing for 21 September 2026, and our pricing page sets out what sits inside it. For the wider picture of how the arrangement works, see Employer of Record Czech Republic.