DPP and DPČ: the Czech work agreements, explained

They are employment relationships. § 3 zákoníku práce sets out the základní pracovněprávní vztahy, the basic employment relationships, and there are three: the pracovní poměr, which is the ordinary employment contract, and the two relationships founded by the agreements. A dohoda o provedení práce, usually shortened to DPP, is the agreement for a defined piece of work within an annual hours ceiling. A dohoda o pracovní činnosti, DPČ, is the agreement for regular part-time work below half the standard week.

Both must be in writing and the worker receives a copy. Both are concluded between an employer and an employee, in those words, and the person working under one is a zaměstnanec. There is no Czech statutory concept of a self-employed person working under either of them, and neither agreement is a contract for services.

That is why the English labels attached to them in foreign marketing material are wrong rather than loose. A DPP is not a freelance agreement. A DPČ is not a contractor arrangement, a gig engagement or a consultancy agreement. Translating them that way is how a client ends up applying a supplier process to an employee, invoicing instead of payroll, and no registration with ČSSZ or a health insurer where one was due.

The genuinely self-employed route, a person trading on an IČO under a živnostenské oprávnění, exists in Czech law and is a separate subject with its own statutory test. Where that route is used for what is in substance dependent work, the question becomes švarcsystém, and our post on employee misclassification in the Czech Republic deals with it.

The DPP is capped by hours. The scope of work may not exceed 300 hours in a calendar year with the same employer, and hours worked under any other DPP with that same employer in the same year count towards the 300. The agreement must state the work agreed and the period for which it is concluded, and it must be in writing, with a copy to the employee.

Then there is the threshold. For 2026, a DPP paying 12,000 CZK or more in a month (approximately €493 at 24.350 CZK to the euro, the ČNB fixing for 21 September 2026) brings the worker into sickness and pension insurance for that month, with contributions due from both sides. At 11,999 CZK or less there are no contributions. The threshold is re-indexed each January, so it is a figure to confirm rather than to memorise.

Tax follows a parallel rule with the same numbers. Where the worker has not signed a prohlášení poplatníka with that employer and the monthly income is 11,999 CZK or less, the income is taxed by srážková daň at 15% as a final withholding rather than by the ordinary monthly advance. Sign the prohlášení, or cross the threshold, and the ordinary zálohová daň machinery applies instead, with the sleva na poplatníka available monthly.

The combination of the two rules is what makes the DPP attractive for genuinely occasional work and unsuitable for anything else. Three hundred hours is roughly seven and a half standard working weeks spread across a year, and the agreement cannot be stretched by signing a second one with the same employer.

The DPČ is capped by working time rather than by annual hours. Work under it may not exceed, on average, half the set weekly working time, which is about 20 hours a week against a 40-hour standard. The average is measured across the whole period for which the agreement was concluded, and at most across 52 weeks, so a busy month can be balanced by a quiet one inside that window.

It carries one more mandatory element than the DPP. A DPČ must state the work agreed, the agreed extent of the working time and the period of the agreement, and like the DPP it must be in writing with a copy to the worker. A DPČ may be used even where the work will not exceed 300 hours a year, so the choice between the two is about the shape of the work rather than about its size alone.

The insurance threshold is lower and catches more people. For 2026 a DPČ paying 4,500 CZK or more in a month (approximately €185 at the same rate and date) brings the worker into sickness and pension insurance; at 4,499 CZK or less it does not, and where no prohlášení poplatníka has been signed the income is taxed by srážková daň at 15% as a final withholding. This threshold is re-indexed each January as well.

Almost the whole employment-law regime applies to both agreements. § 77 odst. 2 zákoníku práce carves out a short list: transfer to other work and relocation, temporary assignment, severance and the § 271ca compensation, the rules on ending a pracovní poměr, remuneration, and travel and remote-work allowances. Everything else applies, including health and safety, working-time limits, rest periods, equal treatment, data protection and the written information duty within 7 days of starting work.

• Shifts must be scheduled in advance in writing, and the worker told at least 3 days before the shift or period begins, unless another notice period is agreed
• Leave accrues on a deemed weekly working time of 20 hours, whatever the person actually works, once the relationship has run continuously and at least 80 hours have been worked
• There is no paid time off for personal obstacles to work unless it is agreed or provided in an internal regulation
• A worker whose agreements with that employer have lasted at least 180 days in aggregate over the previous 12 months may ask in writing for a pracovní poměr, and the employer must give a reasoned written answer within one month
• An employee may not do work of the same type for the same employer under a second basic employment relationship, with a narrow exception during parental leave

Ending one of these agreements has its own rules. Unless another method is agreed, either side may give notice for any reason or none, with a 15-day notice period beginning on the day of delivery, in writing. Summary termination is possible only in the cases where a pracovní poměr could be summarily ended, and only if that has been agreed. Where the worker believes the notice was given because they asserted a statutory right, such as asking for a pracovní poměr or for advance scheduling, they may ask in writing within one month of delivery and the employer must give written reasons without undue delay.

The leave point deserves a line of its own because it is the single most commonly mis-computed figure in Czech payroll. The deemed 20-hour week applies regardless of the hours actually worked, and the accrual is an hours calculation rather than a days calculation, which is why it should be run by a Czech payroll system rather than estimated in a spreadsheet.

Because the label drives the process, and the process is what an inspector sees. A business that believes it has engaged a contractor raises a purchase order, receives invoices, pays them on commercial terms and keeps no personnel file, no schedule and no leave record. The agreement underneath it is an employment agreement, so the registrations, the withholding, the schedule and the leave accrual were all due, and none of them happened.

It also confuses two different exposures. Engaging a person trading on an IČO for work that has the hallmarks of dependent work raises the švarcsystém question under § 2 zákoníku práce, which is a question about whether an employment relationship should have existed at all. A DPP or DPČ raises no such question, because the employment relationship already exists; the risk there is a failure to run it properly.

One more restriction matters where work is performed for another company. Agency employment in the Czech Republic must be carried out through a pracovní poměr or a DPČ, and a DPP cannot be used for it at all. So the short-form route that looks cheapest is closed for assigned work, and the agreement that remains open carries the same comparable-conditions duty as an ordinary contract: an assigned employee’s working and pay conditions must be no worse than those of a comparable employee of the company they work for, under § 309 odst. 5 zákoníku práce.

When the work is genuinely bounded. A DPP fits a defined piece of work that will finish inside 300 hours in the year: a translation, a short project, occasional weekend cover. A DPČ fits regular part-time work that stays below half a standard week over the life of the agreement, such as a few fixed days a month.

What neither fits is a full-time role dressed down to look cheaper. A person working five days a week is outside the DPČ average and well past the DPP ceiling, and a role that was supposed to be occasional but has been running for months triggers the 180-day right to ask for a pracovní poměr. The ordinary employment contract, with its three mandatory elements and its written probation, is the instrument for that, and our post on Czech employment contracts sets out what it has to contain. The sequence for getting someone started is in our post on how to hire an employee in the Czech Republic.

When we employ someone for a client, we do it through our own Czech company on a Czech employment contract under the zákoník práce, and where a genuinely part-time form is the right one we use it as the employment agreement it is, with the schedule, the leave and the notice period that come with it. The arrangement is described in full on Employer of Record Czech Republic.

The last practical point is the calendar. Both thresholds move each January, the hours ceiling resets with the calendar year, and an agreement signed in one year can cross into another on different numbers. Whoever runs the payroll should be re-checking both figures against the published values each January rather than carrying last year’s into the new one.