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Study in the Czech language at public and state universities in Czechia carries no fee of its own, and the rule does not depend on citizenship: “Public and state higher education institutions in Czechia offer tuition-free degree programmes taught in Czech, regardless of nationality” (Study in Czechia, the portal of the DZS agency under the Czech Ministry of Education, Verified: 2026-09-18). What stays paid are the steps around it: the applications, recognition of the certificate, translations, the visa, the preparatory year where it is needed, and living in the country itself. That is what the real budget is made of.
The short answer: what costs nothing and what does not
| Item | Amount | When it is paid |
|---|---|---|
| Study in Czech at a state university | no tuition fee | no fee within the standard duration plus one year |
| Study in a foreign language | set by the university, the act sets no cap | every year |
| Application to a university | 450-950 CZK at MUNI, a cap of 1 055.60 CZK for Czech-taught programmes | for each application |
| Recognition of the certificate | 3 000 CZK through the krajský úřad, or up to 1 055.60 CZK for an assessment by the university | once |
| Visa and residence permit | a fee of 2 500 CZK, and 115 810 CZK in the account for the academic year | once, the account is confirmed at submission |
| Preparatory course, where needed | 113 000-230 000 CZK with public providers | once |
| Living | about 500-800 EUR a month | monthly |
Sources for tuition, applications and living costs: Act No. 111/1998 Sb., MUNI, Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-09-18. The visa and recognition amounts are taken apart in student visa to Czechia and certificate nostrification in Czechia. (source, source, Verified: 2026-09-02). (source, source, source, source, Verified: 2026-09-02). (source, source, source, Verified: 2026-07-28).
The four fees a public university may charge
The list is closed, and that is useful to know in order to tell a lawful fee from an intermediary’s service. A public university may charge for the acts of the admission procedure, for study longer than the standard period, for study in a foreign language, and for the assessment of foreign secondary education where it carries that out itself (§ 58 and § 48(7) of Act No. 111/1998 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-18).
Three of them are tied to the ministerial base, which for 2026 is 5 278 CZK. From it come the cap on the fee for an application and for the assessment of a certificate, 20 percent of the base or 1 055.60 CZK, and the floor for the fee for long study, one and a half times the base or 7 917 CZK for every six months begun beyond the standard period plus one year (source, source, Verified: 2026-07-28).
The cap has one important exception. For programmes a university runs in a foreign language, § 58(4) takes the fees out from under these limits outright, so the sentence “the fee is no more than 1 055.60 CZK” holds only for Czech-taught programmes. The main fork in the budget sits there too: for Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in a foreign language the university is obliged to set a tuition fee, the act saying “stanoví”, it sets, and not “it may set” (source, Verified: 2026-09-18).
Czech against English: the price of the decision
The difference is easiest to see at one institution. The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague charges 1 050 CZK for an application to its programmes in Czech, while its own Art in Context programme in a foreign language costs 5 000 EUR per academic year. The same public university, and the only difference is the language of instruction (rector’s decree AVU No. 7/2026 on fees for 2026/2027, Verified: 2026-07-28).
This page names no national range for English-taught tuition: the amounts are set by each university separately and published no later than the last day of the application deadline. That publication rule is useful in practice: the price of a particular programme can always be checked on the university’s site before the application goes in (source, Verified: 2026-09-18).
One-off costs: documents, recognition, visa
Recognition of a Kazakhstani certificate costs different amounts depending on the route. A krajský úřad decision comes to 3 000 CZK, and that is a relatively fresh figure: the fee rose from 1 000 CZK on 1 March 2025, which is why articles quoting the old amount are still in circulation. An assessment by the university inside admissions costs at most 1 055.60 CZK, and at some faculties it is free (source, source, source, Verified: 2026-09-02).
Documents come on top of that. The apostille in Kazakhstan costs 0.5 MRP (the monthly calculation index) per document. A court translation into Czech is paid at the translator’s market rate, and certification of a translation at the Czech embassy in Astana costs 600 CZK per page, and the embassy does not certify translations on the day a visa application is filed, so this cost is planned in advance (source, source, Verified: 2026-09-02).
The visa stage adds a fee of 2 500 CZK, which is not refunded on a refusal, and proof of the money in the account. The amount is calculated by a formula: a base of 46 950 CZK plus 6 260 CZK for every full month of the stay apart from the first, so the academic year from 1 September to 31 August is 115 810 CZK, and one semester is 78 250 CZK. These crowns have a short shelf life: they rest on a nařízení in force until 30 September 2026, and for a later submission they are recalculated from scratch (source, source, source, source, Verified: 2026-09-02).
The preparatory year: the largest line
If there is no Czech yet, the year of preparation becomes the most expensive item on the route, and it is always paid. The prices of public providers for 2026/2027: the University of West Bohemia charges 130 000 CZK for the one-year course with Czech from A2 to B2 and 800 contact hours, and 230 000 CZK for the two-year option from zero to B2 with 1 600 hours. The Institute for Language and Preparatory Studies of Charles University charges from 167 000 to 182 000 CZK for its one-year programmes, where the COMPLEX option carries 1 250 teaching hours, and from 113 000 to 115 000 CZK for the programmes with a November start (source, source, source, Verified: 2026-07-28).
The conditions and the content of these programmes, including an honest comparison with the “750 hours” figure, are taken apart by free study in Czechia and the preparatory year. Their application deadlines are the earliest on the whole route: admission to Czechia: the route and its deadlines (source, source, source, Verified: 2026-07-28).
What living costs
The official reference point from the same Study in Czechia portal: “To cover your basic living expenses, you will usually need around 500-800 EUR per month, especially if you live in a student dormitory or shared accommodation” (Study in Czechia, living costs, Verified: 2026-09-18). The budget grows with a flat of one’s own and with study in Prague or Brno. Half of the public universities in Czechia sit outside those two cities: universities in Czechia and their cities.
| Item | Range per month |
|---|---|
| Food | 150-230 EUR |
| A bed in a shared dormitory room | 160-330 EUR |
| A single room in a dormitory | 250-450 EUR |
| A room in a shared flat | 250-500 EUR |
| A small flat outside the centre | 500-900 EUR |
| A small flat in the centre | 600-1 000 EUR |
| An annual student transport pass | 50-100 EUR a year |
The portal states outright that the prices are indicative and change with the city, the provider and the season, and on housing it notes separately that the lower bound is typical of small university towns and the upper one of Prague and Brno. The country’s currency is the crown, not the euro, so euro amounts on portals are conversions given for convenience. That cannot be generalised to every payment: individual university fees are denominated in euros directly, as in the Art in Context example above (source, Verified: 2026-09-18).
Exams, scholarships and what this page does not name
The NSZ national comparative exams are paid for separately: from 920 CZK per exam, and 460 CZK for the trial one. On Czech-taught programmes the faculty exam itself carries no separate charge, it is covered by the admission procedure fee; for programmes in a foreign language that rule does not hold, because there the admission fee has been taken out from under the caps. The detail: entrance exams at Czech universities (source, source, Verified: 2026-09-18).
Scholarships at Czech universities do exist, and at MUNI they are the scholarship for study results, the accommodation scholarship, mobility scholarships and the social scholarship. This page names no amounts: the university does not publish them on its general page, and printing unconfirmed money figures would be exactly the mistake that makes families count the budget wrongly.
The Czech destination as a whole, with the universities and the contents of the support package: Czechia. A comparison of the budgets of the three countries, if the choice is not made yet: Poland, Czechia or Italy. Proving the certificate is handled by nostrification, and the visa package by visa support.