Universities in Czechia: what to compare

Czechia has twenty-six public universities, their list is fixed by law, and it is given in full below, with the cities (Annex No. 1 to Act No. 111/1998 Sb., Verified: 2026-10-06). What people choose among them is not a university but a programme. The tuition fee depends on the language of the programme, not on how well known the university is: in Czech, study at state and public institutions is free whatever your citizenship, while in English it is paid almost everywhere (Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-10-06). There is no single nationwide application either, so a list of universities turns into a list of separate applications.

The short answer: the university is chosen last

The order of the decisions is the reverse of the familiar one. First comes the language of study, because it sets both the price and the preparation. Then the programme, because the admission conditions, the deadlines and the fee are set by the faculty. And only then the university, as the place where the programme you need happens to sit.

A practical rule follows from this: a list of ten universities is useless until the language has been chosen. How the deadlines of the whole route work and why recognition of the certificate starts before the application is covered by admission to Czechia from Kazakhstan.

The language of the programme decides whether you pay

The wording of the government portal is direct: “If you choose a degree programme taught in Czech, you can study tuition-free at public and state higher education institutions, no matter where you come from” (Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-10-06). There is no condition about citizenship here, and that is the key point for a Kazakhstani: the free place is not reserved for EU citizens.

Being free comes with two reservations, and the same portal names them immediately after the rule itself: the admission-procedure fee is payable anyway, and exceeding the standard length of study brings a fee even for a Czech-taught programme (Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-10-06). That is why the wording on the destination page is careful: study in Czech can be free, not that it always is.

A fee appears where the programme is taught in a foreign language. The higher education act lists which payments a public university is entitled to collect, and the fee for study in a foreign language is a separate, standalone ground, not a general rule (§ 58 of Act No. 111/1998 Sb., Verified: 2026-10-06). So “free Czechia” and “Czechia in English” are two different routes with two different budgets, and the choice between them is made before anyone looks at universities.

The reference points the government portal gives for the cost of study in a foreign language are these: usually from 0 to 6 000 EUR a year, and in medicine, the arts and part of the specialised fields usually from 8 000 to 25 000 EUR a year (Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-10-06). Private institutions set their own prices and do not fit inside those bounds.

Czech as the condition for free study, including the preparatory year and its price, is covered separately: free study in Czechia. The full budget breakdown for both routes: what studying in Czechia costs.

Twenty-six public higher education institutions: the full list

The list of Czechia’s public universities does not have to be assembled from rankings: it is fixed by the act. Annex No. 1 to the higher education act names the public higher education institutions of the Czech Republic one by one, and there are twenty-six of them (Annex No. 1 to Act No. 111/1998 Sb., Verified: 2026-10-06). The act calls them public, veřejné vysoké školy, and in everyday usage they are often called state universities. Two more, the military Univerzita obrany and the police Policejní akademie České republiky v Praze, the act classes as state institutions in the narrow sense and lists separately, in Annex No. 2. Anything in neither annex is a private institution or not a higher education institution at all.

The names are given as the act writes them, because what appears in the application and in the documents is the Czech name, not a translation. The city is given where it forms part of the official name; for three institutions it has been checked against the site of the institution itself.

The cities that do not form part of the name have been checked against the sites of the institutions: Prague for Univerzita Karlova (cuni.cz), Brno for Masarykova univerzita (muni.cz) and for Janáčkova akademie múzických umění (jamu.cz), Verified: 2026-10-06.

This is a list of institutions, not a ranking: the order in the table is the order in the act, and classical universities, technical institutions and academies of the arts stand side by side in it. Half of the twenty-six sit outside Prague and Brno, and that carries a direct consequence for money: the government portal names Prague and Brno as the most expensive student cities in Czechia, and the small university towns as more affordable (Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-10-06). The full breakdown of the costs: what studying in Czechia costs.

The application goes to each faculty separately

This is the feature that most often breaks a family’s plan. A centralised application does not exist in Czechia: “There is no single central application form for all Czech universities”, and each university sets its own admission conditions, deadlines and procedure (Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-10-06). There is no equivalent here of the Italian Universitaly or the Polish common intake.

A second thing follows from that: “You can apply to several programmes, faculties or universities. Each application is usually submitted and paid for separately” (Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-10-06). Five programmes means five applications, five fees and possibly five different exam dates. What the fee costs, how the act caps it and what particular faculties actually charge is worked out in the route and its deadlines.

The deadlines are not shared either. The portal names the typical window for a September start: “Many applications for programmes starting in September close between February and April”, but states outright that some of the deadlines fall earlier or later (Study in Czechia, Verified: 2026-10-06). For a Kazakhstani that means the application window is looked up on the page of each chosen programme, not deduced from a general rule.

How to check that the university and the programme are real

The check runs in two steps, and the first of them is free and instant. Whether an institution is a public one is checked against Annex No. 1 to the higher education act: there are twenty-six names there, and if an institution is not on the list, it is not a public higher education institution (Act No. 111/1998 Sb., Verified: 2026-10-06). That does not mean a private institution is bad, but its regime for fees, accreditation and recognition of the diploma is a different one.

The second step concerns the particular programme, and here it helps to know a limitation. The ministerial Registr vysokých škol a uskutečňovaných studijních programů exists and is maintained under the act, but as of 2026-10-06 its public page carries neither a list of programmes nor a working search, and its own update stamp reads 09.02.2022 (the MSMT register, Verified: 2026-10-06). The link to the database of accredited programmes from the site of the National Accreditation Bureau does not open on the same date (NAÚ, Verified: 2026-10-06).

So the accreditation of a particular programme is checked where the act has it published: on the page of the programme itself in the public part of the faculty’s site, together with the admission conditions the university is obliged to publish in advance. If the programme page names neither the accreditation period nor the admission conditions, that is a signal in itself.

What to compare before applying

The list of questions a programme page has to answer before it reaches the shortlist. All the answers sit in the public part of the faculty’s site, because the act obliges the university to publish the admission conditions in advance.

What comes instead of an exam and where admission without entrance tests really works: entrance exams at Czech universities. Recognition of the Kazakhstani certificate, without which enrolment does not happen: certificate nostrification in Czechia.

The Czech destination as a whole, with the selection of programmes and the support package: Czechia.