Child tax credit in the Czech Republic, how much it is and how to claim it

A parent who supports a child and lives with them in a shared household can claim a tax credit for children (daňové zvýhodnění). Under Section 35c of the Income Tax Act (zákon o daních z příjmů), this amount is 15,204 CZK (about 700 USD) a year for the first child. For the second child, the state grants parents 22,320 CZK (about 1,000 USD), and for the third and every further child 27,840 CZK (about 1,300 USD) a year. The rules in this article apply as of 3 October 2026.

The credit works as a tax reduction that directly lowers your calculated tax liability. If your tax is lower than your entitlement to the credit, the state pays you the difference as a tax bonus (daňový bonus). In practice, you can get extra money even if your calculated tax is zero. For one child, only one parent can claim the credit for a given month.

How much the child tax credit is per year and per month

The amounts depend on the number of children you support who live with you in one household. For 2026 these amounts stay the same, and the version of the law effective from 1 January 2027 contains the same figures. For children with a ZTP/P disability card (průkaz ZTP/P), the statutory entitlement doubles. The monthly amounts are published by the Financial Administration (Finanční správa).

For tax purposes, the order of children is not set by date of birth but by agreement between the parents. So you do not have to list the oldest child as the first. This matters mainly when one of the children has a ZTP/P card.

The entitlement arises as early as the month in which the child is born. If your child is born on 20 October, for example, you are entitled to one twelfth of the annual amount for October, which is 1,267 CZK (about 58 USD) for the first child. The same rule applies to the month in which the child starts studying, or in which you adopt the child or take them into substitute parental care (péče nahrazující péči rodičů).

The credit reduces your tax and the state pays the rest as a bonus

First, the basic taxpayer credit (sleva na poplatníka), which is 30,840 CZK (about 1,400 USD) for 2026, is deducted from your tax. Only then is the child tax credit deducted from the tax reduced in this way. If your calculated tax is high enough, you claim the full amount as a tax reduction.

With a lower income, your tax is first reduced to zero and the remaining part of the entitlement becomes a tax bonus. Your employer pays it with your salary, or the tax office (finanční úřad) pays it after you file a tax return (daňové přiznání). The bonus has no upper cap, as Act No. 609/2020 Coll. abolished the annual limit of 60,300 CZK (about 2,800 USD) from 2021. The following model calculations assume an employee who has the same gross salary all year and no other income.

In model A, the credit only reduces the tax from 41,160 CZK (about 1,900 USD) to 25,956 CZK (about 1,200 USD). In model B, you use 23,160 CZK (about 1,100 USD) of the entitlement as a tax reduction, which brings your tax down to zero. You get the remaining 14,364 CZK (about 660 USD) as a bonus, which your employer pays with your salary at 1,197 CZK (about 55 USD) a month. The annual bonus is only paid if it is at least 100 CZK (about 4.6 USD). Your employer pays a monthly bonus from 50 CZK (about 2.3 USD), and a lower amount is only settled in the annual tax reconciliation (roční zúčtování) or in the tax return.

You only get the bonus with income of at least six times the minimum wage

Section 35c(4) of the Act sets a minimum earnings condition. To qualify for the bonus, your annual income from employment or business must be at least six times the minimum wage. For 2026, this threshold is set at 134,400 CZK (about 6,200 USD) gross.

If you claim the credit monthly, you must earn at least half of the minimum wage per month with the given employer. In 2026, this amount is 11,200 CZK (about 510 USD) gross. Only taxable income under Sections 6 and 7 of the Act counts towards the annual threshold, and only salary from the employer counts towards the monthly one.

Sickness insurance benefits do not count towards the bonus threshold. These include maternity benefit (peněžitá pomoc v mateřství) and sick pay. Likewise, parental allowance (rodičovský příspěvek) and unemployment benefit (podpora v nezaměstnanosti) do not count.

The threshold works like a cliff edge. If, for example, you earn only 132,000 CZK (about 6,100 USD) in 2026, you get no bonus as a parent with one child. You lose the full 15,204 CZK (about 700 USD). But an annual income of 138,000 CZK (about 6,300 USD) is enough and the state pays you the bonus in full. Model D in the following table shows this difference.

If in some months you earned at least 11,200 CZK (about 510 USD) with your employer and received the bonus, you will not lose it in the annual tax reconciliation. This applies even if your total annual income ends up below the required threshold of 134,400 CZK (about 6,200 USD) (Section 35d(6)). This protection does not apply in a tax return, where overpaid monthly bonuses count as an underpayment of tax (Section 35c(12)).

For business owners, the threshold looks at total business income, not profit. If you are self-employed (OSVČ) and had income of at least 134,400 CZK (about 6,200 USD) but made a loss after deducting expenses, you still keep the right to the bonus. The condition is that your income was not exempt from tax and was not subject to withholding tax.

Which children you can claim for

You can only claim the credit for a dependent child who lives with you in a shared household. This includes your own child and an adopted child. It also includes a child in substitute parental care or a child of your spouse. If you live with a partner without being married, you cannot claim the credit for their child from a previous relationship.

The household must be located in the European Union or the European Economic Area. For grandchildren, you can only claim the credit if their parents do not have enough income to use the credit themselves.

When parents lose the child tax credit

For minor children under the age of eighteen, there are no further conditions. According to the Financial Administration, the entitlement continues even when a seventeen-year-old daughter leaves school and registers with the Labour Office (úřad práce).

You can claim the credit until the child turns twenty-six if they are systematically preparing for a future occupation, typically by studying, or cannot prepare because of illness or injury. The entitlement continues during the holidays, including the last ones before starting university, if the child has no income during them that makes them participate in sickness insurance. If an adult child is granted a third-degree disability pension (invalidní důchod pro invaliditu třetího stupně), the option to claim the credit ends.

The credit is due for each calendar month at the start of which the statutory conditions were met. If an adult child is not studying, you claim it for the last time for the month at the start of which they were not yet 18. The exception is the month of birth, the start of studies or taking the child into care, for which you are always entitled. A temporary stay of the child outside the household does not cancel the entitlement.

Only one parent can claim the credit for a given month

You cannot claim the credit twice for one child. Under Section 35c(9), only one of the taxpayers who support the child in the household can claim the credit for a year or for one calendar month. If several people who would be entitled to the credit live in one household, they must agree among themselves. They then prove this agreement to their employers.

When deciding which parent claims the money, you need to look at income. If one of the parents earns very little, they may not be able to use the full credit at all. Model E assumes a mother with income of 10,000 CZK (about 460 USD) a month and a father with income of 45,000 CZK (about 2,100 USD). If the mother claimed the credit for one child, she would get nothing. Her tax after the basic credit is zero and her income of 120,000 CZK (about 5,500 USD) a year does not reach the threshold for paying the bonus. If the father claims the credit, the family gets the full 15,204 CZK (about 700 USD) a year.

If you live in a shared household with your wife and a child under three and her income for the year does not exceed 68,000 CZK (about 3,100 USD), you can also claim the tax credit for your wife (sleva na manželku) in addition to the child tax credit. This credit is 24,840 CZK (about 1,100 USD) a year.

The credit is doubled for a child with a ZTP/P card

If a dependent child is entitled to a ZTP/P card, the statutory entitlement rises to double the standard amounts. To use this benefit, the entitlement to the card must have been granted under Czech law. According to Instruction D-59 of the General Financial Directorate (Generální finanční ředitelství, GFŘ), foreign equivalents of the card are not recognised. Give the payroll department the ZTP/P card or the Labour Office decision granting it.

According to the Financial Administration, the amount of the credit does not depend on the order in which the children were born, but on the parents’ agreement. The gov.cz portal therefore advises listing the child with a ZTP/P card last. This way, the highest amount that applies to children in the household is the one that gets doubled.

Consider a family with two children, one of whom has a ZTP/P card. Model F describes this case. If you listed the child with the ZTP/P card first, your total annual entitlement would be 52,728 CZK (about 2,400 USD). But if you list them second in your tax declaration (prohlášení k dani), the amount rises to 59,844 CZK (about 2,700 USD), which is 15,204 CZK (about 700 USD) for the first child and double the second-child rate, 44,640 CZK (about 2,000 USD). Just by changing the order, you get 7,116 CZK (about 330 USD) more a year.

How to claim the child tax credit through your employer

An employee claims the credit through the payroll department. The basic step is signing the Taxpayer’s Declaration for Personal Income Tax on Employment Income (Prohlášení poplatníka daně z příjmů fyzických osob ze závislé činnosti). You can claim the credit monthly with only one employer. If you work under an agreement to complete a job (dohoda o provedení práce) or an agreement to perform work (dohoda o pracovní činnosti), the same rules apply to you.

To claim successfully, you must provide several documents. When you claim for the first time, you hand in the child’s birth certificate. You also need a confirmation from the other parent’s employer that they do not claim the credit (form MFin 5556). It remains valid until the relevant facts change. If the other parent does not work or is self-employed, you replace this confirmation with a sworn statement (čestné prohlášení). For adult children, you provide a confirmation of studies (potvrzení o studiu) for each school year or semester.

The law requires you to prove the relevant facts by the end of the month in which they occurred. Your employer takes the confirmation of studies into account from the month in which you submit it. Anything not reflected in your pay during the year is corrected by the annual tax reconciliation.

Ask for the annual tax reconciliation by 15 February

You must ask your last employer for the annual tax reconciliation for 2026 by 15 February 2027 at the latest. As this day falls on a Monday, the deadline does not move. Your employer carries out the reconciliation by 31 March, and you receive any additional bonus payment in your March salary at the latest.

If you change jobs during the year, remember to ask your previous employer for a certificate of taxable income (potvrzení o zdanitelných příjmech). Your new employer will need this certificate to carry out the annual tax reconciliation. Without it, they will not do the reconciliation and you will have to file a tax return.

How to claim the child tax credit in your tax return

Business owners and people with other types of income claim the credit directly in their tax return. Employees who missed the deadline for the annual reconciliation with their employer can also file a return voluntarily. In the return, you enter the amount of the credit and attach the same documents as employees. For a tax return, the confirmation from the other parent’s employer is on form MFin 5558.

You file a paper return for 2026 by 1 April 2027. If you decide to file your tax return electronically, you have until 3 May 2027, because 1 May falls on a Saturday and is a public holiday. In the return, you also apply for the tax bonus to be paid out.

You are not entitled to the credit if, as a business owner, you have opted for the flat-rate tax (paušální daň). In the flat-rate regime, you cannot claim the child tax credit or any other credits, and you will not get a bonus. The other parent can then claim the credit if they meet the conditions.

Also be careful when splitting income within the family. Anyone who claims the credit for a child cannot also allocate income and expenses to that child as a cooperating person (spolupracující osoba). This restriction follows from Section 13 of the Income Tax Act. If your tax return shows that you are entitled to a tax bonus, the tax office pays it out in a similar way to a tax overpayment.

What changes with the new minimum wage

The child tax credit amounts themselves do not change for 2027. However, the threshold for paying the tax bonus will shift. The law links this threshold to the minimum wage, which is 24,900 CZK (about 1,100 USD) for 2027 according to the coefficient in Government Regulation No. 164/2026 Coll. For this reason, the annual earnings needed to get the bonus will also rise, to 149,400 CZK (about 6,900 USD) gross a year.

For the monthly bonus from your employer, you will need to earn at least 12,450 CZK (about 570 USD) gross in 2027. Model D2 shows this by comparing the same gross salary of 12,000 CZK (about 550 USD) in both years. In 2026, a parent with one child receives a bonus of 15,204 CZK (about 700 USD) at this salary, but in 2027 they will get nothing.

Act No. 360/2025 Coll., effective from 1 January 2027, brings a technical change. It only changes the reference for income from so-called small agreements (malé dohody) without a signed declaration. These count towards the bonus threshold if the taxpayer includes them in their tax return, just as before.

The Sales Records Act (zákon o evidenci tržeb), which the President signed on 17 September 2026, brings back the credit for placing a child in a kindergarten from 2027. As of 3 October 2026, however, it had not yet been published in the Collection of Laws (Sbírka zákonů) and it does not change the child tax credit.

Before you sign the declaration, work out three numbers

Before you sign the pink declaration form at your employer, check which parent gains more by claiming the credit. Remember that your own income from employment or business decides whether the bonus is paid. Your partner’s income has no effect on your entitlement to the bonus.

The second step is to check your annual income against the statutory threshold. With a salary of around 11,000 CZK (about 500 USD) a month in 2026 or 12,000 CZK (about 550 USD) in 2027, you are below the bonus threshold. If you do not meet the limit, check whether the other parent with a higher income meets the conditions.

The third point to check is the order of the children in the household. If you care for a child with a ZTP/P card, do not automatically list them first on the form. By placing them last, you get 7,116 CZK (about 330 USD) more a year with two children.

Put the key deadlines for submitting documents in your calendar. For employees, it is Monday 15 February 2027 for requesting the annual tax reconciliation. For those who file their own tax return, the deadline is 1 April 2027, or 3 May 2027 when filing electronically.

USD amounts are approximate, converted at the Czech National Bank rate of 21.80 CZK per USD on 2 October 2026.