Registered Office for a Czech s.r.o.: Rules, Virtual Offices and Costs
Every Czech s.r.o. needs a registered office (sídlo) at a real Czech address entered in the Commercial Register, and to register it you need one specific document: a written consent from the owner of the premises, with the signature officially verified and dated no more than three months before filing. That single form is where most foreign-founder applications get rejected. A virtual office address is perfectly legal, changing the address later costs CZK 2,000 at the registry court (CZK 1,000 if a notary makes the entry directly), and one sentence in your founding deed decides whether a future move will need a notary at all.
Updated: 2026-08-28 · Tax year 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
What the registered office actually is
Under the Czech Civil Code, the seat of a legal person is the address entered in the public register — for an s.r.o., the Commercial Register kept by the regional registry court. Three practical consequences:
- It must be a real, identifiable address. Street, house number and municipality as recorded in the Czech address register. A P.O. box is not a seat.
- It does not have to be where you work. The company can operate anywhere; the seat is the official address for the register, for the tax authority and for service of documents.
- It is public. Anyone can look it up — see our guide on how to check a Czech company.
The document that matters: the owner’s consent
To register a seat you must prove a legal title to use the premises. In practice, a written declaration from the property owner is enough (§ 14 of Act No. 304/2013 Coll. on Public Registers). Requirements:
- Signature officially verified — by a notary or at a Czech Point counter (post office, municipal office). A plain signature is not accepted.
- Not older than three months at the time of filing.
- It must identify the owner, the property precisely (address, building and land parcel numbers, cadastral area) and the company that will be seated there.
If you rent, the owner must sign — not the landlord’s agent and not a sub-tenant, unless they can prove the right to grant consent. Check the cadastral register (katastr nemovitostí) for who the owner actually is before you pay a notary.
Virtual offices: legal, but not all of them are safe
Renting a registered address from a provider is standard practice in Czechia and entirely lawful. What separates a workable address from a problem one:
- Real mail handling. Someone must physically receive post and tell you about it. Registered letters returned as “not collected” are still legally delivered after the statutory period.
- A consent the registry court will accept — issued by the owner, verified, fresh, and reissued whenever you need it again.
- Address density. An address hosting several thousand companies draws more attention from the tax authority when it assesses VAT registrations or reliability. Not illegal — a risk factor.
Most official communication will not arrive by post at all: since 2023 every s.r.o. has a mandatory data box, and that is where the tax office, courts and registers deliver. Read how the Czech data box works before you rely on a mail-forwarding service.
Seat vs. business premises (provozovna)
Two different registrations. The seat goes in the Commercial Register; a place where you actually carry out a licensed trade — a shop, a workshop, a warehouse — is a provozovna and must be notified to the Trade Licensing Office, with its own owner’s consent. An office where staff simply work on laptops usually is not a provozovna, but that depends on the trade.
Changing the registered office
Step 1 — check your founding deed. If the deed states the full address (street and number), moving means amending the deed, which requires a notarial deed. If the deed names only the municipality (“Praha”), a move within that municipality can be decided by the managing directors, without a notary. Set the deed up this way at incorporation — it is free at that moment and saves notary fees later.
Step 2 — get a new owner’s consent for the new address, verified and fresh.
Step 3 — file the change. Two routes:
| Route | Fee |
|---|---|
| Application to the registry court | CZK 2,000 |
| Direct entry made by a notary | CZK 1,000 (plus the notary’s own fee) |
The direct-entry route through a notary is usually faster — days rather than weeks — which matters if a bank or a client is waiting for the updated register extract.
Step 4 — tell everyone else. The new address propagates from the Commercial Register to the tax authority, but registration details that are not in the register must still be reported to the tax office within the statutory deadline. Update invoices, contracts and your bank.
What happens if the address is fictional
A seat where nobody can be reached is a genuine risk, not a formality:
- The registry court can require you to remedy the situation once it learns the company is unreachable, and proceedings against a non-functioning company can follow.
- The tax authority examines the seat when assessing VAT registration and reliability; an unreachable address is a classic red flag.
- Banks ask for proof of the address during onboarding and account reviews.
Checklist before you file
- Confirm the real owner in the cadastral register.
- Obtain the owner’s written consent, signature officially verified, dated within three months.
- Check the address exists in the address register exactly as you will write it.
- Word the founding deed with the municipality only, not the full street address.
- Confirm who collects post there — and set up data box access from day one, because that is where the real mail arrives.
Setting a company up from abroad involves several documents that must be signed in a specific form; the sequence is described in our guide to company formation in Czechia for non-residents.
FAQ
Can a foreigner use a virtual office as the registered office of a Czech s.r.o.?
Yes. Nationality of the owner is irrelevant. What matters is a valid consent from the property owner and an address where correspondence is actually handled.
Does the registered office have to be in the Czech Republic?
Yes. A Czech s.r.o. entered in the Czech Commercial Register must have a Czech address.
How long is the owner’s consent valid?
It must be dated no more than three months before the application is filed, and the signature must be officially verified.
How much does it cost to change the registered office?
CZK 2,000 for an application to the registry court, or CZK 1,000 if a notary makes the entry directly. A notarial deed amending the founding document is an extra cost, which is why the deed should name only the municipality.
We handle the address and the filing
Getting the seat wrong means a rejected filing, a delayed bank account, or a stalled VAT registration. Our Czech company formation service covers the registered address, the owner’s consent in the form the registry court accepts, and the filing itself; our accounting service keeps the register data current afterwards.