When registering a trade, you pay a one-off fee of 1000 Kč directly at the Trade Licensing Office’s cashier. If you receive a payment slip requesting another amount, it is most likely an optional listing in some chamber or register which, while it exists, is of absolutely no use to you.

Reputable portals such as kurzy.cz or finance.cz provide their own versions of registers free of charge. Their less honest competitors send letters that look very official (file references, stamps – essentially styled as an official document), but in reality they are simply trying to create a sense that something important and mandatory is involved. They are simply trying to ‘trick’ you out of money.

The letters contain plenty of information, such as your name, address, type of trade or the date it began. The Trade Licensing Office officially enters these details in the Trade Register, so they are available to anyone. The timing is convenient: immediately after registration, while the poor new business owner is still unfamiliar with how things work.

Below, I have put together a list of these chambers and registers that appear most often in the Czech market:

1. Živnostenská komora (only Hospodářská komora, the Chamber of Commerce, exists). It offers business owners a listing in a trade portal and regular data updates for a fee of 2.690 Kč.

2. Česká komora firem a živnostníků. Its register is a few crowns cheaper at 2.410 Kč.

3. Rejstřík obchodu a živnosti (only the Trade Register and Commercial Register exist!). More of the same for 1.785 Kč.

4. Český firemní rejstřík (again, no such state organisation exists). And finally, 1.480 Kč.

5. Rejstřík firem (no such state organisation exists). This one is much more underhand – it sends payment demands to data boxes. But do not be fooled: your data box is publicly available information, so do not believe everything that arrives there. Here, the amount is 1.000 Kč, and the scammer wants it sent to an account at FIO banka (2010).

6. Centrální rejstřík firem (again, no such state organisation exists). These scammers are the boldest and want you to pay a fee of 3.444 Kč. Not only is this amount suspicious in itself, they also want it sent to an account at Raiffeisenbank (5500).

All state institutions have accounts at the Czech National Bank (0710). This is a very quick way to spot a scammer 🙂 You can see what such a demand looks like here.

My appeal. Whenever you receive a demand for an unexpected payment like this, check who is asking you for money. Usually, entering the chamber or register’s name into Google is enough to tell you where you stand. And if you are still unsure, we can look at it together in a consultation 🙂