What Does It Cost to Set Up an s.r.o.?

Setting up a Czech s.r.o. is one of the more transparent legal purchases: most costs are set by tariffs, and the variable part is exactly where founders'' situations differ. Here is the bill, item by item.

The mandatory items

The notarial deed. An s.r.o. is founded by notarial deed, priced by the notarial tariff (Decree No. 196/2001 Sb.) from the registered capital. For the typical small company with minimal capital and a standard founding document, budget roughly 3 000 to 8 000 Kč for the deed. A simple single-founder company using the statutory-default founding deed qualifies for reduced treatment; bespoke founding documents with share classes and reserved matters cost more because they take notarial time.

Registration in the commercial register. The cheap, fast route is registration performed directly by the notary — the fee is 2 700 Kč when the notary files, against 6 000 Kč for a court filing. There is a further reduction to zero court/registration fee for simple companies founded with the statutory template deed — worth asking the notary about, since the conditions are formal.

The trade licence. The first registration at the trade office costs 1 000 Kč and covers, for the free trade, the standard list of dozens of activities in one go.

Certified signatures and extracts. Specimen signatures, the consent of the property owner for the registered office, criminal-record extracts for executives — each certification costs tens of crowns; foreign founders need apostilles and certified translations, which is where hundreds become thousands.

So a minimal, single Czech founder incorporation lands around 7 000–12 000 Kč in unavoidable third-party costs. That matches the advertised prices of incorporation services — most of which are precisely this bundle with a margin.

The variable part: your situation

Foreign founders add real money: apostilled and translated criminal-record extracts and corporate documents (often 3 000–10 000 Kč depending on the country), sometimes a power of attorney executed abroad, and bank compliance that takes weeks rather than days. Multiple founders should add a lawyer-drafted founding deed and, seriously, a shareholders'' agreement — typical fixed fees for a founder-grade package run 15 000 to 40 000 Kč depending on complexity, vesting, and investor-readiness. Regulated activities (financial services, staffing, food, health-adjacent) add licence work priced case by case.

The registered office is a running cost, not a founding one, but plan it: virtual-office providers charge roughly 100–500 Kč monthly, while using your own leased flat requires the landlord''s consent.

Where founders overspend and underspend

The classic overspend is paying premium fees for a template incorporation — the notarial route with statutory defaults produces the identical company for the tariff price. The classic underspend is the opposite mistake: two or three founders incorporating on templates, saving perhaps 25 000 Kč, and later paying multiples of that to negotiate an exit, a deadlock, or an investor''s due-diligence findings with no contractual framework to stand on. The rule of thumb is honest: solo founder, standard business — the notary is enough; co-founders, IP, or investors on the horizon — the founding documents are the cheap moment to get the structure right.

Timeline, briefly

With documents ready, notaries routinely deliver a registered company within days; the realistic end-to-end including the bank account is one to three weeks for locals, longer for foreign founders because of document legalisation and bank compliance.

If you want quotes rather than estimates, CasePilot lists business-law specialists with their rates — filter by "s.r.o. formation", ask two or three for a fixed price for your exact founder situation, and compare what the quote includes: deed, registration, trade licence, and whether the founding documents are template or drafted.