How many people live in Prague? About a quarter million more than are permanently registered

Research by Prague City Hall shows that up to a quarter of a million more people actually move within in the city than are registered according to the Czech Statistical Office (CSÚ). This increases the demands on the city's infrastructure and budget. At the same time, the budgetary determination of taxes does not take this into account, and Prague thus loses considerable financial resources that are needed for the infrastructure development.

For three years now, Prague has been commissioning companies to continuously analyze the number of inhabitants present in Prague, on the basis of the use of anonymous data from mobile operators.

This information is available for nine selected months from 2018, 2019 and 2020. The source data is calibrated to remove duplicates and SIM cards that are in technical devices, for example, that report to networks.

The data show that approximately 1,570,000 people actually live in the territory of Prague for a long time, while even in 2020 which was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of “Prague residents” verified in this way did not decrease, but increased slightly.

From the point of view of these data, from February 2018 to September 2020, the number of people living in Prague for a long time increased by about 30,000. According to CSÚ records, at the end of September 2020, only about 1,330,000 inhabitants registered a permanent residence in Prague.

“This is crucial from all points of view – not only in terms of development and affordability of housing, but also in terms of the city budget and all the costs associated with such a real population,” he added.

Deputy Mayor Pavel Vyhnánek, responsible for finance and budget, said the real financial income of the city should correspond to the real population.

Detailed data for February, April, and September 2020 show how the pandemic affected the dynamics of population movement in Prague. In addition to the decline in international and, unfortunately, domestic travel, there is also a significant decline in the number of those who regularly or very often commute to Prague for work or, for example, to schools.

Also during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people who spent the night in Prague, mainly for tourist or business reasons, decreased significantly. In April 2019, almost 200,000 visitors – non-residents – slept every weekday in Prague, while in April 2020 there were only about 80,000 such overnight stays.

In April 2019, an average of about 240,000 other people came to it every weekday during the day, in April 2020 it was only about 80,000 people. Nevertheless, it is clear that the dynamics of movement in Prague did not stop completely, and in the last week of April there was a gradual increase in arrivals after the first easing of the most fundamental restrictions.

In September 2020, however, a gradual decline in the dynamics of all incoming residents was again apparent, when at the end of September approximately 150,000 fewer inhabitants arrived in Prague every weekday than the year before in the same period.