Navigating a Czech Post Office

Certain postal services in the Czech Republic, such the issue of stamps, continue to be the sole responsibility of state-funded Czech Post (Česká pošta), signified by a logo with a blue horn against a yellow background. On the other hand, liberalization has allowed private firms such as DHL compete to with Czech Post for parcel delivery.
Generally, post offices are open between 08:00 and 18:00 on work days, although smaller POs observe a lunch break from 12:00 to 13:00. Most are usually open on Saturday mornings; some are open only from 08:00 to 10:00. On Sundays and public holidays, the majority are closed apart from a list largely made up of POs in regional capitals like České Budějovice. The main post office (PO) in Prague, at Jindřišská 14, is open from 02:00 until midnight seven days a week.

Stamps and letters
In the Czech Republic, addresses are written in the bottom right-hand corner; the name of the sender (odesílatel) should be written in the top left-hand corner. For mail within the Czech Republic, you should include the zip code or post code (směrovací číslo), a five-digit number that goes before the name of the city, town, or village. For mail within Prague, you should write the postal district after Praha, e.g. “150 00 Praha 5”. See the Czech Post website for a zip code finder.

When buying a stamp (známka, plural: známky) or posting a letter, you should go to any counter marked with the word “listovní“. Stamps can be bought individually or in bulk. See the Czech Post website for price details.
If you’re paying the postage charge at the post office, staff will automatically weigh the mail; obviously, the heavier the package, the more expensive the fee. Bear in mind that staff sometimes will often ask you if the mail is “obyčejný“, meaning non-registered delivery.

It’s best to pick up a bunch of submission forms as you’re bound to use a fair amount. You’ll find them, along with other slips such as the složenka (see below), at counters and elsewhere in post offices. The key boxes to fill in are “Odesílatel” and “Adresát” (Addressee), although there is not much room for either. The addressee box doesn’t take into account the fact that the addressee may live outside the Czech Republic, and the question is how to write the address. The Adresát box only has 5 boxes for the post code, but zip codes in some countries, e.g. the UK, require more spaces. It shouldn’t cause any problems to simply add extra letters and/or numbers when necessary.

Paying bills and receiving money
In the Czech Republic, a standard way to pay for services is the postal order (složenka or poštovní poukázka), which your electricity, gas, etc., company will send you every month. You can also fill in a blank postal order to make a payment, e.g. tax or social security contributions. Online banking users can pay bills using the details on the postal order; otherwise, you may need to use a postal order, in this case a Poštovní poukazka A – see picture below.

A. Boxes with částka and kč/h: the amount
B. V prospěch účtu: payee account number and bank code
C. Kód banky:Bank code identification number (ie. 0800 is Česká spořitelna)
D. Konstantní symbol:Identification (not always needed)
E. Variabilní: symbol: Variable symbol. Identification code – usually the number of an invoice
F. Specifický symbol:Specific symbol. A code relating to the type of payment (leave blank if not provided)
G. Adresa majitele účtu: The address of the payee
H. Účel platby: Literally purpose of account. You can just write ‘telephone bill´, ‘rent´ etc
I. Slovy:write out the amount in words
J. Č. Účtu/ Kód banky: bank account: payee bank account number.

If a company issues you with a postal order, most of the details on the slip will already be filled in; but in other cases, you will need to fill in everything yourself. The picture below shows you how to do so. If you are writing out a number with fewer digits than the number of boxes, you can fill in the blanks with zeros. The “Zpráva pro přijemce“ field can be left blank. The “Vyplní plátce…“ section at the bottom of the slip only applies to non-cash transactions made by those holding certain accounts with Poštovní spořitelna bank.