Senate approves CZK 5,000 per child bonus, but will you qualify?

The Czech Senate allowed the proposal for families to receive a one-time bonus to move forward, and now all that remains for it to take effect is the signature of President Miloš Zeman.

Families whose gross income last year did not exceed CZK 1 million will receive a one-time contribution of CZK 5,000 per child under 18 years of age from August. According to the Labor Ministry's calculations, 1.56 million children should be eligible for the benefit. The bonuses in total will cost the Czech state CZK 7.8 billion.

The bonus is intended to help families deal with the effects of rising prices. Households that already receive child allowances will get the bonus automatically. Other parents will have to ask for it.

Under the plan, children who will be born between August and December 2022 will be eligible for the benefit, too, as well as those who will be under 18 by Aug. 1. The child must have a residence in the Czech Republic. Parents have to live with the child and support them to receive the benefit. Nevertheless, foster parents, and partners of widows and widowers of the biological parents are eligible for the bonus.

The CZK 1 million gross income limit includes not only income from work and business, but also revenues from rent and other revenues taxed in the Czech Republic. Statistics show that 22 percent of households with children have a gross income below CZK 1 million.

Parents who don't normally collect state benefits will have to apply for the subsidy electronically via an application, which has not yet been launched, or in person at CzechPoints. A bank identity will be required to apply via an online application.

According to previous information, foreigners may apply for the bonus, too, as long as they live and work in Czechia on a long-term basis and meet the income requirements. The benefit can be collected by single parents, spouses, unmarried couples with children, adoptive parents, and foster parents.

Others who qualify as a parent include any person who has been entrusted to care for a child (replacing their parent), the spouse or registered partner of the parent, widow or widower of the parent, or the parent's parent or partner if they live with the child and the parent or person and reimburse their own expenses for at least three months immediately preceding the date of application for the allowance.

Senators, on the proposal of the chairman of the combined ODS and TOP 09 group Zdeněk Nytra, decided to use a procedural rule that allowed the bill to move forward without further discussion or changes. The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Czech parliament, passed the bill on June 14, without amendments that had been urged by the opposition. The government approved the measure at the start of June.