No more revenue stamps: Interior Ministry will finally accept card payments from 2025

Starting Jan. 1, 2025, citizens and foreigners living in Czechia will no longer need to use duty stamps, or kolkové známky (kolky), for paying public administrative and court fees. They will instead be able to pay with their card or phone directly at a governmental office while submitting documents. The upcoming change is part of a broader initiative to modernize public finance and simplify payment systems. 

The stamps, typically used by expats and immigrants for applications to the Ministry of the Interior, will no longer be printed after 2024. If you have unused stamps, it’s time to act—after Jan. 1, 2025, they will no longer be accepted, and their value will become void.

Jan Kalina, an immigration expert and the co-owner of relocation service Move to Prague, said that the current color-coded system of “kolky”, whereby each color has a different value (of up to CZK 1,000), is “highly impractical and restrictive.” 

At present, foreigners who lodge applications for a variety of things, such as residence permits or even applications for replacement ID cards, need to affix a stamp to an application prior to submitting it. These, frustratingly, are not sold at Ministry of Interior offices, and can only be purchased at Czech Post offices.

If you’ve got some unused kolky lying around, you’ll need to act in the next five weeks.

You may exchange them at authorized Czech Post branches, with a few options depending on their condition—unused and undamaged stamps can be exchanged for 95 percent of their nominal value, the English-language foreigners' portal of the Interior Ministry writes.

Even damaged stamps can be exchanged, but a 10 percent fee applies, and both parts of the stamp must remain intact for the exchange to be valid. 

A list of authorized branches that manage the exchanges is available on the official Czech Post website, so make sure to check the locations before heading to the post office.

Kalina also mentions that mailed applications with affixed stamps sent before the end of 2024 but received after Jan. 1, 2025, will still be accepted. 

From next year, all administrative and court fees will be paid via modern methods such as bank transfers or credit card payments at relevant authorities. Some bodies will accept cash, but the Ministry of Interior has already explicitly said it will not take cash. Digital payments will also be standard for transactions over CZK 5,000 everywhere.

Although applications with affixed stamps will still be accepted after the change, they will be subject to the standard administrative fee since the stamps will no longer hold any value. 

The Ministry of the Interior will introduce payment terminals in its offices, where fees can be paid directly. For remote applications, payment details can be generated through the Information Portal for Foreigners, allowing for bank-transfer payments.

While the Ministry of the Interior has already implemented digital payment methods for some services, its website notes that full digital payment options for all options will only be available in early 2025.