For primary (compulsory education), secondary, and post-secondary technical schools, the request is submitted to the competent regional authority, or the Prague City Hall if your permanent residence is in Prague.
To prove your place of residence in the Czech Republic, the authorities may require, for example, a certified copy of your rental contract or a non-certified copy of a personal document (passport, ID card) showing your place of residence. For contacts to the regional authorities, see the link to the Request and its attachments page (section 4).
For requests submitted to the regional authorities, a proof of payment of the administrative fee of CZK 1,000 must be attached.
If you decide to send the request by post instead of submitting it at a filing office, send it as a registered letter.
You can only submit one request for recognition at a time.
The competent authority may contact you and ask for additional information about your previous studies. Therefore, it is advisable to check your e-mail and mailbox regularly and to respond promptly. The administrative procedure is suspended for the time necessary to complete the requested information, and the authority shall also establish a deadline by which the additional information must be provided. Extending the period is possible with prior consent from the authority.
The request can be submitted even if you are currently not in the Czech Republic. You may also designate an attorney who will act on your behalf. A power of attorney needs to be signed for these purposes.
Nostrification exam
For secondary education nostrification, you may be asked to take one or multiple nostrification exams to test your knowledge due to differences (different curriculum, shorter length of study, lower number of classes). In such cases, the decision shall specify, together with the number of exams and the tested subjects, the school where you must take the exam and the date by which you must submit your exam report to the regional authority.
We recommend contacting the school as soon as possible to arrange an exam date. The school usually provides a list of topics and recommended literature.
Nostrification exams are usually oral but they can also take the form of a written test. In an oral exam, you are asked to choose a topic and given time to prepare to talk about it in front of the exam committee. You have the right to take the exam in a language other than Czech, be it your mother tongue, or another language of your education. If you decide to invoke this right, you must cover the costs of a sworn interpreter. It is advisable to inform the school about this decision beforehand, because interpreting will extend the time needed for the entire exam. You have one attempt to pass the exam. If you fail, the administrative procedure will be terminated, and you will receive a negative decision. However, you may submit a new request, and the whole process will start over. The number of requests you submit is unlimited, but you cannot submit multiple requests for recognition of the same degree to different authorities simultaneously. The administrative fee must be paid for each request submitted.
Please keep in mind that if you replace missing proofs of secondary education with a sworn statement (applicants with international protection, subsidiary protection, temporary protection), you will be required to take a nostrification exam to verify your knowledge.
For requests for recognition of elementary education, nostrification exams are rarely required. Nostrification of elementary education received abroad (the compulsory education in the Czech Republic is 9 years) cannot be required for the purposes of admission to a high school!
Nostrification is one of the admission procedure criteria only for follow-up secondary studies. There may be exceptions if the compulsory education period abroad was shorter (i.e., less than 9 years). However, in such cases, it is also possible to continue compulsory education in the Czech Republic, making nostrification unnecessary, as the elementary education will be achieved in the Czech Republic.