Ecological tax, eco-tax, eco-tax … When you search for a used car on the internet, you see these phrases unpleasantly often. And they usually mean only one thing: you’ll have to add a few thousand more to the price of the car. But in another context, they also talk about environmental taxes on electricity, gas or solid fuels, which mainly fall on energy suppliers.
In this article, we will clearly explain what exactly an ecological tax means in Czech law and what is the difference between ecological taxes on energy and the eco-tax on cars. You will learn when the car eco-tax is payable, when it is not and who is covered by the legal exemptions.
The term ecological tax is used in Czech law in two ways:
The Ministry of the Environment explicitly states that in the Czech Republic, energy taxes – solid fuel tax, natural gas tax and electricity tax – are mainly referred to as environmental taxes. These taxes were created by transposing the European Directive on the taxation of energy products and electricity and have been part of our tax system since 2008. But at the same time, in common parlance (and in car adverts) the word ‘eco-tax’ means an eco-charge on older cars, which is paid according to the EURO emission standard.
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As part of the ecological tax reform, three ecological taxes were introduced in 2008:
These taxes are mainly regulated by the Law on the Stabilisation of Public Budgets, which in separate sections sets out who is the taxpayer, how the tax base is determined, what the rate is, when the tax liability arises and when the transaction may be exempted from the tax.
For ordinary households and small businesses, the main point is that the payer of green energy taxes is usually the electricity, gas or coal suppliers, not the end customer. The ordinary customer does not file any tax return because of these green taxes, as the tax is already included in the energy price you see on your invoice.
So, in effect, we all pay environmental taxes, but we don’t deal with them directly – they are ‘hidden’ in the unit price per kilowatt hour, cubic metre or tonne. From the point of view of the average person, therefore, the car environmental tax, which you pay directly and in one lump sum, is much more important and can put a significant strain on the budget when buying an older car. That’s why we focus on it in this article.
The eco car tax is used to refer to a charge for air pollution. It is a one-off fee that is paid for the first registration or first re-titling of an older car with a lower emission standard.
The purpose is not to penalise the purchase of an old car, although it often appears that way, but to provide an economic incentive: the state seeks to penalise the operation of the most polluting vehicles while encouraging fleet renewal towards newer and more fuel-efficient cars.
For the average buyer, the fundamental question is simple: when is the eco-tax on a car paid and when is there no eco-tax. The basic rules are fairly clear. Car eco-tax is always a one-off charge – you don’t pay it repeatedly every year, but only in connection with a specific change to the vehicle. It is paid when the vehicle is first transferred after the eco-tax was introduced (i.e. from 2009) or when the imported car is first registered in the Czech Republic. Once paid for a particular car, it is not paid again on subsequent transfers of the same vehicle.
In practice, it looks like this: If you are buying a car that has never had the eco-tax on its registration certificate and you are the first person to register it after 2009, or the first person to register it after importing it from abroad, the eco-tax applies to you and you will have to pay it when you register it. If, on the other hand, you buy a car that already has a note on the registration certificate stating that the eco-tax has been paid, this means that the eco-tax has been paid in the past and you will not have to pay it again.
A common question is whether eco-tax is also payable when a car is donated or transferred within the family. The decisive factor is always the registration in the vehicle register and the change of ownership, not the form of transfer itself. In other words, the authorities do not care whether the transfer is by contract of sale, gift deed or other agreement – once there is a change of ownership and the conditions for exemption are not met, eco-tax can also arise on donation. Therefore, if you do not fall under a statutory exemption (e.g. disabled card holder, heir, etc.), you must take into account the possibility of paying eco-tax even for intra-family transfers.
Whether you will have to pay eco-tax when transferring a car depends not only on whether it is the first transfer or whether eco-tax has already been paid, but also on the type of car involved. The tax is determined on the basis of two pieces of information: the EURO emission standard to which the vehicle belongs and the eco-tax table, which is used by the authorities to determine how much you will pay:
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The EURO emission standards are European technical regulations that determine how much pollutants a car is allowed to emit into the air. These are mainly carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), unburned hydrocarbons (HC) and, in the case of diesel engines, particulate matter (soot). Each new EURO standard is stricter than the previous one – aiming to make new cars progressively cleaner and less damaging to the environment.
Importantly, the emission standard is not judged by eye according to the year of manufacture, but by the type approval of the vehicle. This means that when a given model is homologated, the manufacturer already demonstrates that the car meets, for example, EURO 2 or EURO 3. This information then appears in the technical certificate – either directly as “EURO 1, EURO 2…” or in the form of a European directive code (e.g. “96/69/EC”, “98/69/EC”, etc.) that corresponds to a specific emission class. So, in simple terms, the EURO standard is a feature of the car’s design, not something that changes depending on how much the car is driven or how often it is serviced.
It’s which emission class your car falls into that determines the amount of the eco-tax:
But what exactly does “EURO 0, 1, 2, 3…” mean in practice?
EURO 0 is a designation for cars that do not meet any of the EURO emission standards – typically older cars whose type approval was granted before the first European emission limits were introduced, or which do not have a documented emission standard in their technical certificate. For such cars, the state takes it as a fact that they are the most burdensome vehicles and therefore the environmental tax is the highest – CZK 10,000.
EURO 1 represents the first generation of emission standards, which already required certain restrictions on the amount of pollutants in the exhaust gases. In practice, this includes some older petrol and diesel cars from the 1990s. They are better off emission-wise than EURO 0, but they are still relatively dirty cars from today’s point of view. That’s why the environmental tax for EURO 1 is lower than for EURO 0, but still significant – CZK 5,000.
EURO 2 means that the car has already passed the second stage of tightening of the limits. Compared to EURO 1, these are cleaner vehicles with more modern engines and reduced emissions. However, they are still among the older generation of cars that do not have as many safety and environmental features as newer models. For this reason, the eco-tax for EURO 2 is CZK 3,000 – a compromise between pollution and the incentive to renew the fleet.
EURO 3 is a major breakthrough. From this standard onwards, cars meet much stricter requirements, often with more sophisticated engine management, catalytic converters and better pollutant filtering. From the point of view of the state, such a car is no longer considered environmentally problematic to the extent that it needs to be subject to a one-off eco-tax. Therefore, the eco-tax is not paid.
To summarise in practical terms: if your car does not meet any EURO standard (EURO 0), you will pay CZK 10,000 when you first register or re-transcribe it. For EURO 1, be prepared to pay CZK 5,000, for EURO 2, CZK 3,000. However, once you have a car with a EURO 3 or higher emission standard, the car’s eco-tax is zero – from an eco-tax perspective, you are on the same footing as if it were a brand new car.
In addition to their purely fiscal purpose, environmental taxes also have an incentive function – they are intended to make behaviour that is more damaging to the environment more expensive and to favour more environmentally friendly options. While the primary objective of traditional taxes(VAT, income tax) is to collect money for the budget, eco-taxes are explicitly intended to influence taxpayers’ behaviour (e.g. to motivate them to consume less energy or to choose cleaner cars).
The eco-tax is a one-off charge when you first register or first re-transfer an older car with a lower emission standard – it is an “entry” measure linked to the vehicle’s emissions. Road tax, on the other hand, is a recurrent tax (annual) linked to the use of a vehicle for business. For many passenger cars, the road tax is no longer applicable from 2022, while the environmental tax for older emission classes (EURO 0-2) has remained unchanged.
From the point of view of the authority, the fee is paid by the person who applies to register or transfer the vehicle – typically the new owner. This person must show proof of payment of the fee when registering the change. However, you can of course agree in the contract between you that the seller will actually pay the fee (for example, by a discount on the purchase price or by paying the fee in advance). However, the authority always requires the fee from the person to whom the vehicle is being registered.
The decisive factor for the eco-tax is the change of owner in the vehicle register, not the change of operator. Therefore, if the owner remains the same on the registration certificate and only the operator changes (typically when the vehicle is used by another person or company for a long period of time), this change alone does not give rise to an obligation to pay the tax.
There are a few simple steps you can follow to find out if the car tax applies to your car. It’s not magic, but you need to work mainly with your technical certificate and interpret the EURO emission standard correctly:
The basic step is to find out what EURO emission standard your car meets. The most reliable source is always the large technical certificate (vehicle registration certificate – Part II). The emission standard is usually stated in section 16 as emission limit or in the field marked EU No. / V.9.
For some vehicles you will find directly the type designation “EURO 1”, “EURO 2” or “EURO 3”. Other times, however, the technical certificate contains only the code of a European directive, for example “1999/102/EC” or “2003/76/EC”. In this case, the emission class has yet to be derived from the table using this code.
If you do not have a large technical certificate physically available, there are other options. The emission standard can often be retrieved via the Transport Portal by logging in with an electronic identity. Specialised websites such as dataovozidlech.cz, where you can enter the VIN code to obtain technical data about the vehicle, or commercial databases (such as Cebia), which offer a detailed listing of vehicle parameters, including emission class, after entering the VIN, can also help.
Learn how to check your car by VIN code.
Once you know which emission category your car falls into, the next step is to find out if anyone has paid environmental tax on it in the past. Again, you will be working with a large technical certificate, this time with a section called “Official records”.
If environmental tax has been paid by the car in the past, the authority will record this fact on the registration certificate – usually in the form of a brief note about the payment of the relevant fee. If you do not find any mention of the eco-tax on the vehicle in question and you also know that the car falls into the EURO 0, EURO 1 or EURO 2 emission class, it is very likely that the eco-tax will apply to you when the car is reassigned.
If you know the emission standard and you know that the eco tax has not yet been paid, you can very easily calculate how much the fee will cost you. Just use the current eco-tax table, which has not changed in recent years:
In practice, you only need to combine two pieces of information: the emission standard of your car and the table above.
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The final step, which many people forget, is to factor the eco-tax into the actual total price of the car. When you are choosing a car in an advertisement, we recommend that you always add any eco-tax to the selling price if you know that the car is in the EURO 0-2 emission class and the eco-tax has not yet been paid.
The difference can be really significant. For a car that sells for, say, CZK 25,000, the CZK 10,000 tax can be almost half the purchase price. In such cases, you need to think about whether the purchase is really worth it.
In other words, the environmental tax on the car is part of the real price of the car, even if you don’t usually see it in the advert. Those who ignore it when calculating costs are often surprised at the vehicle registry.
There are a few exceptions where car eco-tax is not payable, even if your car would otherwise fall into the emissions-taxed category. These are situations where the legislature does not want the charge to be a barrier in socially sensitive or specific cases:
Holders of ZTP and ZTP/P cards have a significant advantage in the eco-tax area. If a vehicle is registered in the name of a person with a ZTP or ZTP/P card, the eco-tax is not payable, even if the car would otherwise fall into the EURO 0-2 emission classes.
The eco-tax is not payable even in situations where the transfer of a vehicle is the result of a legal decision and not a normal purchase or gift. There are typically two main areas.
Firstly, where the transfer takes place in the context of inheritance proceedings, i.e. where the vehicle passes to the heirs. The purpose is not to burden the survivors with an additional fee just because the car changes hands due to death.
Secondly, the ecological tax is not payable in the context of the division of the matrimonial property, for example after a divorce. If the court or an agreement between the spouses determines that the car goes to one of them, the transfer in the vehicle register takes place without the eco-tax.
Historic vehicles, i.e. cars listed in the register of historic vehicles and bearing the typical green vintage plates, are a separate chapter. These cars are not subject to the eco-tax, even though from a technical point of view their emissions would often correspond to the EURO 0 or EURO 1 emission class.
The reason is clear: vintage cars are not usually driven daily, they are more of a hobby and their contribution is cultural and historical, not practical transport. The law therefore exempts these cars from the eco-tax.
The eco-tax does not apply to all vehicles, but only to M1 and N1 categories – i.e. cars and light commercial vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes. Consequently, motorcycles, some special work machines and goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes are not subject to the eco-tax.
These vehicles are subject to other charges and taxes (e.g. road tax) but are not subject to the car tax as you know it for ordinary passenger cars.
The eco-tax is paid by the person who applies to register the vehicle, typically the buyer of a used car. Payment of the eco-tax is made directly at the municipal office of the municipality with extended jurisdiction (traffic inspectorate, vehicle registry), together with other fees at the time of registration. Without payment of the eco-tax, the authority will not complete the vehicle registration – so it is not something that can be “paid later” or bypassed.
In practice, the way it works is that you and the seller first sort out the purchase (or other) contract. Then, as the buyer, you arrive at the vehicle registry with the necessary documents. As standard, you will need:
At the counter, you will fill in an application for registration of a change of owner or for first registration. The clerk will check the EURO emission standard against the registration certificate, check whether there is already a note in the “Official records” section about the payment of the eco-tax and, if not, calculate the amount of the eco-tax.
Along with this, the authority will tell you about other fees – typically the registration fee, the issue of a new registration certificate or new registration plates. You will then pay the total amount at the office’s cash desk or directly at the counter.
Once you have paid the eco-tax, the office will register the change of ownership or the first registration of the vehicle, and will also add a note on the large vehicle registration certificate stating that the eco-tax has been paid. From now on, the eco-tax is not payable again for subsequent transfers of the same car.
A common question is how the eco-tax relates to the tax return. There are two situations to be distinguished here – the ordinary non-businessman and the entrepreneur or company.
For the ordinary person who buys a car for private use, the situation is simple: the eco-tax is a one-off registration fee and is not separately disclosed anywhere on the tax return. You pay it at the office and that’s the end of it – from an income tax perspective, you don’t have to deal with it at all.
The situation is different for entrepreneurs (self-employed) and companies who include the car in their business assets. In this case, the environmental tax is usually part of the purchase price of the vehicle – along with registration fees, transport, registration fees and other costs associated with the acquisition of the car.
This total purchase price is then depreciated over time according to tax depreciation, so that the tax is reflected in the tax deductible costs gradually, rather than in one lump sum. It therefore does not appear on the tax return as a separate “environmental tax” item, but is hidden in the depreciation of the vehicle or in the cost of its acquisition.
The eco-tax takes two forms: the environmental taxes on energy (electricity, gas, solid fuels), which we pay indirectly in the price of energy, and the one-off eco-tax on the car, which affects us directly when we register or when we first transfer an older car. It is this fee that is crucial for the average person – it is paid only once, usually on the first transfer after 2009 or on the first registration of an imported car, and its amount depends on the EURO emission standard: CZK 10,000 for EURO 0, CZK 5,000 for EURO 1, CZK 3,000 for EURO 2, while for EURO 3 and above it is not paid at all. You can find out whether you are liable for the eco-tax from the technical certificate (emission class + payment note) or from online databases by entering the VIN.
The eco-tax on the car is paid by the person who applies to register the vehicle (typically the buyer), directly at the vehicle registry, along with the other transcription fees. However, the law provides for exceptions: the eco-tax is not payable, for example, for vehicles registered in the name of the holder of a ZTP/ZTP/P card, in the case of transfer in inheritance proceedings, in the case of the division of the matrimonial property, for historic vehicles or for motorcycles and vehicles over 3.5 tonnes. For non-entrepreneurs, the ecotax is a one-off administrative expense with no impact on the tax return; for entrepreneurs, on the other hand, it enters into the purchase price of the car and is reflected gradually through tax depreciation.
Ideally, the seller will allow you to consult the large technical certificate – there you can find out the emission standard and any record of payment of the fee. If the technical certificate is not available, you can at least make a preliminary check of the emission class by VIN code using available databases (for example, commercial services or the Transport Portal) and estimate the amount of any eco-tax. However, always insist on seeing the original vehicle documents before signing the contract.
In such a situation, we would advise you to exercise great caution. The record of the payment of the fee should be in the “Official Records” section of the registration certificate. If it is not there, you can ask the seller to check the situation at the vehicle registry and have the missing record completed if necessary. If there is no document, the authority will assume that the fee has not been paid and the obligation will pass to you as the new owner.
The total price of the car should include the administrative fees for the registration and registration of the vehicle, any new compulsory insurance and any breakdown insurance. You also need to factor in the cost of a MOT and emissions test if it is due to expire soon, as well as the first major service – oil changes, timing, brakes and other fluids. Added to this may be the cost of rectifying faults found during the car inspection, such as corrosion, flat tyres or a damaged exhaust.
No, you don’t normally pay the eco-tax upfront by bank transfer. It is paid directly to the vehicle registration office as part of the administrative procedure – either at the office’s ticket office or at the counter where the fee is calculated. Most offices now allow payment by card, but it’s not certain everywhere, so it’s a good idea to have cash with you.
We will draw up a contract for the purchase of movable property for you, or check the existing one. We will handle everything quickly and flawlessly, for a predetermined price. We can do it within 3 days and within the whole country. You do not worry about anything and you can pay only after the service is provided.
Ondřej is the attorney who came up with the idea of providing legal services online. He's been earning his living through legal services for more than 10 years. He especially likes to help clients who may have given up hope in solving their legal issues at work, for example with real estate transfers or copyright licenses.
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