From prison to money: how sentencing in the Czech Republic will change from 2026

Penal policy at a crossroads: why prison should no longer be an automatic choice

Czech criminal law has long been faced with a paradox: although courts impose alternative sentences in a large number of cases, a significant proportion of convicts end up serving prison sentences. The reason is not always the seriousness of the crime committed, but rather the subsequent failure to enforce the sentence – commutation of financial penalties, violation of the conditions of suspended sentences, or the accumulation of several independent sanctions. The result is lengthy prison sentences, often resulting from initially less serious crimes.

The amendment to the Criminal Code effective January 2026 responds to this practice by changing the penal philosophy. It is not a weakening of criminal responsibility or an across-the-board relaxation of sanctions, but an attempt to return punishment to its rational dimension. Prison is to remain a last resort where other punishment cannot fulfil its purpose – particularly for violent and serious crime. For other offences, the court should be given a wider discretion to choose a sanction that truly reflects the nature of the conduct and the personality of the offender.

Past practice has shown that short, unconditional prison sentences often fail to serve a preventive or re-socialising function. On the contrary, they break work ties, increase the risk of recidivism and burden the prison system. The amendment therefore reinforces the importance of property and targeted sanctions, which can affect offenders more severely without automatically leading to their social exclusion.

The changes are thus based on a simple principle: punishment should be effective, proportionate and meaningful – not mechanical.

Monetary penalty as a full-fledged sanction

One of the most significant changes in the amendment to the Criminal Code, effective from January 2026, is a substantial strengthening of the role of the fine. It will now become a universal sanction that can be imposed by the court for any criminal offence if it is appropriate to the nature of the conduct and the personality of the offender, but usually in combination with another punishment and if the statutory conditions are met. This removes the previous perception of a fine as a marginal or ‘softer’ sanction, suitable only for less serious crime.

The legislator assumes that a financial penalty is in many cases more effective than a short-term restriction of personal liberty. Intervention in the offender’s standard of living can have a significant preventive effect without the concomitant disruption of employment ties or social breakdown that is typical of imprisonment. A financial penalty is therefore to be preferred in particular where the offender has acted with a view to obtaining pecuniary gain or where the economic motive for the conduct is obvious.

The amendment also changes the way in which the amount of the financial penalty is determined. The maximum number of daily rates will now be based on the upper limit of the custodial sentence set for the offence. This links the amount of the fine more closely to the seriousness of the offence and strengthens its individualising function. At the same time, the rule on the conversion of an unpaid fine into a custodial sentence is clarified, which is intended to increase the pressure for its actual execution. Each fully unpaid daily rate is now converted into one day of imprisonment.

Thus, the new arrangements do not make fines an alternative for ‘weaker cases’, but a fully-fledged instrument of penal policy with the potential to punish effectively, purposefully and without unnecessary collateral damage.

When sentences add up: mitigating cumulation and the possibility of going under

One of the less noticeable, but systemically very important, interventions of the amendment to the Criminal Code is the mitigation of the effects of the accumulation of sentences. Indeed, practice has long shown that convicted persons often serve not one sentence but a number of successive sanctions arising from originally separate and often less serious offences. The result, then, was not infrequently sentences of several years’ imprisonment without corresponding to the actual gravity of the individual offences.

The amendment responds by extending the possibilities for extraordinary reductions of imprisonment below the lower limit of the statutory rate. This allows the court to take into account the fact that the offender has already been sentenced to a different, pending sentence and to avoid a situation where the sum of the penalties would lead to a disproportionately harsh punishment. This reinforces the principle of proportionality and proportionality of punishment, which is one of the cornerstones of criminal law.

The amendment also responds to the reality of alternative sentences. In a significant number of cases these are not properly executed and are subsequently converted into custodial sentences. Convicted offenders thus find themselves in prison not for the offence itself, but for failure to comply with the obligations associated with the sanction imposed. The new legislation gives the courts a tool to break this spiral.

The purpose of the change is not to trivialise crime, but to prevent mechanical aggregation of sentences from leading to results that do not reflect either the nature of the offence or the personality of the offender. Punishment should remain severe where appropriate, but not automatically become more severe simply because it has ‘accumulated over time’.

New types of penalties: banning contracts and subsidies as a targeted sanction

The amendment to the Criminal Code expands the range of sanctions to include two new types of penalties that are highly targeted and preventive in nature: a ban on the performance of public contracts or participation in public tenders and a ban on the receipt of subsidies and subsidies. Until now, these penalties could only be imposed on legal persons, but will now also apply to natural persons.

The purpose of this change is to respond to the type of crime for which a traditional prison sentence or a fine is often insufficient or insufficiently targeted. Indeed, in cases of economic crime, corruption or abuse of public funds, a financial penalty alone may not be sufficiently preventive, especially if the offender continues to operate in an environment that allows him or her repeated access to public contracts or subsidies. The new penalties directly target this possibility and temporarily exclude it.

The court may impose a ban ranging from one year to 20 years, alone or in combination with another penalty. It is thus a sanction capable of significantly affecting the offender’s professional and business life without the need to resort to an unconditional prison sentence. It also strengthens the protection of public funds and confidence in the transparency of procurement procedures.

The introduction of these penalties illustrates well the basic thrust of the amendment: above all, punishment is to be functional and targeted, to prevent the recurrence of crime and to protect the public interest, not merely to punish symbolically through imprisonment where this is not necessary.

Punishment that makes sense: more room for judicial discretion

The common denominator of the changes brought about by the amendment to the Criminal Code from 2026 is the strengthening of the role of judicial discretion in sentencing. The legislator is clearly moving away from a mechanical approach where the type and level of punishment was largely determined by statutory rates and formal criteria. The new legislation gives the courts greater scope to respond to the specific circumstances of the case and the personality of the offender in order to ensure that the sentence imposed actually serves its purpose.

The court now has a wider range of sanctions at its disposal, which it can combine or impose separately. It can choose between property sanctions, targeted prohibitions and, in extreme cases, imprisonment, without being forced to resort to disproportionately harsh solutions simply because the law offers no other option. This strengthens the individualising function of punishment, which is crucial both in terms of prevention and justice.

At the same time, the greater discretion of the court places greater demands on the quality of the reasons for the decision. The court will have to explain clearly why it has chosen a particular type of sanction and why it considers it appropriate and effective. It is precisely the transparency and clarity of sentencing that can contribute to strengthening public confidence in the criminal justice system.

The amendment is thus not aimed at weakening criminal liability, but at rationalising it. Punishment is primarily intended to be a means of protecting society and preventing further crime – not an automatic response that lacks a link to the reality of the individual case.

Summary

The amendment to the Criminal Code effective from January 2026 brings a significant change in the concept of punishment in Czech law. It does not aim at an across-the-board reduction of sanctions, but at their greater effectiveness and proportionality. It strengthens the role of financial and property penalties, broadens the range of alternative sanctions and gives courts more scope to adapt the penalty to the specific circumstances of the case. Prison should remain a last resort, not an automatic response to crime, particularly where other penalties can better fulfil their preventive and protective purpose.

The changes also address long-standing problems in practice, such as the accumulation of sentences, the conversion of alternative sanctions into custodial sentences, and the lack of targeted sanctions for economic crime. The introduction of new types of punishment and the strengthening of judicial discretion show that the aim of the amendment is to punish smarter, not harder at all costs. Above all, punishment should be a functional tool for protecting society, not a mechanical consequence of breaking the law.