Translators, copywriters, proofreaders and other creative professionals make up one of the largest groups of OSVČ — self-employed people — in Czechia. Yet invoicing in this field works a little differently from what the general guides for sole traders describe. You sell something intangible, you work for clients across the world, and your "production costs" are mostly your own time. Here is how to handle it properly.
An invoice for services is not an invoice for goods
The basic distinction that drives VAT: translators and copywriters sell services, not goods. That has practical consequences:
- No weights, dimensions or batch numbers on the invoice
- The unit is typically an hour, a page (a standard page, normostrana, is 1,800 characters including spaces), a word, or a fixed fee per project
- The place of supply for VAT is determined differently than for goods — for business customers it is the customer's seat (Section 9 of Act No. 235/2004 Coll.)
The standard page as a billing unit
Translation is normally billed per standard page. A standard page is 1,800 characters including spaces, counted in either the source or the target text — agree which one with the client in advance. Rates run from roughly CZK 250 to CZK 600 per standard page depending on the language pair, how specialised the text is, and the deadline.
Copywriters more often charge an hourly rate (CZK 500–2,000 an hour) or a project fee. If you bill by the hour, keep careful time records — see the section below.
VAT on creative services: the basics
Translation, copywriting, proofreading and editing are ordinary taxable supplies at the standard VAT rate of 21%. No reduced rate applies to them, unlike books or flat renovations.
If you are not registered for VAT
If your turnover has not exceeded CZK 2,000,000 in a calendar year — since 2025 turnover is tracked per calendar year rather than over a rolling twelve months — you are not obliged to register for DPH (VAT). You simply leave VAT off the invoice and state "Not a VAT payer". The customer pays the invoiced amount and nothing more.
The upside is administrative simplicity: no VAT returns, no EC Sales List. The downside is that corporate clients who are registered cannot deduct input VAT, and some of them prefer suppliers who are.
One trap specific to this profession: if you are not a VAT payer and you provide a service to a business in another EU member state, you become an identified person on the day of the first such supply and must register within 15 days of that day. You still do not charge Czech VAT on your own sales, but you take on reporting duties. See our guide to the identified person status.
If you are registered for VAT
As a VAT payer you add 21% to the price of your services and remit it. The invoice must show:
- The tax base (price excluding VAT)
- The VAT rate (21%)
- The VAT amount
- The total including VAT
- Your DIČ (VAT identification number)
Foreign clients and VAT: the part that matters most
Translators and copywriters very often work for clients abroad — agencies in Germany, technology firms in the US, publishers in the UK. VAT behaves quite differently there.
Business clients in the EU
When you invoice a business (a taxable person) in another EU member state, the reverse charge applies under Section 9(1) of the VAT Act: the tax is accounted for in the customer's country, not yours.
On the invoice:
- Do not charge VAT — the invoice goes out without tax
- Include the statutory clause. In Czech it reads "Daň odvede zákazník"; on a foreign-language invoice you use its equivalent in that language, optionally with a reference to Article 196 of Directive 2006/112/EC. The reference alone does not satisfy the requirement.
- Give the customer's VAT identification number, verified in the VIES system
You report these supplies in the EC Sales List (souhrnné hlášení, Section 102 of the VAT Act), filed monthly or quarterly. Note also that supplies of this kind do not count towards the CZK 2,000,000 turnover threshold for compulsory registration — the place of supply is not in Czechia.
Clients outside the EU (US, UK, Canada and elsewhere)
For services to business customers outside the EU the place of supply is likewise the customer's country (Section 9(1) of the VAT Act). The result: you invoice without VAT, and the supply does not enter the EC Sales List, which covers EU supplies only.
Private individuals outside the EU are a special case. If you are a VAT payer and provide translation, consulting or similar services to a private person in the US, the place of supply is the customer's country (Section 10h of the VAT Act) — so you do not charge Czech VAT. In practice most translation clients are businesses, so this comes up rarely.
Clients in the UK after Brexit
The UK is no longer in the EU and is treated as a third country. You invoice without VAT for business clients, and the supply goes neither into the EC Sales List nor into the control report (kontrolní hlášení) — the control report covers supplies with a place of supply in Czechia. It does belong on line 26 of your VAT return.
Keeping time records
Copywriters and translators who bill by the hour need reliable time records, for two reasons:
- Accurate invoicing — the client pays only for hours actually worked
- Evidence in a dispute — if the client questions the hours, you have proof
Common time-tracking tools: Toggl Track (free up to 5 projects), Clockify (free, unlimited), Harvest. The export from any of them becomes the backing document for the invoice.
In Taxorio you put a line on the invoice with the description of the work, the number of hours and your hourly rate, and the system calculates the price. If you worked on several projects for one client, add a line for each.
Copyright and contracts for work
Copywriters and translators sell a text and, with it, the right to use it. For tax purposes it matters which of these you are doing:
- Invoicing the grant of usage rights as part of the price for the work — the usual case, 21% VAT, income taxed in the normal way
- An author royalty outside a trade licence (Section 7(2)(a) of the Income Tax Act) — a separate regime, with 15% withholding tax applied up to CZK 10,000 a month from a single payer
If you work as an OSVČ, you normally invoice within your trade licence. Withheld royalties come up mostly in occasional work for publishers or media.
Practical notes for creative sole traders
- Always state the due date — 14 days is standard, 30 days on larger projects.
- Attach the backing documents — the time-tracking report for hourly work, the standard page count for translations.
- Take a deposit on large projects — 30–50% before starting is standard practice for a book or a set of technical documentation.
- Record your training costs — professional courses (financial translation, SEO copywriting, CAT tools such as SDL Trados or memoQ) are tax deductible.
- CAT tool subscriptions — memoQ, SDL Trados Studio and Smartcat belong in the SOFTWARE category.
What Taxorio does for this kind of work
When you save a client with an EU VAT number, Taxorio checks it against VIES and keeps the result on the client record. On the invoice you then pick the supply regime: Taxorio locks every line to 0% and puts the statutory clause on the document. The same applies to services to a third country, with the supply routed to the right line of the VAT return. On the PRO plan Taxorio also generates the EC Sales List as an XML file for the EPO portal. And at the end of the year you get the income and expense summary you need for your tax return.
Taxorio scope: Taxorio provides invoicing and income/expense records for Czech sole traders. It is not full accounting or personalised tax advice. For an unsupported or unusual case, verify the treatment with a Czech accountant or tax adviser before filing.