You paused your trade licence (živnost — the Czech licence to run a small business as a sole trader) for parental leave, an employment contract, or time abroad, and now you're ready to invoice again. The good news: your business ID (IČO) and your trade licence itself never expired, and you don't need to register from scratch. You do, however, need to notify the right offices within the right deadlines — miss one and you risk a fine or a gap in your insurance coverage.
Here's a walk-through of all four Czech authorities you need to contact when resuming a trade licence in 2026, plus the practical side of restarting: invoice numbering, updating your pricing, and your first invoice back. If you're starting completely from scratch rather than resuming, see our guide How to Get a Trade Licence as a Foreigner instead.
Step 1: The Trade Licensing Office — notify your resumption in advance
If you suspended your trade licence for a fixed period and want to resume earlier, you must notify the Trade Licensing Office — the local Czech authority that administers trade licences — in writing and in advance (Section 31(12) of the Trade Licensing Act). You can then legally start working no earlier than the day the office actually receives your notice, not from whatever date you had planned. File the notice online through the Trade Licensing Portal (rzp.gov.cz, the Czech government's official trade-licence portal), or in person at the Trade Licensing Office using the Single Registration Form — a Czech form known as the JRF, which lets you notify several authorities about a change in one go.
There's no new registration involved — your IČO and the scope of your trade licence stay exactly as they were before the pause. A suspension is always declared with an end date: to resume earlier, you file a notice of resumption; to extend the pause, you file a new suspension notice before the original one runs out. If you never formally suspended your licence with the office in the first place, you don't need a resumption notice either.
Step 2: The Czech Social Security Administration (ČSSZ)
Notify the Czech Social Security Administration (ČSSZ — the state body that handles pension and sickness insurance contributions) of your resumed self-employment by the 8th day of the month after the month you resumed, using the form "Notification of Commencement (Resumption) of Self-Employment," submitted through the ČSSZ's online portal. State whether it's your main or secondary activity — secondary typically applies if you're combining it with employment, parental leave, a pension, or study.
Social insurance advances start again from the month you resume, usually at the minimum, until you file a statement for the new year. For 2026 the minimum monthly advance for a main activity is 5,005 CZK (from 1 July 2026, following amendment No. 90/2026 Coll.; it was 5,720 CZK through the end of June), and 1,574 CZK for a secondary activity. You'll find the full breakdown of current minimums in Minimum Social & Health Insurance for Self-Employed in Czech Republic 2026.
Step 3: Your health insurance company
Notify your health insurance company of your resumption within 8 days. The minimum monthly health insurance advance for a main activity in 2026 is 3,306 CZK. For a secondary activity, or if your employer already covers the statutory minimum, the amount depends on your specific situation — check directly with your insurance company.
Step 4: The tax office and VAT
Your income tax registration generally continues through a suspension — you just need to notify the tax office of any changes within 15 days (address, bank account, scope of activity). If you were a VAT payer before the pause, that registration doesn't lapse either, and you must keep filing VAT returns — even nil ones, if you had no taxable supplies.
What about the flat tax after resuming?
You can only join the flat tax (paušální daň) regime as of 1 January of a given year — for 2026, the deadline to apply was 12 January 2026. The law does let someone starting self-employment completely from scratch join the flat tax as of their start date, but resuming after a suspension counts as a continuation, not a new start. So after resuming a suspended activity, you generally can't join the flat tax until 1 January of the following year — confirm this with your own tax office. Until then, you invoice and record income under whichever expense method you were using before. If you do end up on the flat tax later, see what records you still need to keep in Invoicing Under the Czech Flat Tax.
Your data box and contact details
Your data box — a mandatory official electronic mailbox, known in Czech as a datová schránka, that the Czech state uses to deliver legally binding documents — is created by law and doesn't disappear when you suspend your business. After you resume, authorities can deliver to it exactly as before, even after you've gone a long time without checking it. It's worth reviewing it as soon as you resume, since notices from the tax office or the ČSSZ may well have piled up there in the meantime. At the same time, make sure the Trade Licensing Office and both insurance companies have a working email address and phone number for you, so you don't miss an important notice or deadline.
Example: returning after parental leave
Anna Example suspended her trade licence two years ago for parental leave and now wants to return to graphic design work for her former clients. She first files a notice of resumption through the Trade Licensing Portal — from the day that notice is delivered, she can legally invoice again. By the 8th day of the following month she notifies the ČSSZ that she's resuming her main activity, since she's no longer on parental leave and has no other status that would make it secondary. Within 8 days she notifies her health insurance company of the same.
Because Anna has been self-employed at some point in the last 20 years, the reduced minimum for new self-employed people doesn't apply to her, and from the month she resumes she pays the standard minimum advances — 5,005 CZK for social insurance and 3,306 CZK for health insurance. Before sending her first invoice, she checks her current price list, confirms her bank account is still valid, and continues her old invoice numbering sequence under the current year.
Checklist before resuming your trade licence
- Have you filed a written notice of resumption with the Trade Licensing Office, if you suspended for a fixed period?
- Do you have the 8th-day-of-next-month deadline for the ČSSZ notice in your calendar?
- Have you notified your health insurance company of the resumption within 8 days?
- Have you checked whether anything changed that needs reporting to the tax office within 15 days?
- Do you know whether you count as a main or secondary activity after resuming?
- Have you checked your data box for anything important that arrived while you were away?
- Do you have a current price list and a working bank account ready for your first invoice?
Practical restart: invoices, pricing, and your first invoice
Your invoice numbering sequence can simply continue where you left off — if you use a sequence that includes the year, you just carry on into the current one. Before you send your first invoice after the pause, check the requirements in Invoice for a Non-VAT Payer in Czech Republic, plus these practical points:
- Your current price list and hourly rate. Market prices and your own costs may have shifted while you were away — recalculate with the hourly rate calculator.
- Your bank account. Confirm the account number you print on invoices and report to your insurance companies and the tax office is still valid.
- Recent tax changes. For 2026, amendment No. 90/2026 Coll. lowered minimum social insurance advances partway through the year, among other changes.
- Importing old invoices. If you used to invoice through a different program, you can bring your old documents into a new account by importing them.
| Authority | Deadline | How | Risk if missed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trade Licensing Office | In advance, before resuming | Trade Licensing Portal or Single Registration Form | You can't legally work until the office receives your notice |
| ČSSZ | By the 8th of the following month | ČSSZ online portal | Risk of a penalty and unclear insurance status |
| Health insurance company | Within 8 days | Insurer's form, in person or online | Outstanding advances and penalties |
| Tax office | Within 15 days (only if details changed) | Change notification | Fine for failing to update your registration |
Pausing vs. cancelling your trade licence entirely
If you're not sure whether you'll return to self-employment, you don't need to cancel your trade licence outright. A suspension is reversible and free of charge; cancelling ends your business completely, and coming back later would mean registering entirely from scratch. If you're weighing whether to come back as a main or a secondary activity, the rules differ mainly in the minimum advances you owe each month.
A few practical questions people ask when resuming
- Do I have to pay the registration fee again? No — that's only charged the first time you register a trade licence.
- Can I resume earlier than the date I gave? Yes, as long as you notify the Trade Licensing Office in writing beforehand.
- Can I resume only some of my trade licence fields? Yes, the rest stay recorded as suspended.
- What if I actually kept working during the suspension? That counts as operating without a valid licence, which is illegal and risky for your insurance too.
How Taxorio handles this
Setting up a new or resumed account in Taxorio takes a couple of minutes — enter your IČO and the Czech business register (ARES) fills in your company details. Following the app's first-steps guidance, you set your tax status (non-VAT payer, identified person, or VAT payer) and, if relevant, the flat-tax regime; the app then tracks deadlines in a tax calendar and prepares your first invoice with the right numbering. If you used to invoice with a different program, you can bring your old documents over by importing them, so your history stays in one place.