Creation of the obligation to pay the fee

1. The obligation to pay the fee for longer study in bachelor’s and master’s programmes of study accredited in the Czech language is defined in Section 58 (3). A student whose total period of completed study exceeded the standard period of study in the given programme of study by more than one year becomes obliged to pay the fee for longer study, where:

• the part of the period of previous unsuccessful studies in bachelor’s and master's programmes of study at public higher education institutions in the Czech Republic which does not overlap with the current study is included in this period;

• the period of previous unsuccessful study after the termination of which the student successfully completed a programme of study of the same type at a public, private, or state higher education institution is not included in this period. In this case, the law distinguishes 2 types of programmes of study: bachelor’s and master’s programmes, where a programme of study of the same type is also considered to be a bachelor’s programme of study and a master’s programme of study which is not a continuation of a bachelor’s programme (“long-cycle” master’s programme of study);

• the period of interruption of study is not included;

• the recognised period of parenting is not included (if the period not subject to the fee is exceeded even after deducting the recognised period of parenting, the student is obliged to pay the fee)

• the period from 1 March 2020 to 31 August 2020 (so-called period of disrupted study) is not included in the case of students who did not exceed the period study not subject to a fee on 29 February 2020;

2. The period of longer study is paid for each additional six months of study. The amount of the fees in Types and Amounts of Fees is determined in relation to the costs of the individual programmes of study in accordance with Appendix No. 2 of the CU Constitution: Cost coefficients.

3. Fees for longer study are used exclusively as revenues for the faculties’ scholarship and bursary funds.

Decision to assess a fee

4. The decision to assess a fee is made by the Rector. The decision is sent to the data box of the party to proceedings, provided that he or she has a data box created in the capacity of a natural person, or in the form of restricted delivery, or to a different delivery address – such addresses and any changes thereto must be notified by students to the faculty’s Student Registry or edited in the SIS. A party to proceedings is a person who fulfilled the requirements for the assessment of a fee. The fee is due on the 90th day after the date on which the decision to assess a fee became legally effective.

Appeal against a decision to assess a fee for study, fee abatements

5. A student may lodge an appeal against a decision to assess a fee for study within 15 days of the date of delivery of the decision. The date of delivery is considered to be the 10^th day of storing the notified document (decision) at a post office or the 15^th day of the publication of the document on the official board if the decision is delivered by a public notice. The physical delivery of the document to a person’s mailbox, where relevant, does not affect the date of delivery. An appeal may be lodged by the party to proceedings or the party’s representative under a power of attorney, in which case the power of attorney must be delivered with the appeal. The deadline to lodge an appeal waived only on serious grounds, which must be provided and proven in the application. An application for a waiver of the deadline to lodge an appeal must be submitted simultaneously with the appeal against a decision to assess a fee for study.

An appeal may be delivered as follows:

• to the mail room of the CU Rectorate,

• by email with a qualified electronic signature,

• by data box or by post.

6. In an appeal against a decision to assess a fee for study, the party to proceedings may, in particular, challenge that he or she is not, in fact, subject to the payment of the fee (mistakes may occur, for example, due to incorrect information on study at another university in the national student register) or apply for a fee abatement (reduction or a waiver). If a fee for study was assessed for a student without deducting the recognised period of parenting from the total period of study, the student may appeal such decision and provide the relevant documents. The recognised period of parenting may be registered as of 1 April 2013 (details are provided in Rector’s Directive No.36/2018).

7. Each appeal lodged by a student against a decision to assess a fee is considered in detail on a case-by-case basis during a meeting of the Rector’s Fees Board (see in Czech), which is composed of representatives of the academic community of the individual faculties of Charles University. The Fees Board meets monthly (usually around the 20^th day of each month) and issues a recommendation for the Rector. Within his or her decision-making on the appeal against a decision to assess a fee, the Rector may reduce or waive the fee, or defer the due date of the fee. The grounds which may be applied to a fee abatement must be proven by the relevant documents.

An appeal lodged by a student is usually included in the agenda of the next meeting of the Fees Board and, if necessary, a notice to provide additional information or documents for the appeal is sent to the student. After the Fees Board provides its recommendation, the Rector issues a decision in the second instance.

7a. On the basis of a duly lodged appeal against a decision to assess a fee for study which contains all the required information and documents, a fee abatement is provided for the fee for longer study on the grounds listed in Rector’s Directive No. 25/2023, Rector’s Directive No. 23/2020 (see in Czech), Rector’s Directive No. 13/2021 (see in Czech), and Rector’s Directive No. 15/2024 (see in Czech). The documents required to prove the grounds listed in Rector’s Directive No.25/2023 are provided in Appendix 1 thereto.

7b. Instalment plans are regulated in Article 18 of Rector’s Directive No. 25/2023. Applications for an instalment plan for a current fee may only be submitted to the dean of the faculty. The application template is provided in Appendix 2 to Rector’s Directive No. 25/2023.

8. The template for an appeal against a decision to assess a fee for study is available here (see in Czech). The appeal is lodged with the Rector of CU, where the signed appeal may be delivered in person to the mail office of the CU Rectorate, or sent in electronic form to the data box, by email with an electronic signature, or by post.

If the party to proceedings sends the appeal by post, the date of lodging the appeal is considered to be the date on which the appeal was delivered to the post office, not the date on which the appeal was delivered to the CU Rectorate.

9. The Rector’s decision in the appellate proceedings is final.

10. You may contact the Study-Related Fees Office of the Student Affairs Department of the Rectorate by phone or email.

In urgent cases, you may come in person during the following office hours: Wednesday 10 a.m.–12 p.m. and 1:00 p.m.– 4:00 p.m.

Procedure in the case of a failure to pay the fee

IMPORTANT! When paying the fee, you must always enter the account number of the faculty and the variable and specific symbols correctly – all of this information is provided in the decision to assess a fee, otherwise you payment might not be identified by the faculty.

11. Given the number of debtors who did not pay their debts voluntarily, the University and other higher education institutions had to start enforcing fees for study. The University is obliged to assess the fees and enforce the payment thereof. The financial means are used for the scholarship and bursary fund. The fees collected from the students of a specific faculty are always used for the scholarships and bursaries awarded to the students of that same faculty and the University may not use the financial means for any other purposes.