Renting a Flat in Prague – The Ultimate Guide for Expats

Thinking of moving to Prague and renting an apartment? Whether you’re relocating for work, study, or simply embracing the expat lifestyle, finding the right flat is one of the biggest challenges. In this guide you’ll learn how to rent a flat in Prague, what to expect, what to avoid, and how to make the process smoother — especially if you’re new to the Czech market.

Summary – What you’ll find inside

Short-term vs long-term rentals.
How the Prague rental market works: demand, competition, websites and platforms.
Step-by-step tips for long-term rental: search, viewing, lease, move-in.
Common scams and how to protect yourself.
Lease agreement essentials and checking property ownership/cadastre.
How our flat-hunting services (and related relocation services) can save you time, stress and risk.

Short-Term Rentals – a quick note

Since our core service is helping clients find long-term rentals, we’ll focus more on that below. We still wanted to touch the topic of short-term rentals a bit as well.

How long it will take for you to find a long-term rental depends on couple things such as your requirements (primarily budget – the lower budget, the higher competition and the longer search), season, your availability for viewings (Prague rental market is a landlord’s market so they are not really motivated to be flexible with viewing times) and how picky you are.

For most our clients having a temporary accommodation for 10-14 days is enough. Some clients get one month of temporary accommodation as part of their relocation package from their employer. Some clients prefer exploring different neighborhoods even for longer.

Although all these option are fine, there should be a time where you focus on the flat search fully, when you are ready to sign the lease and move in. This period takes about the above mentioned 10-14 days.

As for where to rent short-term, most of our clients go either for AirBnB, accommodation arranged by employer or short-term rental apartments such as Albertov Rental Apartments.

Long-Term Rental – The Main Focus

The Prague rental market: what you need to know

At Move To Prague, we have been helping expats with renting a flat in Prague since 2012. The rental market in Prague has changed very significantly since than, it has become way more competitive.

One example for all – we helped with finding flats to a group of Amazon’s managers when Amazon was moving their office from Berlin to Prague in early 2016. One couple came to Prague only for 1 day to search for apartments. We managed to show them 9 apartment options in that single day. They chose one and we finished everything for them three days later.

Now? You are lucky if you get 9 viewings a week.

Also, back then, landlords were happy that someone chose their apartment. That means they were willing to show you the flat when convenient for you, you could negotiate a lot (not that much of a price but things like moving in date, moving pieces of furniture etc.), and they were willing to wait for your decision and “reserve the flat” for you (with no deposit needed) for couple days.

Renting a flat in Prague was easy back then.

Today’s market is more like “I will be in the apartment today at 15:00, come or not, I have other 12 people visiting”. Landlords are not much flexible with almost any terms and they will not really wait for your decision for too long. You often need to decide the same day if you want to get the apartment.

In the rest of the article, we’ll provide some tips and trick that should help you with renting an apartment in Prague (or the Czech Republic in general). We will also be happy to help you find your perfect flat – that is what we do for living 🙂 Write or call us and speak with one of our Flat Hunters.

Two Approaches To Renting a Flat In Prague

There are generally two ways in which you can approach searching for a flat in Prague – look on your own or hire us to assist. We understand it sounds like self-promotion – there must surely be other ways. There are other ways but they usually go down to these two options anyway.

The main reason for that is that Czech real estate agents do not work the same way as in some other countries. They are not here to be your guide and look for apartments for you. When you approach a standard real estate agent, they offer you what they have in their database and that is it. You either like some of their listings and go see it, or you move on to another real estate agent – you search on your own.

You can also have a flat search assistance provided by your employer (employers often hire our services to help their employees as well). If you have this option (and a good support from the provider), you are probably not reading this article as the is doing the search for you.

So, by reading this article, you can either get a lot of useful tips for your own search, or see how we can make the process easier and hire us to make your flat search faster and smoother.

Let’s look into the two options in details now.

1. Renting A Flat In Prague On Your Own

When searching for a place to live in Prague on your own, you can use multiple different sources. We describe them below long with their pros and cons.

Personal Recommendations

If you are moving to Prague for employment and/or you have friends here, the first place to start your apartment search is to ask your colleagues or friends.

If you are working for a company with tens or hundreds of employees, chances are some of them are moving from their apartment at the moment and you could replace them there. If they are not moving themselves, they might know someone who does, or someone who owns a vacant place. Same with your friends.

Pros:

potentially the easiest way to rent an apartment in Prague – no need to search through numerous websites, contact tens of landlords or agents or visit apartments for days,

Cons:

people often tend to be less careful when renting from/through someone they know (i.e. they do not read the lease that carefully, they do not question parts they would have normally questioned) which can potentially lead to serious trouble down the road,
you should ideally still hire someone to check the lease, make sure everything is legal there, make photos of the apartment before moving in etc.

Real Estate Websites and Other Online Sources

Searching for a long-term rental online is the most common way. Here are some of the main portals you should know about along with their pros and cons.

Sreality.cz: The biggest real estate website in the Czech Republic with wide variety of options from flats to houses to commercial real estate. Great to give you an idea about the Czech rental market. Basically all listing you find at other website are listed here as well. 99% of apartment listed here are offered by Real Estate agents or management companies which means you will have to pay a commission (usually around one month rent) to rent a flat through them. English version of listings often does not mention significant details (or any details at all).
Expats.cz Real Estate Section: To be completely honest, we only list this option since expats.cz is the biggest “news” portal in English in the Czech Republic. The advantage is that the whole platform is in English, you can also find there articles about housing and Prague in general. You will find basically all of the listing here on sreality as well, one advantage of using expats.cz instead is that it kind of naturally filters landlords/agents that are willing to accept expats in their apartments.
Bezrealitky.com: Platform for direct owner listings. This means in most cases you will not pay one month rent commission (there might still be a “renter’s fee” involved). The main disadvantages: as a non-Czech person, you will not be able to use all the features making you more attractive to owners (i.e. automated checking of your “credit score”), since the platform is “without commission”, the competition among tenants is massive here so you will be competing tens or hundreds of other people. Last but not least, since you deal directly with the owner, you must be very careful with the lease you sign and ideally have the lease checked by a professional so you do not end up signing a lease that includes illegal clauses or maybe is not even an apartment lease (see below).
Facebook Market Place and real estate groups – if you use Facebook, there are a few decently sized Real Estate groups there (Flat Rent Prague – 55k members, Apartments for rent in Prague – 44k members, etc.). Given Facebook’s “specific” scam protection mechanisms, you need to be very careful there. From our experience, Facebook has the highest amount of scam offers among all the sites listed here. We discuss most common scams lower in the article.

Step-by-step: How to rent a flat in Prague

Below we give you a few tips on renting a flat in Prague that you might find helpful regardless of if you work with us or not.

Define your requirements and compromises. Think about locations you would like to live in (either in terms of Prague parts or perks of the ideal neighborhood – i.e. a lot of parks, a lot of restaurants, calm etc.), commuting time to where you go most (work, airport, school for your children), realistic moving in date, size of the apartment, monthly (and moving in) budget, extras such as a balcony or a parking space. Define also where you are willing to compromise and where you are not.
Arrange as many viewings as possible. You should not be too picky in the initial phase of your search, especially if you are not familiar which Czech market and looks of apartments. Especially private (direct) owner can make very bad photos of a really nice apartment.

More importantly though, If you only contact 3 listings you like the most, it is very likely you will not hear back from either of them. Renting a flat in Prague is often numbers game – you have to contact 50 landlords to get 5 viewings. This is influenced by your budget though – the higher the budget, the lower the competition.
Be flexible with viewing times. Many good flats are gone within 24-48 hours. Since there are so many people looking to rent in Prague, landlords are often not really motivated to be flexible with viewings. In 2012 when we were starting the business, landlords were happy that someone came to see their apartment so they would should you the flat at 7 am or 8 pm, just to have a chance to rent it out. The market is quite the opposite now – landlords will often tell you “I will be in the apartment today at 15:00, come or not”. They often do “mass viewings” meaning they invite 5 or 10 people to see the apartment at the same time.
Negotiate & secure fast. If you like the flat, express your interest clearly and ideally right during the viewing. If you wait a few days to decide, the flat will most likely be gone. Also, keep going to see flats until you sign the lease and move in. The fact that you like the apartment does not mean the landlord likes you as a tenant. Even if both sides agree, there are still a few steps that might prevent you from renting the flat (i.e. the lease agreement will include illegal clauses, flat will not be actually a flat, you might not agree on some parts of the lease such as owning pets). You should keep your options open.
Check the contract. Ensure the lease agreement is written and includes key details. Make sure the flat is actually a flat (see the “Common scams” section below), that you are signing the lease with the actual owner of the flat (or that you get all the relevant documentation if you are not), make sure you understand all parts of the agreement, not just in terms of the language but in term of what it actually means under Czech law.
Move-in check/taking over the apartment. Document the condition of the flat (photos of any damage), ensure utilities arrangement is clear.
Register your residence (if required). As a foreigner you may need to register your address with the Foreign Police depending on your visa/permit type.

Real-life “horror stories” from our renting experience

Flight attendants

Some years ago, a group of flight attendants called us very distressed asking us to help them find a place to move it “today”. When we asked why such hurry, they revealed their story. They rented a flat some weeks ago from a very nice guy, everything was going great. Until one day, when a man came through the entrance door and was as surprised to see them there as they were to see him. Turned out the owner travelled a lot for work and so he had given keys from the apartment to his neighbor to water his plants and generally look after the apartment a bit. The neighbor took it as an opportunity to earn some extra money. Since the lease agreement was not legally valid, the flight attendants had to leave the flat the same night.

Common Scams & How to Avoid Them

Paying deposit before viewing: we have been helping expats with renting apartments in Prague since 2012 and this scam has been present the whole time. It usually goes somewhat like this: “I bought the apartment for my daughter but she got pregnant and moved back to me to Greece/The Netherlands/wherever and I do not want the flat to be empty. Since I am in Greece”The Netherlands/wherever, I can not come show you the place in person but will be happy to ship you the keys so you can visit the flat on your own. You just need to pay some deposit for that”.

It might sound like common sense to not send money to someone before seeing the actual apartment. These scammers have become very convincing over the years though. They will exchange couple e-mails with you, will want to know you, might even send you “their” ID/passport to prove that they are real. They also often say they use a secure third party account for your deposit (i.e. AirBnB) so they can not use it until you confirm you like the apartment.

If you add the pressure of looking for a flat for weeks not being able to secure one, people actually fall for this.
Fake listings: although the two main portals (sreality and bezrealitky) usually find and delete fake advertisements quickly (within hours or days), you might still find some, especially if you browse through their offers couple times a day. Other portals (including some Facebook groups and Market places) might also not be that efficient in finding and deleting fake offers. Simple rule here – if the offers looks too good to be true, it is.
Incomplete info about the flat: this might not be a scam per se, but still worth keeping in mind. Especially on sreality, the English version of the listing often only mentions the base rent. Only if you switch to the Czech version, you’ll find out that on top of that (beautifully low) rent, you’ll have to pay 3 000 CZK per person for common house charges, then electricity (2 000 CZK) and gas (4 000 CZK) will be transferred to your name directly, and the Internet is not included. And like this, a great offer becomes an offer on the higher end of your budget.
Renting an “Atelier” or other “not suitable for living” space – for various reasons, not all apartments are officially listed as apartments in the official Land Register (Cadaster). The place might look like a flat, be advertised as a flat but officially is not a flat. There are two main reasons to avoid renting these types of “flats”:
- often the reason why the “flat” is not labeled as flat is that it does not meet some legal requirements for an apartment – i.e. the walls are too thin (so you hear everything happening at your neighbors and they hear everything happening in your apartment), the windows are too small or oriented the way that not enough sunlight comes in. These conditions might in a long run significantly influence your well being.
- since the place is not officially a flat but an “office space” or a “temporary living space” or straight out cellar or attic space, you can not use a lease for such place for any official purposes such as immigration authorities.
Signing a sublease agreement instead of a lease agreement – this might not necessarily be a scam but you should be very careful when signing a sublease agreement. Tenants enjoy tremendous amount of protection in the Czech Republic. Subtenants? Almost none. Also, if you are signing a sublease agreement, you will need more paperwork (i.e. a notarized copy of the actual lease agreement showing the tenant is allowed to further sublease the flat to you) to make the agreement work for any official (ie. immigration) purposes.
No records of payments – every time you are asked to pay something in cash (often the case for the first rent and security deposit), ask for a proper receipt. Even if you are not being scammed, it is good to keep records of all the payments you’ve made for any future litigations.

How We Can Help With Renting An Apartment In Prague

If you are looking at renting a flat in Prague on your own, hopefully this guide has provided you with some useful information. If you do not want to go through this on your own, we’ll be happy to help 🙂

We offer two types of assistance – Counseling and Active Search. Both options include the following:

contacting landlords and/or real estate agents and arranging viewings for you,
preparing you for viewings (what to say, what not to say, how to behave to increase the chances of the landlord choosing you as the tenant if you like the flat),
negotiations of the lease agreement terms when you like an apartment,
reviewing your lease to make sure it is in accordance with Czech law and there is nothing that could negatively surprise you later on,
personal assistance with signing the lease agreement,
personal assistance with taking over the flat and taking photos of the flat.

The difference between Counseling and Active Search is in who does the search.

The Counseling option is better suitable for people who prefer going through the listings on their own while still using all benefits of working with us listed above.

The Active Search usually works best for clients who prefer focusing on other things than going through countless flat listings. In the Active Search, we ask you about your requirements and then do a custom made search just for you, sending you pre-selected apartments matching your preferences.

We can also assist with registering utilities (electricity, gas) or the Internet to your name. Potentially also provide you with renter’s insurance if the landlord requires that or if you want to get it for your own safety.

How Is Renting A Flat Related To Other Aspects of Your Relocation Journey

As a foreigner, renting a flat in Prague is most likely just one of many parts of the relocation process you will need to go through. Below, we are listing some of the most common situations you might face as a foreigner moving to, or living in, the Czech Republic, that are related to your lease agreement.

EU Citizens

As an EU citizens, you do not have many immigration related obligations.

The main one is to get registered with the Foreign Police within 30 days of your arrival to the Czech Republic. Proving your address is an integral part of the process.

If you plan on staying in the Czech Republic for an extended period of time (i.e. a year or longer), you might need to get a Registration Certificate for EU citizens. If you live in “Atelier” or do not have all paperwork related to your lease perfectly prepared, you might not be able to obtain the registration certificate.

If you already live in the Czech Republic and you are now moving to a new apartment, you should report the change of address to all relevant authorities – i.e. MOI if you already hold the Registration Certificate or a Permanent Residence Permit, to a Trade License Office and subsequent authorities (Tax Office, Social Security, Health Care) if you hold a Trade License, or to your employer or a bank if they are part of your situation here.

Non-EU citizens

For non-EU citizens, having a legal lease agreement is crucial. Valid and legal proof of accommodation is required for basically all visa and residence permit types.

Mistakes in your lease agreement can delay your approvals, shorten the validity of your visa or even lead to a visa or residence permit denial.

Non-EU citizens are also obliged to report a change of address to the Ministry of the Interior within 30 days

At Move To Prague, we offer flat-hunting services independently, or as part of full relocation packages covering visas, business setup, and post-move support.

📩 Contact us early – we can coordinate your flat search with your overall visa process timeline and make sure nothing is missed.

Suggested next reads:

Move To Prague relocation services – AMAZING EXPERIENCE. EVERY TIME.