Shopping from abroad in Czechia
Updated
Online shopping keeps growing here: 83.67% of people in Czechia bought something online in the last twelve months, up every year from 71.64% in 2020, and of those who bought in the last three months, two in five bought from a seller in another country and one in six from outside the EU (Eurostat). Delivery is rarely the hard part. The hard part is the price: a koruna shopper is quoted in euro, dollars or pounds and then has to work out what the parcel really costs once 21% VAT and the customs charges land on it.
How cross-border shopping into Czechia works
Many of the big names already sell here in koruna: Zara, H&M, IKEA, Decathlon, Zalando, Notino and Temu all run Czech stores, and Next sells to Czechia duty paid. There is no Amazon Czech Republic: amazon.cz sends you to Amazon Germany in Czech, which has its own Czech Republic delivery rates and, as an EU order, no customs at all. Back Market, which has no Czech site, is the clearest gap.
On costs, one line decides everything: EU or not. From inside the EU the price you see is the price you pay. From outside it, every parcel picks up 21% Czech VAT whatever its value, plus the €3 customs duty per item that replaced the old €150 duty-free allowance on 1 July 2026. If the seller settled the VAT at checkout (IOSS), Czech Post charges nothing to clear the parcel; for goods over €150, and for goods that cannot be released under the special arrangement or IOSS, its fee is 350 Kč. Get delivery and the true landed price right and the rest is shopping.
A quick checklist before you buy
- Will it ship here? Check the ships-to-Czechia directory, and whether the store has a Czech site, which is usually the cheaper route.
- What’s the real total? Run it through the import calculator in koruna.
- EU or non-EU? EU orders avoid customs entirely: see the import charges guide.
- Is it actually cheaper? Compare the price across marketplaces on OroScout and filter to what ships to you.