Severance pay

How much severance the law guarantees

When an employer ends the relationship — by notice or by agreement — for organizational reasons (the employer closing down, relocating, or the employee becoming redundant), the employee is owed severance based on how long they worked for that same employer. The Labour Code prints no fixed amounts — it sets a minimum multiple of average monthly earnings:

These multiples are a statutory floor— the Act says “at least”. A collective agreement, an employer’s internal regulation, or an individual agreement may set severance higher; it may never set it lower. This page describes the legal floor, not what any particular employer actually pays.

Length of service also counts a previous stint with the same employer, as long as the gap between the two did not exceed six months — the law blocks a break timed just short of the next threshold.

Two special cases — not two different laws

Beyond the base table, the Labour Code carries two departures from it — one adds to the multiple, the other replaces the table entirely.

If the relationship ends while the employee is subject to a working-time account arrangement, an extra 3× is added to the table multiple — the result is 4× to 6× depending on length of service, not a replacement for the table.

The second departure replaces the table: the law sets severance at least 12× of average earnings, regardless of length of service, for a dismissal (or agreement) given by the employer for a reason the statute itself describes as follows — rendered here in the statute’s own Czech, since a translation would be our gloss, not the law’s words:

“výpovědí danou zaměstnavatelem z důvodu uvedeného v § 52 písm. e) nebo dohodou z téhož důvodu”

The statute names the ground by cross-reference rather than describing it, and this page keeps to that wording deliberately. It is a narrow, specific ground — not the general dismissal-on-redundancy case the bands above cover.

What the multiple is a multiple of

The base for the multiple is average monthly earnings — not your most recent payslip. It is a computed figure: it comes from average hourly earnings over the preceding calendar quarter, converted to a monthly amount using the employee’s set weekly hours and a coefficient for the average number of weeks in a month. The law raises this figure to the level of the minimum wage or the applicable guaranteed-salary floor whenever it would otherwise come out lower.

Severance can be repaid

Severance can also be clawed back. If the employee returns to work for the same employer — under an employment contract or an agreement to perform work — before the period implied by the number of multiples the severance was based on has elapsed, they must repay the severance, or a proportionate part of it. The statute does not itself convert the multiple into a day count; the proportionate part is set by the number of calendar days from the new start date to the end of that period.

When severance actually arrives

By default, severance is due on the employer’s next regular payroll date after the relationship ends — the same date wages are normally paid, not the last working day. A written agreement can move that date to the termination day itself or to a later date.

Severance and the notice period

Severance is paid on top of the notice period, not instead of it. Notice given for organizational reasons runs for at least two months; no provision of the Labour Code shortens that notice period or buys it out with severance. This is a reading of the related provisions together, not one sentence the statute states outright.

The multiples shown are the statutory minimum in force for 2026, taken from the Labour Code this page cites. What you actually receive can be higher — a collective agreement or an agreement with your employer can set more. If the interpretation changed recently it may not be reflected here yet, and none of it has been through our final sign-off.