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There is no treaty on the mutual recognition of school documents between Czechia and Kazakhstan: the MŠMT list of equivalence agreements contains only Hungary, Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia (MŠMT, archived copy, Verified: 2026-09-02). So a Kazakhstani school certificate is proved through one of two routes. The first: nostrification, that is recognition of the certificate, at the krajský úřad, the regional authority, under § 108 of the school act; the fee is 3 000 CZK, and on 1 March 2025 it tripled from 1 000 CZK (Act No. 634/2004 Sb., položka 10 d), Act No. 52/2025 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-02). The second: assessment of the certificate by the university itself inside the admission procedure under § 48(4)(e) of the higher education act, usually 900-1 055 CZK, but the result is valid for that admission only (Act No. 111/1998 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-02).
The short answer: two routes side by side
The krajský úřad decision is universal: it is valid at any university and outside admissions. The university’s assessment is cheaper and runs inside the admission campaign, but it issues no recognition decision, and its result is of no use for another university or for an employer.
| What is compared | Nostrification at the krajský úřad | Assessment by the university at admission |
|---|---|---|
| Basis | § 108 of Act No. 561/2004 Sb. (text, Verified: 2026-09-02) | § 48(4)(e) of Act No. 111/1998 Sb. (text, Verified: 2026-09-02) |
| Who conducts it | the krajský úřad for the applicant’s place of stay, in Prague the magistrát | the university the application was filed with |
| Fee | 3 000 CZK, the same across the country, data as of September 2026 | ČVUT 950 CZK, MUNI PřF 900 CZK, the 2026/2027 cycle; capped at 20 percent of the ministerial base |
| Time | a base 30 days with extensions; an exam stops the clock | within the deadlines of the university’s admission campaign |
| What it gives | a decision with a nostrifikační doložka | an entry in the admission file, no decision is issued |
| Where it is valid | any university, employer, further procedures | only this admission at this university |
Route 1: nostrification at the krajský úřad
The application is filed with the krajský úřad for the applicant’s place of stay; if the place of stay cannot be established, the authority where the application is filed acts instead (§ 108(1) of Act No. 561/2004 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-02). In Prague it is the education department of the magistrát that decides, and it asks for proof of the place of stay to be attached, a tenancy agreement for example (the MHMP portal, Verified: 2026-09-02). Filing in two regions in parallel is not allowed: the authorities are obliged to check against a shared list of proceedings. Filing through a representative under a power of attorney is permitted; for a minor the power of attorney is signed by the legal representative.
The set of documents under § 108(3) and MHMP practice looks like this.
- The certificate with its annex, the original or a certified copy, with an apostille: both countries are parties to the Hague Convention, so superlegalisation is not needed. The Kazakhstani side, 15 working days under the regulations, is covered separately: apostille and sworn translation.
- A statement of the content and volume of study: a list of subjects with the hours for each year. This is the main pain point of the set: primary sources name no statutory Kazakhstani form for such a statement, so ask your school for an extract from the curriculum with the hours by year of study.
- Proof that the school is recognised by its state as part of its education system, if that is not evident from the certificate itself.
- A translation of all documents into Czech by a soudní překladatel from the Czech list. A Kazakhstani notarised translation does not satisfy this condition, and a document in English is not exempt from translation on this route (MŠMT, archived copy, Verified: 2026-09-02).
An incomplete set leads not to a refusal but to an exam: if there is no statement of hours, or if the content and volume of study differ in part from the Czech programme, the krajský úřad sets a nostrification exam (§ 108(5), Verified: 2026-09-02). A refusal without an exam follows only where the difference is substantial. The subjects and the school for the exam are chosen by the krajský úřad (vyhláška 12/2005 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-02). It is normally taken in Czech, but by agreement with the authority another language is possible if that does not defeat the purpose of the exam. The exam in the subject “Czech language and literature” is not taken by an applicant who is not a citizen of Czechia or who was educated at a school outside Czechia: either of the two conditions is enough, and a Kazakhstani applicant meets both. Pointing to the experience of acquaintances from the EU is of no help here: the law prescribes ignoring differences in content and volume only for documents from EU countries, and a Kazakhstani certificate is compared under the full procedure.
Failing even one subject means a refusal. The application can be filed again: in the new proceedings only the failed subjects are retaken, if less than three years have passed since that exam. A refusal is appealed through the krajský úřad to MŠMT within 15 days of the day the decision is delivered.
The time frame: a base 30 days, up to another 30 days in a particularly complex case, an oral hearing or an inspection, plus the time for enquiries and for the delivery of documents from abroad, which has no upper limit (§ 71(3) of Act No. 500/2004 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-02). The Prague magistrát and the Moravian-Silesian Region publish a guide figure of 30-60 days (sluzby.msk.cz, Verified: 2026-09-02). With an exam the calendar is longer: from the setting of the exam until its date the clock stops.
The 3 000 CZK fee is the same across the whole country: it is a state administrative fee, not a regional tariff. Filing through the official electronic form reduces it by 20 percent, to 2 400 CZK, but it requires a Czech e-identita, which an applicant usually does not have before arrival: treat the discount as an option, not as the baseline (§ 9 of Act No. 634/2004 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-02).
Route 2: assessment by the university inside admissions
In § 48(4) the higher education act gives five ways to prove secondary education when applying for the first cycle, and two of them are live for a graduate of a Kazakhstani school: the general recognition from route 1 and the assessment of the foreign certificate by the university itself (§ 48(4)(e) of Act No. 111/1998 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-02). The conditions: the certificate must give the right to enter a university in its own country, and the university itself may request confirmation of the school’s status and of that right. The logic is the same as for entering a Master’s with a diploma: Master’s admission in Czechia.
The amount is set by the university, capped at 20 percent of the ministerial base, which for 2026 is 1 055.60 CZK; the base itself is explained in free study in Czechia. In the 2026/2027 cycle ČVUT charges 950 CZK, and the fee is not refunded whatever the result (cvut.cz, Verified: 2026-09-02), while the Přírodovědecká fakulta of Masaryk University charges 900 CZK (sci.muni.cz, Verified: 2026-09-02). At Charles University the assessment is carried out by the faculty, and each faculty has its own conditions and deadlines (cuni.cz, Verified: 2026-09-02), while VŠE shows the amount in the InSIS admission system after the application is filed (vse.cz, Verified: 2026-09-02).
The route has two limits. The first: the result is one-off. No recognition decision is issued, the university makes an entry in the admission file, and Charles University states outright that the assessment is valid for its own admission campaign only. The second: the route is conditional. Where it has doubts, the university may send the applicant to general recognition, that is, into route 1.
Do not confuse two identical figures: the 3 000 CZK for nostrification of a university diploma is paid to the chosen university under § 90a of the higher education act, while the 3 000 CZK for a school certificate is paid to the krajský úřad under the act on administrative fees. The amounts coincide, but the procedures, the legal bases and the recipients are different.
Timing: count back from the university’s deadline
There is no single duration for the route, the components add up around a particular university: the apostille in Kazakhstan, the translation by a soudní překladatel, whose turnaround is not regulated and depends on the translator, and then either the deadline for the university’s assessment or the 30-60 days of the krajský úřad, with a possible stop for an exam.
The deadlines for the university’s assessment fall noticeably earlier than enrolment. In the last published cycle, 2026/2027, the Přírodovědecká fakulta of Masaryk University accepted documents until 7 June 2026, MFF UK until 31 July 2026, and ČVUT accepted applications from 1 December 2025 until 21 August 2026 and required the documents no later than 30 days before enrolment. The dates of the 2027/2028 cycle have not been published yet and have to be looked up on the universities’ own pages.
On the duration of schooling: ČVUT requires the sum of the standard durations of basic and secondary education to be no less than 11 years, and Kazakhstan’s 11 grades clear that minimum by the narrowest of margins (cvut.cz, Verified: 2026-09-02).
If the decision does not arrive in time: in the ordinary regime the law makes no provision for conditional enrolment without proof of education. Exceptions exist, but they are narrow: conditional admission with the proof supplied up to 90 days after enrolment is possible only under a declared extraordinary school regime, and the relaxations for holders of temporary protection run under a separate act (§ 95a-95b of Act No. 111/1998 Sb., Verified: 2026-09-02). Neither of them applies to an applicant from Kazakhstan in ordinary times, so the proof of education has to be ready for enrolment, the zápis, and a “bring it later” policy is worth checking in writing with the particular faculty.
Recognition of the certificate is not the last deadline in the calendar either: after enrolment comes the application for a stay, where only the university itself can register the applicant for submission, and the decision takes 60 days (student visa to Czechia).
If there is no Czech yet, the route usually starts not with nostrification but with a year of the language: free study in Czechia and the preparatory year. The destination as a whole: Czechia. How EEC handles document recognition: nostrification and document recognition.