🇨🇿 Monzo in the Czech Republic [Wiki]

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This is a wiki crowdsourced by the Monzo Community to help you travel with Monzo.

Just like Wikipedia, anyone can edit it to help out others. If you have any tips or feedback for visiting The Czech Republic with Monzo, please feel free to edit this guide. You can also add a comment or question below — someone will then incorporate your comment into the main text below and then delete your comment. To create your own “Monzo in …” guide if one doesn’t already exist, just copy this template into a new post and write away!

Safe travels! :wave: :airplane:

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Currency

The Czech Republic uses the Czech Koruna (CZK, KÄŤ)

Monzo users pay the MasterCard exchange rate with no added fees.

Most merchants also accept EUR when paying in cash.

Card usage

Card acceptance in the Czech Republic may differ between big cities (like Prague, Plzen or Brno) and smaller towns, but cash-only places are quite rare in general. Practically all local supermarket chains (Albert, Billa, Globus, Kaufland, Lidl, Penny Market, Tesco), smaller grocery shops, newsagents and restaurants accept cards, although you may still find a few rare cash-only places.

Most POS devices you’ll find are contactless. There’s a limit of 500 CZK (~ £17.5) for contactless payments. Some terminals will ask for chip & PIN and some will just prompt for PIN after tapping when then amount is above the limit.

Transport

Trains

Czech Railways (the biggest, gov-owned transport company) accept contactless cards in bigger stations around cities, all small ones are however cash only and you’re required to buy a ticket before boarding, unless you’re boarding from unstaffed station, in which case you pay on the train (again, cash only).

There are no barriers at any station, so you may board without a ticket (which is fine to do from unstaffed stations), but there are ticket inspectors on nearly every train.

There’s multiple companies (e.g. Czech Railways, Leo Express, RegioJet, Arriva) competing on the same rail tracks and they each have their own ticketing scheme (i.e. ticket valid for one isn’t valid for another, even if it’s for the same path). Most allow you to buy tickets online via their website.

Public Transport

Pilsen: You can pay contactless directly on buses just by tapping to one of the machines, pretty much like you pay on TFL buses. Ticket fares are zone & time based.

Prague: You need tickets before boarding bus/tram/train. All paper tickets need to be validated when first boarding a bus/tram or at a subway/train station (no need to do it again during transfers). Ticket machines at most touristy places (e.g. airport, main train station) accept contactless payments. Many others are coins only though. DPP (Prague Transport Company) publishes an up-to-date list of ticket machines (w/ cash or card notes), but it’s czech-only. mince = coins, “bezkontaktní platební karty” = “contactless payment cards”. Ticket fares are zone & time based.

Google Maps have data for most train lines and public transport in cities. It’s not as integrated as TFL is - e.g. you don’t get real-time predications/delays, but data is quite accurate. Alternatively iDOS (Android / iOS / web) is the most commonly used transport planning app amongst locals and it comes in english too.

ATMs

ATMs are a similar story to general card acceptance. Some ATMs offer contactless withdrawals.

Payment and withdrawal limits

All Monzo cards have some payment and withdrawal limits. To check yours before you leave, go to your Profile section of the app and tap on Limits.

Crowdsourced merchant data

The Monzo merchant data is often incorrect (eg. the map shows the wrong location or the name of the place is not correct). Please submit improvements to this data so it can get better for future visitors.

Miscellaneous

Taxi

If you decide to ride taxi do not hail on the streets. Unfortunately there’s a lot of scammers (esp. in touristy places) which will rip you off.

Changing money

Avoid changing money on the street for the same reason as above (scammers).

Honest Guide series

Here’s a few episodes covering some useful topics:

To edit this guide, just tap the pencil icon below. Alternatively, add a reply with your comments and someone from the community will incorporate your suggestions into the guide and then delete your comment.

5 Likes
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With going to Prague do you tap on and off public transport or actually buy a ticket?

Also, noted above there is/was 12% / ÂŁ7 withdrawal fee on certain atm, is this across all or Is there better machines to withdraw from in case I need cash?

I understand it’s fairly simple to get into the centre by bus/metro change.

Anyone know if the metro runs until early morning or would I just be better aiming for a centre hotel all walking distance if I did want to see the night scene?

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You probably won’t need cash as just about everywhere takes cards.

Avoid the Euronet machine. This needs really determined effort as they are everywhere. Look for the UniCredit and KBC machine. They are still £7/12% for UK cards but that’s still cheaper than Euronet.

In reality, you’ll not need more than £10 or so, so the 12% is going to cost you £1 or so.

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You buy a ticket at the machine beside the bus stop and validate it on the bus

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You need to actually buy tickets, Prague doesn’t do tap-in/tap-out. Aside from the ticket machines mentioned above, nowadays you can buy tickets at orange ticketing terminals which are in basically every tram and bus. There is also a ticketing app PID Lítačka.

Metro operation ends at around midnight, but there is a network of half-hourly night trams and hourly night buses

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I did stumble across this from another forum, quite a neat little app as it shows me most transport types, albeit confusing as there’s so many :sweat_smile: