Filing an Instrument in the Collection of Instruments by an Entity Registered in the Business Register.

Main information

The public register also includes a Collection of Instruments. Documents required by law must be filed in the Collection of Instruments. These primarily include:

  • Founding legal acts (such as the articles of association, statutes, certificate of the course of the constituent meeting of a cooperative, and other founding legal acts depending on the legal form of the entity),
  • Decisions on appointment, election, removal, or other termination of office of persons who are members of the statutory body, as well as other persons authorized to bind the legal entity (e.g., the head of a branch),
  • Annual reports,
  • Regular, extraordinary, and consolidated financial statements.

The law specifies which documents must be filed in the Collection of Instruments. Generally, these are documents that have a fundamental impact on the establishment, dissolution, and functioning of a legal entity; documents that indicate who represents the legal entity and who is authorized to bind it.

Documents submitted to the registry court can be divided into two categories:

  1. documents which, by law, must be filed in the public register’s collection of documents (e.g. financial statements), and
  2. documents which serve as the basis for an entry in the public register (e.g. a decision on the election of a member of a statutory body).

The first type of documents filed in the register’s collection are those which, whilst required by law, do not in themselves constitute or prove a decisive fact; these are submitted in a single copy. These include, for example, a report on relations between a controlling entity and a controlled entity.

The second category comprises documents which are attached to an application for the registration of a fact in a public register and are submitted in duplicate. In some cases, documents referred to in point 2 are also filed in the register of documents.

These rules apply only to documents that are filed in the register of documents but do not themselves substantiate the information set out in an application for entry, amendment or deletion in the public register.

This applies to you if

If you are the registered entity, you have a statutory obligation to file the documents required by law without undue delay from the occurrence of the decisive fact or within the time limit specified by law.

When to use this service

You must file the document by the deadline specified in the relevant legislation (e.g. financial statements). If the law does not specify a time limit, the document must be filed without delay once it has been drawn up (e.g. a new, complete version of the founding legal act). If the instrument is not filed in the Collection of Instruments, the court will notify you and request that you submit the relevant instrument within the time limit it sets.

Vyřízení služby - elektronicky

What you need if you are using this service

You need the instruments you intend to file.

The instruments to be filed must meet certain requirements:

  • Each individual instrument must be submitted as exactly one XHTML or PDF document; you cannot split a single instrument into multiple PDF documents, nor combine multiple instruments into one PDF document.
  • We recommend verifying that no part of the instrument you provide contains information that cannot be disclosed under the law. If such information is present, the court will be obliged to reject the entire PDF document corresponding to that instrument.
  • PDF documents must not be encrypted (including password protection), must not contain any embedded files (such as data files, harmful software, additional PDF files, etc.), and printing of the document must not be restricted.

Where and how to solve this service

Send the PDF instruments electronically to the registry court that maintains the file of the respective entity, using one of the following methods:

  • Data mailbox (Czech: datová schránka),
  • Email,
  • Through the online submission form for the Collection of Instruments,
  • Via the online application ePodatelna.
Public registers are maintained by regional courts for entities that have their registered office or residence within the jurisdiction of that regional court. Contact details for individual registry courts can be found on the relevant websites.

The document must be submitted electronically only; a paper submission is not sufficient in this case.

If the document was originally signed by hand, it is not necessary to include either a handwritten signature or an electronic signature on the electronic copy. The words ‘vlastní rukou’ or ‘v. r.’ should be added next to the signatory’s name.

For example, in the case of filing financial statements, the submission may be made via the applicant’s data box. However, submission via a data box merely ensures the identification of the applicant – the applicant (for the filing of a document in the register) is the entity to which the data box belongs (e.g. the owners’ association). The identification of the applicant is, in principle, unrelated to the documents being filed in the register, or to the formal requirements for such documents. The person signing the document will often not even be the same as the applicant.

At the same time, the financial statements must state the date on which they were drawn up and must be accompanied by a signature record from the statutory body; it is only upon the attachment of this signature record that the financial statements are deemed to have been drawn up. This does not, therefore, mean that if the financial statements are delivered to the court from the applicant’s data box, they are thereby successfully drawn up.

If the signature has been officially certified, the electronic document must also state:

  • the authority that certified the signature,
  • the certification reference number,
  • the date of certification, and
  • the name of the person who carried out the certification.
The processing time depends on the number of instruments to be filed and the method you choose. In standard cases, filing instruments will take approximately 20 minutes.

How much will you pay

None

Additional information

What is the benefit of this service

The filed instruments are publicly accessible and are subject to the principles of formal publicity. They serve you as consumers, as participants in economic competition, and potentially other entities.

Sanctions

If you are an entity registered in the public register and fail to fulfill your obligation to record the required facts in the register or to file the relevant instruments in the Collection of Instruments, the registry court will first request you to remedy the situation or submit the required facts and instruments. If the deadline set in the request expires without compliance, the registry court may impose a procedural fine of up to CZK 100,000. The fine may be imposed repeatedly.

If you repeatedly fail to comply, or if such failure could have serious consequences for third parties and there is a legal interest, the registry court may initiate proceedings to dissolve the legal entity with liquidation, even without a motion. The registry court will notify you of this and provide a reasonable period to correct the deficiencies. Failure to comply with a request that has serious consequences for third parties is considered, in particular, failure to submit updated instruments (e.g., failure to submit financial statements).

It should also be noted that a sanction may be imposed for an administrative offense under Section 37a(1)(h) of Act No. 563/1991 Coll., on Accounting, in the form of a fine of up to 3% of the value of assets; the offense is handled by the competent tax authority. Failure to comply with obligations toward the public register may also be sanctioned as an offense under Section 9(2) of Act No. 251/2016 Coll., on Certain Offenses; here, the competent authority is the municipal office of a municipality with extended powers. Under certain circumstances, the elements of a criminal offense may also be fulfilled (Section 254 of Act No. 40/2009 Coll., the Criminal Code).

Attention should also be drawn to the statutory liability of a member of the statutory body of an association for fulfilling obligations arising from a commitment to which an inactive association is bound as a result. An inactive association is considered to be an association or branch association under the law governing associations, for which only data on name, registration number, identification number, date of establishment, legal form, and registered office are recorded.

A business corporation must file its regular and extraordinary financial statements in the Collection of Instruments. If it fails to fulfill this obligation for at least two consecutive accounting periods, the registry court may request the entity to comply. In case of non-compliance, the procedure described above applies. However, if the request cannot be delivered to the entity, the registry court will initiate proceedings to dissolve the entity.

Frequently asked questions

How long does the court usually take to process my application, and what is the statutory time limit for its processing?

Without undue delay.