Universal services

Universal services mean the minimum set of services that have to be continuously provided in the Czech Republic under the same conditions to all users at an affordable price and specified quality. The universal services include the most important postal services, including international services that are essential for the public (ordinary letters and parcels, registered items, insured items, postal orders).

At the European level, the universal services are described by the Directive on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service. The Directive generally uses the term universal service for universal services.

The scope of universal services is specified in Section 3 of the Postal Services Act:

1. Delivery of postal items up to 2 kg;
2. Delivery of postal parcels up to 10 kg;
3. Delivery of an amount of money by postal order;
4. Delivery of registered items;
5. Delivery of insured items;
6. Free delivery of postal items up to 7 kg for the visually impaired;
7. Services that have to be provided on the basis of the obligations arising from the membership of the Czech Republic in the Universal Postal Union.

The following table summarises the universal services:

Universal services have to allow every working day at least one clearance and at least one delivery to the address of every natural or legal person. Detailed technical specification of universal services is stipulated in the Decree No. 464/2012 Coll., on the determination of specifications of individual universal services and basic quality requirements for their provision.This Decree describes in detail the technical specification of the individual universal services, the method of securing the services, the minimum requirements for the accessibility of post offices and post boxes and the information that should be available to postal service users (on request or by posting it at the post offices or at the provider’s website). The Decree is not intended to put any limits (in addition to the obligations set out in the Decree) on how providers provide their services.

Government order No. 178/2015 Coll., on the determination of the minimum number of workplaces for the provision of universal services became effective on 1 January 2016. This order set that the minimum number of postal licence holders registered offices for ensuring and providing universal services is 3,200.

The decision to grant a postal licence

The CTU Council issued a Decision to grant a postal licence (only Czech version – rozhodnutí čj. ČTÚ-562/2013-610/IV. vyř.), which imposed an obligation to ensure general availability of all universal services under the Section 3 of the Postal Services Act continuously throughout the Czech Republic.

A list of municipalities and their parts, where the postal licence holder is obliged to operate post offices to ensure their availability, is annexed to this Decision. The postal licence holder may substitute some registered offices from this list with other registered offices. Any changes shall be notified to CTU.

List of post offices

During the validity of its postal licence, the Czech Post notified the CTU on changes of its list, which are available in the document "Přehled oznámených změn" (in Czech language only).

The current list of registered offices, which ensure availability of universal services in the municipalities and their parts, is published by the Czech Post on its website. The document are available in the Czech language only.