Types of trades: unrestricted, craft, regulated and concession

Four types of trades, one Act

Before you go to the Trade Licensing Office, it is worth knowing one thing: not every trade licence is set up in the same way. The Trade Licensing Act (No. 455/1991 Coll.) distinguishes four types of trades, and each has different requirements for what you must document. For one, an ID card and a clean criminal record are enough. For another, an apprenticeship certificate is needed. And for the strictest one, you wait for the office to decide whether it will allow you to do business at all.

The difference matters mainly for money and time. Say you want to sell through an e-shop or do copywriting. An unrestricted trade is enough and the authorisation effectively arises on the day of notification. Want to open a restaurant? That is a craft trade, and you must prove competence. Planning taxi services? You cannot avoid a concession.

This article guides you through all four types, explains professional competence requirements and, above all, helps you decide where your field belongs. You can then search specific fields in our trade catalogue.

Basic division: notifiable versus concession trades

The Act first divides trades into two large groups according to how the authorisation arises (Section 9 of the Trade Licensing Act):

• Notifiable trades - the authorisation usually arises already on the day of notification if you meet the conditions. This group includes unrestricted, craft and regulated trades.
• Concession trades - the authorisation arises only on the day the decision granting the concession becomes final. The office decides on them in administrative proceedings, often with an opinion from another state-administration authority.

Within notifiable trades, the distinction is then how much expertise you must prove. That is how the three subtypes arise. The table shows it clearly:

All four types have one thing in common: for each you must meet the general conditions under Section 6 of the Act, namely full legal capacity (usually from age 18; exceptionally from age 16 with a legal representative's consent approved by a court) and good standing. They differ only in the special conditions, meaning competence under Section 7.

Unrestricted trade: one trade, 80 fields

Start with the simplest and by far the most common one. An unrestricted trade requires no education or practice. It is enough to meet the general conditions and you can carry on the field.

What often surprises people: officially, there is only one unrestricted trade. Its name is the unwieldy "Manufacture, trade and services not listed in Annexes 1 to 3 to the Trade Licensing Act". This one trade is divided into 80 fields of activity listed in Annex 4.

Watch the numbering, because this is where confusion arises. The fields in the Act are numbered up to number 82, but physically there are only 80 of them. Why? Fields No. 54 and No. 81 were abolished and their numbers are not reused. The last field, No. 82, is called "Manufacture, trade and services not elsewhere classified" and works as a residual category for activities that do not fit elsewhere.

When notifying the trade, you report one field, several fields or even all of them at once, while paying one administrative fee (1,000 Kč, or 800 Kč electronically). You can also add fields later free of charge by a simple notification of change.

Tip for freelancers: A programmer, designer, copywriter, consultant or e-shop operator usually needs only a few unrestricted-trade fields. Typical fields are 56 (IT and software), 66 (advertising and marketing), 67 (design), 47 (trade intermediation), 48 (wholesale and retail) or 60 (consultancy). You do not document education for any of them.

A few more examples to show what the unrestricted trade covers:

• Wholesale and retail (field 48) - sale of goods, e-shops
• Accommodation services (field 55) - guesthouses, apartments, Airbnb
• Photography services (field 68)
• Translation and interpreting activity (field 69)
• Extracurricular education and training (field 72) - courses, lecturing, tutoring
• Provision of services for family and household (field 79) - cleaning, childcare from age three
• Provision of services for legal persons and trust funds (field 80) - among other things, providing registered seats to companies

You can find the complete list of all 80 fields in the trade catalogue and in the PDF published by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Craft trade: apprenticeship certificate or practice

Craft trades (Annex 1) already require professional competence. Here the question is mainly whether you know the craft. This category includes classic crafts and operations where safety and quality of work matter:

• Hospitality services (restaurants, bars, cafés)
• Barbering and hairdressing, cosmetic services
• Masonry, carpentry, joinery, roofing, tinsmithing
• Plumbing and heating installation
• Locksmithing, machining, blacksmithing
• Road-vehicle repairs
• Bakery and confectionery, butchery and smokehouse production
• Chimney sweeping, watchmaking, goldsmithing and jewellery

How do you document competence? The Act (Section 21) offers several routes, and meeting one of them is enough:

• an apprenticeship certificate in the field,
• a school-leaving certificate in the field,
• a diploma from a higher vocational school or university in the relevant field,
• or recognition of professional qualification (typically for a qualification obtained abroad).

No education directly in the field? That is not necessarily a problem; there are substitute routes (Section 22). Education in a related field is enough if you also document 1 year of practice. A retraining course + 1 year of practice can also help. And if you have no certificate but have done the craft for a long time, 6 years of practice in the field is also recognised without proof of education.

Warning: "Related field" means a field using the same or similar work procedures and knowledge. The Trade Licensing Office assesses this. Some crafts, such as hospitality services, have even milder variants, so always verify the specific field in advance.

Regulated trade: competence tailored exactly

Regulated trades (Annex 2) look similar to craft trades at first glance, because they also require professional competence. The difference is that craft trades have general rules (education or practice), while for regulated trades competence is defined separately for each individual trade directly in the Act.

A general "related field and practice" is therefore not enough. For each regulated trade, Annex 2 states exactly what you must have, often specific education, authorisation, certificate or professional examination. A few examples:

Do you see the difference? While with a craft trade six years of practice "in the field" may help, with a regulated trade you usually will not pass without a specific authorisation or exactly prescribed education. For regulated trades, the most important thing is therefore to open Annex 2 and read the requirement for your field literally.

Concession trade: the state decides whether you may

The strictest category. For concession trades (Annex 3), notification and starting are not enough. You must apply for a concession, an authorisation on which the Trade Licensing Office decides in administrative proceedings. For many of them, the office also requests an opinion or consent from the affected state-administration authority. Your authorisation arises only on the day the concession decision becomes final, not earlier.

Why so strict? These are activities with higher risk for the public, safety or public order. Typical examples:

Allow for a longer deadline too. While a notifiable trade is entered by the office within 5 working days, a concession is usually decided within 30 days (and if another authority must comment, the period can be extended by another 30 days).

New in 2026: From 1 January 2026, the Trade Licensing Act was amended by Act No. 220/2025 Coll. in connection with the new regulation of weapons and ammunition. Among other things, this affects concession trades in the weapons and ammunition field. If you do business in this field, verify the current wording with your office.

Responsible representative: when you lack competence

What if you want to operate a craft trade but have no apprenticeship certificate or practice? You do not have to give up. The Act allows you to appoint a responsible representative (odpovědný zástupce) (Section 11), a natural person who meets the professional competence requirement for you and is responsible for proper operation of the trade.

In practice: imagine you are opening a restaurant but do not personally have competence for hospitality services. You hire, or agree with, someone who does, for example a trained cook with practice. That person becomes your responsible representative, has a contractual relationship with you and documents competence when the trade is notified. You run the business; they guarantee the professional side.

Important rules to know in advance:

• The responsible representative must meet the general and special conditions for the trade (legal capacity, good standing and competence).
• You must notify the Trade Licensing Office within 15 days of their appointment and termination.
• One person may be a responsible representative for no more than 4 entrepreneurs. (Older sources sometimes state a limit of 2; that no longer applies, and the current Act counts four.)
• For concession trades, appointment of a responsible representative takes effect only when approved by the office.

When do you not need a responsible representative? When you meet the competence requirement yourself. And never for an unrestricted trade, because no competence is documented there, so a representative for competence makes no sense.

How do I know where my field belongs?

Here is a simple method for identifying the category of your activity. It works by elimination:

1. Is it a trade at all? Some activities are not trades (Section 3), for example the work of doctors, attorneys, tax advisers, auditors and expert witnesses, as well as authorial work or agriculture. They are governed by their own laws, not by the Trade Licensing Act.
2. Is the field in Annex 3 (concession trades)? If yes, you apply for a concession.
3. Is it in Annex 2 (regulated trades)? Then you document the precisely prescribed competence.
4. Is it in Annex 1 (craft trades)? You document an apprenticeship certificate, education or practice.
5. Is it in none of Annexes 1-3? Then it automatically falls under the unrestricted trade (Annex 4) and no competence is needed.

The principle is logical: the unrestricted trade is a residual category. What is not expressly regulated as craft, regulated or concession is unrestricted. That is why the single unrestricted trade is called "...not listed in Annexes 1 to 3".

Watch overlapping fields. One business activity can in practice reach into several trades. Example: cosmetic services are a craft trade, but procedures interfering with skin integrity, such as some permanent make-up, may fall under a regulated trade. If you are unsure, ask directly at the Trade Licensing Office; they advise free of charge.

The fastest route in practice? Find your field in our trade catalogue. For each trade we state its category, what competence it requires and what you must document when notifying it.

Summary: the four types in a nutshell

• Unrestricted trade - no competence, only general conditions. One trade, 80 fields (numbered to 82, fields 54 and 81 abolished, field 82 residual). Ideal for IT, e-shops, marketing, consultancy.
• Craft trade - apprenticeship certificate, education or practice (Sections 21, 22). Restaurants, hairdressing, construction crafts, vehicle repairs.
• Regulated trade - precisely set competence for each trade separately (Annex 2). Accounting, real estate, driving school, design activity.
• Concession trade - concession in administrative proceedings + authority consent. Taxi services, travel agencies, weapons, alcohol, funerals.

One final point: the type of trade does not affect social or health insurance rates; for self-employed people, those depend only on profit, not on the type of trade. But it can affect income tax: if you claim a lump-sum expense allowance, craft trades have 80 % (as do agricultural production and forestry and water management), while unrestricted, regulated and concession trades have only 60 % (Section 7(7) of Act No. 586/1992 Coll.). A higher allowance reduces the tax base and therefore the final tax. Otherwise, the type of trade mainly decides what you document when setting up.