Highways in the Czech Republic are managed by the state-owned Directorate of Highways and Motorways of the Czech Republic – ŘSD ČR. The ŘSD currently (september 2022) manages and maintains 1,355 km of motorways (dálnice) and the national speed limit is 130 km/h (80 mph). The length of the motorway network is planned to be expanded to 2,000 km by 2030.
Road categories
There are 2 main categories of state-owned roads in Czech Republic: motorways (dálnice) and highways (silnice).
Motorways (Dálnice) This is the highest category of roads in the Czech Republic. Their start and end are marked by green motorway signs and the informational signs on them and leading to them are green. Their road numbers are displayed on a red background. An electronic vignette is compulsory on motorways unless stated otherwise. The speed limit on motorways is 130 km/h.
Highways (Silnice) This category contains all remaining state-owned roads. Highways have blue informational signs placed on them and their road numbers are 1-99 displayed on a blue background. No electronic vignette is needed on highways, only truck electronic toll is on selected highway sections. The speed limit on all roads is 90 km/h, with dual carriageways having the same 90 km/h speed limit unless stated otherwise.
Road for motorcars (Silnice pro motorová vozidla) Some sections of highways have their start and end marked by blue road for motorcars signs. These are grade-separated dual-carriageway highways with a speed limit of 110 km/h unless stated otherwise. As they form parts of existing highways and are not a road system on their own, they do not have any specific numbering system. Thus blue informational road signs and road numbers on blue background are used on them same as for any other highway.
Other roads
Remaining roads with road numbers of 3 or more digits on blue background are owned and maintained by regions or local municipalities. In some major cities, road for motorcars can be designated on them with a city speed limit of 80 km/h.
Network map
Toll requirements
Motorcars up to 3.5 tonnes
Each vehicle needs to purchase time-based fee, also known as electronic vignette, before entering the motorway. This can be paid online or in selected official selling places with validity of 10 days (310 CZK), 1 month (440 CZK) or 365 days (1500 CZK). However, there are many unofficial websites and unofficial selling places which may charge extra fees or provide bad exchange rates.
Electronic vignettes replaced the windscreen toll vignette (dálniční známka or dálniční kupón) in 2021.
A green motorway road sign means that a paid e-vignette toll is obligatory unless stated otherwise (usually sections from the border to the closest exit or close to large cities). Only sections not subject to e-vignette are designated with an additional road sign (see below).
For 2023, the following motorway sections are subject to the time-based electronic vignette duty for motor cars up to 3.5 t:
Vehicles over 3.5 tonnes
As of 1 January 2007 a new system of electronic toll aka a distance toll for vehicles with a weight exceeding 12 tons has been introduced for motorways and some roads of the first class (silnice první třídy), totally cca 200 km. As of 1 January 2010, this applies also to vehicles over 3.5 tons. There is an ongoing public discussion on imposition of electronic toll for all cars and vehicles.
History of Czech motorways
Before the Second World War
The first informal plan for a motorway (first called in Czech autostráda or dálková silnice) in Czechoslovakia date back to 1935. This was to link Prague through Slovakia with the easternmost Czechoslovak territory, Carpathian Ruthenia (now Zakarpattia Oblast in Ukraine). The terminus was to be at Velykyy Bychkiv (Velký Bočkov in Czech) on the Romanian border. The definitive route, including a Prague ring motorway, was approved shortly after the Munich Agreement on 4 November 1938, with a planned speed limit of 120 km/h.
The Nazi authorities also made the second Czecho-Slovak Republic, already a German satellite state, build a part of the Reichsautobahn Breslau - Vienna as an extraterritorial German motorway with border checkpoints at each motorway exit. However, only a construction of the route within Bohemia and Moravia was initiated, but never finished. It still sporadically appears in some current Czech motorway plans.