.cz domains: CZ.NIC and a renewal premium

Registry and rules

CZ.NIC maintains the name database and publishes the policy; registrars handle sales. Names sit directly beneath .cz, without the functional namespaces familiar from Poland.

No Czech establishment is required, so a foreign company can register .cz without setting up locally.

Renewal costs more than registration

At a Polish registrar registration is 75 PLN net and renewal 85 PLN (August 2026). That renewal figure is the highest among .de (48), .nl (45), .es (49,20), .fr (65) and .it (70).

Five years reach roughly 415 PLN net, the most expensive of the popular Central European extensions. For a defensive name nobody will ever use, that arithmetic is worth doing before registering rather than after.

Availability answers come from the registry

CZ.NIC publishes an RDAP service, so results are authoritative. In this respect .cz behaves like .pl rather than like .de or .it.

Who it suits

Companies actually trading in the Czech Republic. A Czech customer reads .cz as a sign that somebody on the other side understands the local market — which usually counts for more than a translated website on a foreign address.

A registry that builds its own software

CZ.NIC is unusual among registries in running a laboratory that develops open-source infrastructure software and pushes DNSSEC adoption in the Czech zone. For a domain holder that is not marketing: it means the registry treats security of the zone as its own engineering problem rather than someone else’s.

If you sign your zone with DNSSEC, check that your registrar supports publishing the necessary records for .cz. Not all of them do, and the registry cannot help if your provider does not pass the data on.