It usually comes the day after check-out: “My accountant needs an invoice, the Airbnb confirmation isn't enough.” The guest is right. What they got from the platform is a confirmation of payment to an intermediary, not a document from whoever provided the service. You provided the accommodation service, and the document, if there's going to be one, comes from you.

What exactly it should be depends on who you are from a DPH (Czech VAT) point of view. Most hosts fall into one of the first two categories.

Non-payer: an invoice without VAT, on request

If you're not a VAT payer, you don't issue a “tax document” (daňový doklad) — that term applies only to VAT payers. You issue an ordinary invoice: who, to whom, what, when, for how much. There's no VAT on it at all, not even “0%”. Add the sentence “I am not a VAT payer” (Nejsem plátcem DPH).

Do you have to issue it? To a private guest, on request, yes: the Consumer Protection Act requires you to issue a document confirming the service was provided, with the date, a description of the service, the price and your identification details — name or business name and IČO (company ID number) (Section 16 of Act No. 634/1992 Coll.). No tax law requires it for a business guest, but refusing an invoice to a company that stayed with you makes no business sense. Issue it.

The required details come from the Civil Code (Section 435): name, registered address, IČO, and for an s.r.o. (limited liability company) also the entry in the Commercial Register including the section and file number.

Identified person: the same, just with one confusing number

You're almost certainly an identifikovaná osoba (identified person for VAT) — receiving commissions from Airbnb or Booking is enough. For documents issued to guests, though, it changes nothing: an identified person is not a VAT payer. You don't charge or itemize DPH on domestic supplies.

The only trap is the DIČ (tax ID number). An identified person has one, and if you put it on the invoice, the guest's accountant assumes you're a VAT payer and goes looking for the VAT. Either leave the DIČ off documents for guests, or add next to it “identified person, not a VAT payer”.

VAT payer: a tax document, 12%, and a 15-day deadline

As a VAT payer you have obligations you can't get around:

• For a business guest (an entrepreneur or legal entity) you issue a tax document even without a request, within 15 days of providing the service (Section 28(1)(a) and (8) of the VAT Act).
• For a private guest you don't have to issue a tax document; the document-on-request rule under the Consumer Protection Act applies. Up to CZK 10,000 including tax, a simplified tax document without the customer's details is enough (Section 30).
• The rate for accommodation is 12% (the reduced rate, Annex 2 of the VAT Act, item 55). From a price of CZK 2,800 including tax, the tax base is CZK 2,500 and the tax is CZK 300.
• Required details under Section 29: your DIČ and the customer's, the document's reference number, the scope and subject of the supply, the date of supply, the date of issue, the unit price, the tax base, the rate and the amount of tax.

What amount to put on the document when they paid through a platform

This is the most common question and the most common mistake. Example: the guest paid Airbnb CZK 3,400 — CZK 3,000 for the accommodation and a CZK 400 guest service fee. After deducting the 15.5% host commission, you received CZK 2,535.

The document should say CZK 3,000. That's the price of your service that the guest paid. The CZK 400 service fee is Airbnb's service to the guest — Airbnb issues a document for that, not you. The CZK 465 commission is your cost towards Airbnb and has nothing to do with the guest. As the payment method, write “paid via the Airbnb platform on …”, so the accountant doesn't go looking for the payment in your account.

The same logic applies to turnover and income tax: your income is the full price of the stay; the commission is an expense.

“We're a German company, we want it without VAT”

It can't be done, and it's not your fault. Accommodation is a service connected with immovable property, and the place of supply is where the property is located (Section 10 of the VAT Act). An apartment in the Czech Republic means Czech VAT regardless of where the customer is from. The reverse charge you know from platform commissions doesn't work here — that applies to a service you receive from abroad, not one you provide.

If you're a non-payer, the German company gets an invoice without VAT either way. If you're a VAT payer, they get a document with 12% and can apply for a refund of the Czech tax through their own tax office.

The tourist tax on the document

You collect the poplatek z pobytu (tourist tax) on behalf of the municipality; it's not payment for your service. Always show it as a separate line item below the accommodation price, without VAT — for a VAT payer it's not included in the tax base (Section 36(14)), but only if it's separated out on the document and in your price list. If you hide it in the nightly rate, you pay tax on it.

What doesn't belong on the document

• The guest's document number, date of birth, citizenship. Those belong in the registers, not on an invoice.
• The platform commission and the guest service fee.
• A “VAT 0%” line for a non-payer. A non-payer doesn't itemize VAT at all.
• A “cash discount” — EET (electronic sales records) ended on 1 January 2023, and nobody asks for an EET receipt anymore. A new sales records act is in the Chamber of Deputies with a proposed effective date of 1 January 2027; once it's enacted, we'll write about what it means for hosts.

Overview

Keep your documents: VAT payers for 10 years, everyone else at least for as long as the tax office can assess additional tax — three years from the tax return deadline, and in practice longer if the period gets extended.