Vaccination Records in the Czech Republic: When You Need a Translation

Enrolling your child in nursery, starting a new job, or planning travel, and someone just asked for your vaccination record? Whether you actually need a translation — and what kind — depends entirely on who’s asking. This guide covers the situations where a vaccination record translation is required in the Czech Republic, and the ones where it isn’t.

Note: this article covers translation requirements, not medical advice. For questions about your child’s specific vaccination schedule, speak to your Czech pediatrician.

• Vaccination is required for nursery enrolment, but a vaccination certificate is not required for starting school.
• A Czech pediatrician evaluates a foreign vaccination card rather than restarting the schedule from zero.
• Some employers, particularly in healthcare and food-related sectors, may ask for proof of vaccination.
• Whether you need a certified or professional translation depends on who’s requesting the document.

This is the question that trips up the most parents, and it has a clear, if counterintuitive, answer.

For nursery (mateřská škola), vaccination according to the Czech schedule is a condition of admission — this follows from Section 46 of Act No. 258/2000 Coll. on the protection of public health, which makes regular childhood vaccination a legal obligation in the Czech Republic. For starting primary school, however, a vaccination certificate is generally not required for enrolment. Many parents assume the rule is the same for both, or reversed, and end up either scrambling unnecessarily for school or arriving at a nursery without the paperwork they actually need.

This is usually the biggest source of anxiety for parents moving to the Czech Republic, and the reality is more reassuring than it first appears.

A Czech pediatrician doesn’t simply reject a foreign vaccination record and start over. Instead, they review the existing record, compare it against the Czech schedule, and build a tailored catch-up plan that accounts for vaccines your child has already received — even if the schedule or vaccine combinations used abroad don’t match the Czech one exactly. For this evaluation to go smoothly, the pediatrician generally needs the foreign record translated so they can read exactly what your child has already had.

Vaccination records aren’t only a parenting document — for some jobs, they matter for employment too.

Certain regulated sectors, particularly healthcare and food-related industries, may require staff to provide proof of specific vaccinations as a condition of employment, under related public health regulations (including Decree No. 79/2013 Coll. on health surveillance of employees). If your employer asks for this, a professional translation — accurate, terminology-correct, but without a certification stamp — is usually sufficient, since the document typically isn’t going to a Czech authority.

This is really a question about who’s going to read the translated document, and the answer changes accordingly.

If your vaccination record is going to OAMP, your health insurance company (pojišťovna), or another Czech authority, it typically needs a certified (sworn) translation — the kind with the round stamp of a court-appointed translator. If it’s going to your treating pediatrician, a clinic, or a nursery, a professional translation is normally enough: accurate medical terminology, without the formal certification. If you’re not sure which applies to your situation, tell us who’s requesting the document and we’ll advise before you order.

Once you know which type of translation you need, getting it done is usually quick.

Send us a scan or photo of the record, and we’ll confirm the exact price and turnaround within an hour. Standard turnaround is 2–3 business days, with express delivery available within 24 hours for appointments or deadlines that can’t wait. We work from offices in Prague, Brno, and Pardubice, or entirely online if that’s more convenient. If you’re also assembling documents for a residence permit application, our OAMP document checklist covers the fuller picture. For a general overview of certified translation in the Czech Republic, see our full guide.

We handle both certified and professional medical translations, with express delivery available from 24 hours.