Meal voucher allowance

The meal voucher allowance, which was implemented on 1 January 2021, extends the possible ways of providing or financially supporting meal services for employees. Besides providing corporate catering or paper meal vouchers, employers can now provide their employees with a financial contribution which is tax advantageous as well. It is not replacement of existing meal vouchers but another way which should, according to the Ministry of Finance, reduce the bureaucracy and costs related to the meal vouchers. The existing meal vouchers are not cancelled and the current regime is kept.

The meal voucher allowance will be a taxable expense for the employer and it will be exempt from income tax and insurance contributions for the employees. This will apply to the amount which is 70 per cent of the upper limit of the subsistence expenditures which is paid to employees as a business trip compensation (a business trip means a travel lasting from 5 to 12 hours within a shift). In 2021, such amount is CZK 75.60 per a shift (70 per cent of the subsistence expenditure of CZK 108).

If the employer decides to provide the employee with a daily meal voucher which amounts to the upper limit, i.e. CZK 75.60, then the employee receives CZK 1,587.60 in a month (considering there are twenty one working days in the given month). This amount is exempt from income tax and social and health insurance contributions. Also, this amount is a taxable expense for the employer.

The employer can also decide that he will pay a higher amount than the one mentioned above. If he decides to pay, for example, CZK 100.00 per day then the amount of CZK 75.60 will be in the above described regime of exempt income but the rest of the amount will be subject to tax and social security and health insurance contributions deductible from the employee's payroll. The whole daily amount of CZK 100.00 is a taxable expense for the employer.