From 1 April 2024, the amount of court and administrative fees changes fundamentally. Read an overview of the most important changes in this area.
On 19 December 2023, the National Council of the Slovak Republic approved the so-called consolidation package (colloquially also “Lex consolidation”), as part of which amendments were adopted to Act No. 71/1992 Coll. on Court Fees and the Fee for an Extract from the Criminal Record (the “Court Fees Act”) and Act No. 145/1995 Coll. on Administrative Fees (the “Administrative Fees Act”). The amendments to both acts take effect on 1 April 2024. In this article, we present the most significant changes in fee rates for the types of actions and applications most frequently filed with courts in practice, and for the most frequent acts and proceedings before administrative authorities.
Please note that fees assessed for certain proceedings commenced before the amendments took effect will not be increased after the amendments take effect; however, if you do not pay the fee at the moment the fee obligation arises, or do not pay it on time, i.e. within the period specified in the request for payment, the fee rate will already be subject to the new legislation.
Change in the fee for an action or a petition initiating court proceedings
When filing an action or a petition to initiate court proceedings, the claimant pays a court fee of 6% of the value of the proceedings or of the subject matter of the dispute. Under the current legislation, this fee may be at least EUR 16.50, while the maximum amount of such a fee is EUR 16,596.50, or EUR 33,193.50 in commercial matters. The change introduced by the amendments from 1 April 2024 concerns the minimum and maximum fee (the rate of 6% of the subject matter of the proceedings or of the value of the subject matter of the dispute remains unchanged). The minimum court fee will increase to EUR 25 and the maximum amount payable to EUR 25,000, and up to EUR 50,000 in commercial matters. Even in a dispute of negligible value, the claimant will thus pay EUR 8.50 more.
Where the subject matter of the proceedings cannot be valued in money, e.g. proceedings for a declaration that a contract is invalid, the court fee will increase by EUR 40.50, from EUR 99.50 to EUR 140.
In the case of an action for the dissolution of the spouses’ community property (“BSM”), the fee will change from the current rate of EUR 165.50 to EUR 250. In the case of an action for the settlement of the spouses’ community property, the currently set fee of EUR 66 will increase to EUR 100.
Change in fees in Commercial Register matters
The fee for applications for a first registration or a change in Commercial Register matters is also changing. For applications for the first registration of a joint-stock company, the fee changes from April from the original EUR 375 to a new EUR 550; for other legal entities, for example a limited liability company, the fee will change from the current EUR 150 to a new EUR 220. In the case of an application for a first registration concerning an organisational unit of the enterprise of a legal entity or an organisational unit of the enterprise of a foreign person, there is an identical increase in fees from EUR 150 to EUR 220. The same fee is also set for applications relating to a change in the legal form of a commercial company or cooperative. For an application to change or supplement any number of data relating to one registered person in the Commercial Register, the new fee will be EUR 50.
Change in the fee for an application for enforcement proceedings
Until the end of March 2024, a court fee of EUR 16.50 was payable for an application for enforcement. From April this year, however, this fee is also increasing, to EUR 25.
Overview of changes in court fees – comparison of fees before and after the amendment to the Court Fees Act
For better orientation, we have prepared a table comparing the fees under the current legislation and the fees after 1 April 2024.
Changes in administrative fees
The current changes also affect the Administrative Fees Act.
Perhaps the most frequent administrative fees are fees for Land Register proceedings. For an application to initiate proceedings for the approval of the entry of a right to real estate in the Land Register, you will pay 51% more from 1 April 2024, as the fee increases to a flat EUR 100 (originally EUR 66). If you ask the Land Register to expedite the proceedings, you will pay a fee of as much as EUR 300 for such expedited proceedings.
Court and administrative fees for electronic submissions
Both the Court Fees Act and the Administrative Fees Act contain special rules on the amount of fees where the submission was made by electronic means. As a rule, unless a particular fee for a specific act in the case of an electronic submission is regulated separately, its amount is 50% of the fee rate set out in the fee schedule of the relevant act. The reduction is, however, capped: the legislation in force until 31 March 2024 allows the fee to be reduced by a maximum of EUR 70; from 1 April 2024, the reduction will only be possible up to EUR 50. This cap does not, however, apply to the fee for expedited Land Register entry proceedings, where the fee for an electronic submission is reduced by a full half (from EUR 300 to EUR 150).
Overview of changes in fees in Land Register proceedings
In connection with fees in Land Register proceedings, we have also prepared a table for you with an overview of the most important changes and a comparison of the fees.
We offer our clients the option of filing submissions with the Land Register or other administrative authorities electronically. This allows you to save at least 50% on the administrative fee. In the case of an application for the entry of a right in the Land Register, we can also achieve a reduction of the administrative fee by a further EUR 15 (from the already reduced fee rate) if a notice of the intended application for entry is delivered to the competent district office, cadastral department, before the application for entry is filed. We can thus reduce the administrative fee for a standard application for the entry of a right in the Land Register by up to 75% in total.
Do not hesitate to contact us in this regard; we will be happy to answer any questions you may have on this topic.
Note: The tables in this article are in Slovak.
