Highways in the Czech Republic
[2] There are 2 main categories of state-owned roads in Czech Republic: motorways (dálnice) and highways (silnice).
Each vehicle needs to purchase time-based fee, also known as electronic vignette, before entering the motorway.
A green motorway road sign means that a paid e-vignette toll is obligatory unless stated otherwise (usually sections from the border to the closest exit or close to large cities).
For 2025, the following motorway sections are subject to the time-based electronic vignette duty for motor cars up to 3.5 t:[4] – in the direction from Slovakia subject to a charge from km 55.5 (rest area Lanžhot) – in the direction from Germany subject to a charge from km 149.7 (rest area Rozvadov) – in the direction from Germany subject to a charge from exit 64 Řehlovice As of 1 January 2007 a new system of electronic toll aka a distance toll for vehicles with a weight exceeding 12 tons has been introduced for motorways and some roads of the first class (silnice první třídy), totally cca 200 km.
The first informal plan for a motorway (first called in Czech autostráda or dálková silnice) in Czechoslovakia date back to 1935.
This was to link Prague through Slovakia with the easternmost Czechoslovak territory, Carpathian Ruthenia (now Zakarpattia Oblast in Ukraine).
The definitive route, including a Prague ring motorway, was approved shortly after the Munich Agreement on 4 November 1938, with a planned speed limit of 120 km/h.
On 1 December 1938 Nazi Germany had already initiated a construction of the so-called Sudetenautobahn (in Sudetenland, before the Munich agreement part of Czechoslovakia, then of Germany) in the route Streitau (Bavaria) – Eger – Carlsbad – Lobositz – Böhmisch Leipa – Reichenberg (capital of Sudetenland) – Görlitz (in Prussia, now in Saxony).
The autobahn has never been finished, but some remnants in the landscape close to Pomezí nad Ohří, Cheb/Eger and Liberec/Reichenberg are still prominent and an unfinished part from Svárov via Machnín to Chrastava was used in the construction of the I/35 road.
Czechoslovakia was broken up with a declaration of independence by the Slovak Republic and by the short-lived Carpatho-Ukraine which was a prelude to the German occupation of Bohemia and Moravia on 15 March 1939.
The motorway should have reached Brno in 1940, but building materials and labour shortages due to an absolute priority given to the Nazi armament industry delayed the work considerably.
77 km from Prague towards Brno advanced notably, but a prohibition of all civil constructions by the German authorities came into force in 1942.
After the Second World War, the completion of only the first and unfinished 77 km of the motorway Prague – Brno as far as Humpolec was approved by the Government in November 1945 and was reinaugurated in 1946.
Funding for the construction of motorways was radically reduced after the financial crisis in 2008 due to draconian budget cuts, and is currently gaining momentum rather slowly for various reasons.
After the construction of the motorway, the affected highway is degraded to a regional road with a number beginning with 6 and having 3 digits, in the format 6xx.
Planned upgrade to road for motorcars: Construction of new motorways in recent years has been hampered due to corruption scandals and austerity measures as well as owing to new European rules under which old EIA assessments lapsed.
