Czech Republic: Ukrainian refugees contributed twice as much to the budget as they received from it
During this time, refugees paid taxes and other contributions amounting to 15 billion crowns, while expenditures on them totaled 7.6 billion, according to thePublic.info citing Radio Prague International.
Specifically, according to these data, the Czech state spent 3.8 billion crowns on refugees in the first quarter of this year and the same amount in the second quarter. The funds received from them amounted to 7.4 billion crowns in the first quarter and 7.6 billion in the second.
As previously explained by the Czech Ministry of Labor, these figures come from its mathematical model. Expenses include amounts for humanitarian aid, healthcare, education, or housing for refugees, while income includes taxes paid by refugees on income, value-added tax and excise duties, and payments for medical and social insurance.
As Minister of Labor Marian Jurečka previously reported, income from refugees to the Czech state budget began to exceed expenditures on them as early as the third quarter of 2023.
Thus, when in 2022 expenditures on refugees amounted to 25 billion crowns and income from them was 12.6 billion crowns, in 2023 the figures approached each other: expenditures — 22 billion crowns, income — 19.4 billion crowns. In 2024, the Czech state already received 24.8 billion crowns from refugees, while spending 15.5 billion crowns on aid to them.
Overall, since 2022, income from refugees has already exceeded expenditures on them by 1.7 billion crowns.
As Jurečka reported, currently, 169,000 refugees from Ukraine are working in the Czech Republic. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as of the end of September 21, there were 393,843 people registered with temporary protection due to Russia's war against Ukraine, of whom 282,312 were aged 18 to 65. Children and adolescents under 18 were registered at 93,835, and persons over 65 at 17,696.
