Parcel lockers exempted from building law: Czechia now has 17,000 of them

Czechia currently has around 17,000 self-service parcel lockers installed nationwide, and operators forecast the number could grow by another 30%. Lockers are still in especially short supply in towns with fewer than five thousand residents, where they remain a rarity.

Roughly two million parcels pass through lockers across the country every week, according to Ondřej Luštinec, a representative of Zásilkovna. He says most people collect their parcels on foot, usually from a location close to home.

How often do Czechs use parcel lockers

According to a study by the Nielsen agency, 53% of Czechs use parcel lockers several times a month, while 9% — nearly a million people — use them several times a week. Another 1% of residents pick up orders from lockers daily.

Zásilkovna remains the market leader, with more than 6,700 lockers offering over 600,000 compartments in total. "Our goal is for 95% of people in Czechia to be able to reach a locker or pickup point within a five-minute walk in cities, or a five-minute drive in rural areas. We've almost reached that target already," Luštinec said. He added that the company's new lockers will primarily appear in so-called "blank spots" — areas that already generate enough annual parcel volume to make delivery there profitable.

One locker for multiple carriers

Although brightly colored lockers from various companies have filled Czech towns and larger villages, about a third of the country's settlements with fewer than five thousand residents still lack their own locker — even as demand keeps breaking records.

The latest trend is pooling capacity between different carriers: operators are starting to open their networks to competitors. Zásilkovna, for instance, has already set up cooperation with DPD and promises to announce new partners before the end of the year. The company is also preparing a mobile app that will combine sending, tracking, redirecting and returning parcels in one place.

For customers, easy returns — without needing a printer or tape — turn out to be a key factor. According to a survey by the Packeta group, which includes Zásilkovna, 88% of people consider how easy it is to return an unwanted item when choosing where to shop online. "Our new solution will help millions of people. We're opening the entire Zásilkovna locker network for returns, so customers will always have a drop-off point nearby," Packeta CEO Erich Čomor explained earlier.

Less bright color, less bureaucracy

The rapid spread of metal cabinets on city streets once sparked a wave of criticism: residents and municipalities complained about visual clutter, blocked sidewalks, and inconvenience for pedestrians and parents with strollers.

Under the initial draft of the revised building law, lockers were to be classified the same as ordinary structures, which would have meant a complicated approval process and lengthy red tape. In the end, however, lawmakers exempted them from this regime, and President Petr Pavel signed the law in mid-September. Operators can now expand their locker networks without excessive bureaucracy.

That said, keeping lockers out of the building law doesn't mean anything goes on the streets. Municipalities themselves pushed back against excessive red tape through the Union of Towns and Municipalities and the Association of Local Governments, both of which prefer direct agreements with carriers. The Czech E-commerce Association (APEK) also backed excluding lockers from the law. "We fought hard to keep the building law from applying to self-service parcel lockers. For operators, that would have meant a significant increase in administrative burden and could have seriously slowed the expansion of the network," said APEK executive director Jan Vetyška.

Instead of strict bans, the association introduced a code of practice for locker placement, covering accessibility for people with disabilities, safety, and the appearance of the structures. Major players say cooperation with municipalities has improved: according to Eliška Čerovská, a representative of Alza.cz, it's increasingly the towns themselves that ask to have Alza lockers placed on municipal land.

The look of the lockers is changing too — they no longer stand out as garish structures. Zásilkovna, for example, has introduced a rule matching cabinet colors to their surroundings: green near greenery, beige near building façades. "By the way, Zásilkovna lockers no longer have a bright logo either. Our lockers don't light up, they run quietly, and they're solar-powered," Luštinec said.

Online shopping delivery costs keep rising

Self-service lockers remain one of the cheapest delivery options — which matters more than ever as shipping costs from online stores keep climbing. This summer, the average delivery price stayed above 85 crowns due to rising fuel costs.

According to the latest Skip Pay delivery index, prices are still climbing and could reach 90 crowns per shipment, which would set a new all-time record. "The jump to over 87 crowns in July was not a one-off shock. August showed that delivery prices aren't returning to spring levels. Today, the average parcel costs more than a fifth more to deliver than it did in June, and almost a tenth more than at this time last year," said David Filippov, head of sales at Skip Pay.

Read also: Mobile operators in Czechia: which one to choose in 2026

Source: denik.cz