4 May 2021

The 2021 Population and Housing Census that will finish on 11 May is to be finished within 7 days. During the 5 weeks since the beginning, 3.8 million electronic census forms and 260 thousand paper census forms have been submitted. However, a further about 800 thousand distributed paper census forms are lying in households waiting to be sent.

“All who have not got counted yet can fill in electronic census forms on the website scitani.cz or via the mobile application Sčítání21 (Census21) or send completed paper census forms (questionnaires) in the return envelope by post or to submit them at some of the Census contact points up until 11 May. For failure to meet the legal obligation, there is a sanction (penalty) of up to CZK 10 000,” Jolana Voldánová, the 2021 Census spokeswoman, points out.

If somebody has not received the paper census form (questionnaire) from the census officer (census enumerator) and he/she does not want to get counted online, they can pick up the paper census form (questionnaire) at any of the Census contact points, i.e. at selected branches of the Czech Post and at workplaces of Regional Offices of the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO). You can find their list in the application on the website of the Czech Post here: https://scitani.ceskaposta.cz/.

Data from the Census serve to make planning of the public life more effective and help improve conditions for life of individuals as well as of the whole society. Therefore, by filling in (completing) the census forms (questionnaires) all of us thus contribute to better lives for us in the coming years. The current Census surveys half the data than ten years ago. The census form (questionnaire) contains essential questions about the place of usual (habitual) residence. This piece of data is important especially for municipalities so that they know how many people really live in them (not only officially). Based on the real population, for example, revenues from taxes are allocated to municipalities. Data about commuting to work or to school are important to organise public transport and to plan the transport infrastructure. Data about whether people live in lodgings or in their own dwellings or about how many members households in a given locality have are used to plan housing policy. Data from the Census serve statistical purposes only, exclusively as anonymised data, without the possibility for concrete persons to be identified. The Czech Statistical Office never hands over data from census forms (questionnaires) to anybody else.

Therefore, we ask everybody who has not got counted yet to do so until 11 May. The fastest and the most comfortable way is to fill in (complete) and send the electronic census form (questionnaire). You can also use the electronic way even if you have received the questionnaire in the paper form. Should you prefer filling in the paper census form (questionnaire), you can put it into the post box in an envelope or bring it to a Census contact point. However, it still holds true for that, too, that you have to do it until 11 May.   

Contact:
Jolana Voldánová
2021 Census spokeswoman
Mobile phone number: +420 704 659 357
e-mail: jolana.voldanova@scitani.cz