Croatia
Residency route coverage
| Route family | Routes | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Investment | No routes recorded | No qualifying route as of 2026-07-17[5][11][20] Croatia grants temporary stay only for the purposes its Aliens Act lists, and investment is not one of them. Buying property or putting capital into a Croatian company gives no right of residence on its own. |
| Remote work |
| Routes recorded as of 2025-03-07[7][17][20] |
| Passive income |
| Routes recorded One route, and it is a residual one. Croatia has no retirement, pensioner or private-income residence instrument. What retirees and other economically inactive people use is temporary stay 'for other purposes' (u druge svrhe, art. 57(1) point 10), a catch-all purpose whose means test is the highest of any Croatian temporary stay (60 per cent of the previous year's average net salary against 57 per cent elsewhere) and whose proof of purpose is, per the ordinance, a title deed to Croatian real estate, accommodation in a registered tourist establishment, enrolment in a Croatian-language course, medical documentation or other documentation. It is recorded in this family because its means proof is expressly a pension statement or a bank certificate and because the 2025 amendment's extension rule names retired owners of Croatian property over 60. It carries no right to work and does not count toward long-term residence. |
| Entrepreneur |
| Routes recorded Two routes, both stay and work permits issued under Aliens Act art. 110 without a labour market test or an opinion of the Croatian Employment Service: self-employment in a company (trgovačko društvo) in which the applicant holds at least 51 per cent, and self-employment in a craft (obrt) on the same ownership threshold. They are separate limbs with separate documentation articles in the ordinance (arts. 36 and 37) and different conditions on first issue, so they are recorded as two routes rather than one. |
| Work | Routes recorded as of 2026-05-27[10][12][20][21] | |
| Study | Routes recorded as of 2026-05-27[17][19][21] Two routes, one per level of education, because the Act draws them as separate articles with different conditions, different terms and different work rights: art. 73 for study at a higher-education institution and art. 72 for secondary-school education. The means levels differ too and both are exceptions to the general 57 % rule – 25 % of the average monthly net salary for a student, who may alternatively show a scholarship, and 15 % for a pupil. NN 55/2026 changed both of the student route's headline facts: the permit may now run to the end of the study programme and up to three years rather than to the end of the academic year, and the work cap rose from 20 to 25 hours a week. The Ministry's English pages state neither change. Not documented: what happens after graduation. No graduate or job-search permit was found, and the instrument that does exist for graduates sits on the permanent-stay side (art. 156(1)(5), reachable only through the ordinance's documentation rule) and could not be read. | |
| Family | Routes recorded as of 2026-05-27[8][16][20][21] |
Country facts
Identity
| Local name | Hrvatska |
|---|---|
| ISO code | HRV |
| Region | Europe |
| Currency | EUR as of 2026-08-15[4] The EU country profile records Croatia's currency as the euro, adopted 1 January 2023. All statutory amounts in the Aliens Act and the administrative-fee tariff are stated in euro following the conversion made by NN 114/2022. |
| Official languages | hr as of 2026-08-15[4] Croatian is Croatia's official EU language. The Ministry of the Interior publishes parallel English, German and Spanish pages, but English is not an official language; documents attached to applications must generally be translated into Croatian, except for the digital-nomad application where the ordinance allows Croatian or English. |
Memberships
| Memberships |
|---|
Permanent residence
| Qualifying years | 5 as of 2026-08-15[9][19] Long-term residence (dugotrajno boravište; renamed dugotrajni boravak by the 2025/2026 amendments) is granted after five years of uninterrupted lawful stay immediately before the application, counting temporary stay, asylum or subsidiary protection, and the applicant must hold a valid temporary stay, asylum or subsidiary protection at the moment of decision. Croatia separately has 'permanent stay' (stalni boravak), which is not a general five-year track: it is granted on named grounds (four years of temporary stay for family reunification or life partnership with a Croatian citizen; three years for members of the Croatian people; and several return/housing-care and minor-child grounds). The five-year figure recorded here is the long-term-residence track, which is the one a general relocator uses. |
|---|---|
| Language requirement | required, level unspecified as of 2026-08-15[9] Knowledge of the Croatian language and Latin script is a condition of long-term residence; the Ministry names the six university faculties of humanities and social sciences that administer the examination and the Ordinance on passing that examination (NN 100/2021), but neither the Ministry's page nor the condition itself states a CEFR level, so no level is asserted. Pre-school children, persons attending or having completed primary, secondary or higher education in Croatia, and persons over 65 who are not employed are exempt. Permanent stay (stalni boravak) carries no language condition on the Ministry's page – only a valid travel document and no public-policy, national-security or public-health objection. |
| Integration requirement | Yes as of 2026-08-15[9] |
| Income requirement | Not established from a qualifying source[9][18] |
| Absence rules |
|
Citizenship
| Years to naturalisation | 8 as of 2019-10-25[1][2] Croatian Citizenship Act art. 8(1)(3), as substituted by NN 130/2011: the applicant must live in Croatia with registered residence for eight uninterrupted years up to the application and hold the status of an alien on permanent stay (stalni boravak). Art. 9 (person born in Croatia and living there with permanent stay), art. 11 (emigrants and their descendants and spouses) and art. 16 (members of the Croatian people without residence in Croatia) each disapply parts of art. 8(1), so the eight-year figure is the general naturalisation track only. |
|---|---|
| of which on permanent residence | Not applicable as of 2019-10-25[2] |
| Dual citizenship | restricted as of 2019-10-25[1][2] |
| Language requirement | required, level unspecified as of 2019-10-25[2] Art. 8(1)(4), as amended by NN 130/2011: knowledge of the Croatian language and Latin script, Croatian culture and social order. No CEFR level is stated in the Act. Art. 8(5) exempts persons over 60. |
| Citizenship test required | Yes as of 2019-10-25[2] Art. 8(4), added by NN 130/2011: the art. 8(1)(4) condition is established by an examination of knowledge of the Croatian language and Latin script, culture and social order, the conduct of which is prescribed by the Ordinance NN 118/2012. NN 102/2019 additionally requires a solemn oath (art. 24b). Persons over 60 are exempt from the examination (art. 8(5)). |
Tax
| Tax-residency day threshold | 183 as of 2026-08-15[13][15] The Tax Administration, quoting the General Tax Act, states two territorial tests. Permanent residence (prebivalište) exists where the person owns a dwelling or has one in their possession for at least 183 days in one or two calendar years, and actual stay in it is not required. Habitual residence (uobičajeno boravište) is a continuous or time-linked stay of at least 183 days in one or two calendar years, with short interruptions of up to one year disregarded. A resident is a natural person with permanent or habitual residence in Croatia. |
|---|---|
| Other tax-residency triggers | domicile, habitual abode as of 2026-08-15[15] Permanent residence turns on ownership or possession of a dwelling rather than on registration, and is recorded here as domicile; habitual residence is the 183-day stay test and is recorded as habitual_abode, which is also what the day threshold field measures. Where a taxpayer has a permanent residence both in Croatia and abroad the Act resolves it by the family's permanent residence, and failing that by where the person predominantly works or resides – a centre-of-vital-interests style test that the Act does not name as a separate trigger, so it is not listed. |
| Headline income tax rate | 33% as of 2026-08-15[13] |
| Income tax structure | progressive as of 2026-08-15[13] Two rates with a single bracket boundary at EUR 60,000 of annual income, plus a basic personal allowance. |
| Net-wealth tax | Not established from a qualifying source[13] No Tier-1 statement on the existence or absence of a recurring net-wealth tax was retrieved. The Tax Administration's enumeration of taxes contains no net-wealth tax, and it does contain a separate recurring real-estate tax (porez na nekretnine) and a vessels tax, but an absence from a menu is not a sourced statement (same treatment as ee). Candidate for a hand-close at the S5 boundary. |
| Inheritance or estate tax | Yes as of 2026-08-15[14] Inheritance and gifts tax is levied at 4 per cent under the Local Taxes Act (NN 115/16, 101/17, 114/22, 114/23, 152/24) on cash, pecuniary claims, securities and movables whose individual market value exceeds EUR 6,700 at the date of assessment, after deduction of debts and expenses. Inherited or gifted real estate is dealt with under the real-estate transfer tax rather than here. |
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Reference figures
| average monthly net paid salary, previous year |
|
|---|---|
| average monthly gross salary paid, previous year |
|
Changes
Recent changes
| 2023-01-01 | Croatia adopted the euro and joined the Schengen area on the same day. Statutory amounts in the Aliens Act had been converted from kuna to euro in advance by NN 114/2022, which took effect on the day of euro introduction. Affects: country-core[4] |
|---|---|
| 2025-03-15 | The Aliens Act amendments published as NN 40/2025 entered into force. Among the changes reaching this run's scope: art. 57(1) gained a twelfth purpose of temporary stay (immigration and return of the Croatian emigrant community, with a new art. 79a); the six-month waiting period between successive 'other purposes' and digital-nomad stays was rewritten and extended to cover family reunification with a digital nomad; a new art. 57(6) allows a stay for other purposes to be extended only for a retired third-country national over 60 who owns real estate in Croatia and their spouse or partner, a minor athlete training at a registered Croatian sports body, or a person continuing medical treatment in Croatia; and art. 61(1) was recast so that temporary stay is issued for up to one year unless otherwise provided, up to two years for family reunification, life partnership, autonomous stay and the new emigrant-return purpose, and up to 18 months for digital nomads. Affects: country-core, Temporary stay for other purposes[20] |
| 2026-01-17 | The Government regulation on the calculation and level of means of subsistence for third-country nationals was amended (NN 3/2026, in force eight days after publication on 9 January 2026). The general means requirement was restated as at least 57 per cent of the previous year's average monthly net paid salary, and a new paragraph set a higher figure of 60 per cent for applicants for temporary stay for other purposes. The same instrument renamed long-term residence from dugotrajno boravište to dugotrajni boravak. Affects: country-core, Temporary stay for other purposes[18] |
| 2026-06-04 | Further Aliens Act amendments (NN 55/2026, adopted 15 May 2026, published 27 May 2026) entered into force, transposing the recast single-permit directive and the Migration and Asylum Pact instruments. They lengthened the permitted period of unemployment within a permit's validity, allowed a change of employer after the first six months of work, set the decision deadline for permit applications at up to 90 days, and inserted a new art. 92a obliging third-country nationals who have held a stay and work permit for at least a year to pass an examination in Croatian language and Latin script at basic level A1.1, at the employer's cost. The Ministry of the Interior's own list of instruments in force had not been updated to cite NN 55/2026 when this run accessed it. Affects: country-core[21] |
| 2025-03-15 | The Aliens Act amendments published as NN 40/2025 entered into force. In run B's families they rewrote the work chapter and touched every other family: art. 91(10) now issues an art. 97 permit for the contract term and at most three years and an art. 110 permit for at most two; art. 91(7) sets a 15-day decision clock; art. 99 rewrote the employer conditions and added the 16 % and 8 % ratios of domestic to third-country workers; art. 100.a capped the number of applications one employer may file at 50 or 250; arts. 103.a to 103.f added a 60-day tolerated unemployment period, facilitated changes of employer and occupation, additional work for a second employer, and an appropriate-accommodation condition where the employer provides or brokers housing; art. 95 requires an employer to pay one average monthly gross salary into the state budget where it abandons a worker it obtained a permit for. The EU Blue Card was recast to transpose Directive (EU) 2021/1883, with validity extended from 24 to 48 months and a new route to eligibility through validated work experience for information and communications technology occupations. Art. 61(1) gave the digital-nomad stay an 18-month term extendable once inside it, and extended the two-year family and life-partnership term to every qualifying sponsor rather than Croatian citizens alone. Art. 63(4) barred family reunification for the families of posted workers, other-purposes holders, seasonal workers, service providers and the new art. 110 points 31 and 32, while art. 63(3) exempted the minor children of two art. 97 permit holders from the waiting period. Affects: stay and work permit, EU Blue Card (stay and work permit for highly-qualified third-country nationals), stay and work permit for seasonal work, temporary stay of digital nomads, temporary stay for the purpose of family reunification, temporary stay for the purpose of life partnership[6][20] |
| 2026-06-04 | The Aliens Act amendments published as NN 55/2026 entered into force. Four changes reach run B's families and none of them is on the Ministry's English pages. Art. 92.a is new: a third-country national who has been in Croatia for at least a year on a permit issued or extended under art. 97, or on a permit under art. 110 point 32, must pass an examination in Croatian language and Latin script at basic level A1.1 and attach the proof to the application to extend, with the employer bearing the cost and exemptions for those educated in Croatia and for speakers of a South Slavic language; seasonal workers are outside it. Art. 73(2) lets a student permit run to the end of the expected duration of the study programme and up to three years, against an annual enrolment certificate by 31 October, where before it ran to the end of the academic year. Art. 89(1)(10) raised the student work cap from 20 to 25 hours a week. Art. 63(2) raised the waiting period for family reunification with the holder of an art. 97 permit from one year of the sponsor's temporary stay to two. Art. 104(12) to (19) added a multi-season seasonal permit valid up to three years with the work periods named in the certificate, and art. 107(6) ends a seasonal permit on the day the employment relationship ends. Affects: stay and work permit, EU Blue Card (stay and work permit for highly-qualified third-country nationals), stay and work permit for seasonal work, temporary stay for the purpose of university studies, temporary stay for the purpose of family reunification[21] |
Verification
| Sources cited | 21 |
|---|---|
| of which official (tier 1) | 21 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2019-10-25 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-08-15 |
| Reviewed on | 2026-08-22 |
| Schema version | 1.1 |
Sources
- [1] Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o hrvatskom državljanstvu, NN 102/2019
Narodne novine / Hrvatski sabor · gazette · Tier 1 · Published 2019-10-25 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [2] Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o hrvatskom državljanstvu, NN 130/2011
Narodne novine / Hrvatski sabor · gazette · Tier 1 · Published 2011-11-16 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Amended by hr-citizenship-act-102-19 - [3] Priopćenje RAD-2025-1-1/12: Prosječne mjesečne neto i bruto plaće zaposlenih za prosinac 2025.
Državni zavod za statistiku (Croatian Bureau of Statistics) · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2026-02-20 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Archived copy - [4] Croatia – EU country
European Union (Directorate-General for Communication) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [5] Dozvola za boravak i rad (investor information)
Ministarstvo gospodarstva / Invest Croatia · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2026-07-17 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Archived copy - [6] Potpredsjednik i ministar Božinović predstavio prijedlog izmjena i dopuna Zakona o strancima
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia · official portal · Tier 1 · Published 2025-02-06 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [7] Temporary stay of digital nomads
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Archived copy - [8] Temporary stay for the purpose of family reunification
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [9] Long-Term Residence and Permanent stay
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia (MUP) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Archived copy - [10] Radne dozvole – dozvole za boravak i rad
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia (MUP) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Archived copy - [11] Temporary stay of third-country nationals
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia (MUP) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Archived copy - [12] Work of third-country nationals
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia (MUP) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Archived copy - [13] Income Tax
Ministry of Finance, Tax Administration (Porezna uprava) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [14] Inheritance and Gifts Tax
Ministry of Finance, Tax Administration (Porezna uprava) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [15] Determination of residency status
Ministry of Finance, Tax Administration (Porezna uprava) · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [16] Pravilnik o izmjenama i dopunama Pravilnika o boravku državljana trećih zemalja, NN 43/2026
Narodne novine / Ministarstvo unutarnjih poslova · statute · Tier 1 · Published 2026-04-10 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [17] Uredba o načinu izračuna i visini sredstava za uzdržavanje državljanina treće zemlje u Republici Hrvatskoj, NN 14/2021
Narodne novine · Vlada Republike Hrvatske · statute · Tier 1 · Published 2021-02-12 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Archived copy · Amended by hr-uredba-uzdrzavanje-3-26 - [18] Uredba o izmjenama i dopuni Uredbe o načinu izračuna i visini sredstava za uzdržavanje državljanina treće zemlje u RH, NN 3/2026
Narodne novine / Vlada Republike Hrvatske · statute · Tier 1 · Published 2026-01-09 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [19] Zakon o strancima (Aliens Act), NN 133/2020
Narodne novine (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia) / Hrvatski sabor · gazette · Tier 1 · Published 2020-12-04 · Accessed 2026-08-15 · Amended by hr-zakon-o-strancima-114-22, hr-zakon-o-strancima-40-25, hr-zakon-o-strancima-55-26 - [20] Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o strancima, NN 40/2025
Narodne novine / Hrvatski sabor · gazette · Tier 1 · Published 2025-03-07 · Accessed 2026-08-15 - [21] Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o strancima, NN 55/2026
Narodne novine / Hrvatski sabor · gazette · Tier 1 · Published 2026-05-27 · Accessed 2026-08-15