Part one of the series “eVisitor, tourist tax and the duty to register” — the basics for owners who use the property themselves.
Most foreign owners of a property on the Adriatic start from a simple assumption: that eVisitor and the tourist tax are a landlord’s problem. If you use the house only yourself, occasionally invite friends and never take a single euro in rent, none of it applies to you.
That assumption is wrong — and it is the most common reason owners find a back-claim or a penalty notice on the table years later.
The Croatian law on the tourist tax names, in its list of those liable, the owner of a house, flat or apartment used for holidays that is not an accommodation business within the meaning of the act — and it names them for themselves and for every person who stays overnight in that property.
Translated: the duty does not attach to letting. It attaches to somebody sleeping there.
Two duties that must not be confused
The most common error is to treat the duty to register and the duty to pay as the same thing. They are not, and they reach differently.
Duty one: registration in eVisitor
The owner of a holiday house or flat must register every person staying overnight in the property in the eVisitor system within 24 hours of arrival, and deregister their stay on its last day.
This duty applies all year round. It applies in February exactly as it does in August. It applies to you, to your spouse, to your grown-up children, to your brother, and to the colleague who spends a long weekend with you.
The only practical exception concerns owners who are themselves resident in the municipality in question — they register everyone except their closest family. For an owner living in Munich, Manchester or Amsterdam, that exception is irrelevant.
Duty two: paying the tourist tax
Here it gets more interesting. For people staying overnight in a house, apartment or flat used for holidays, the obligation to pay only arises where the stay in a municipality outside their own place of residence falls between 15 June and 15 September.
That is the rule most owners find most surprising in the whole system: a two-week stay in May triggers no tourist tax at all where the tax is settled per overnight stay. It still has to be registered.
Anyone who mixes the two levels up typically makes one of two mistakes. Either they register nothing outside the summer months, because there is nothing to pay. Or they pay all year round, because they do not know the window exists.
Who counts as “closest family”?
This question decides both the discount and the amount of paperwork — and the Croatian definition is considerably wider than owners expect.
Closest family includes, among others, the spouse, an unmarried partner, a registered partner, relatives in the direct line and their spouses, siblings and their spouses, adoptive parents and adopted children together with their children and spouses, as well as stepchildren, stepmother and stepfather.
So your sister and brother-in-law are covered. Your parents are too. The old friend from the sports club is not — for tourist-tax purposes he is an ordinary guest at the full rate.
The owner and their closest family pay the tourist tax reduced by 70 per cent. And — decisive for the readers of this article — that reduction applies expressly not only to Croatian nationals but also to nationals of the other EEA states and Switzerland.
Who pays nothing at all
Exempt from the tourist tax are, among others, children under 12 and people with a disability of 70 per cent or more together with one companion. Young people between 12 and 18 pay half the rate.
Careful: exemption from payment is not exemption from registration. Your eight-year-old pays no tourist tax but still has to be entered in eVisitor.
Annual flat rate or per-night settlement?
The law gives the owner a choice: instead of paying per overnight stay, they may pay the tourist tax for themselves and their closest family as an annual flat rate.
The amount of that flat rate is not set by the state but by the county assembly — for every municipality and town in its area, after consulting the local tourist boards, and by 31 January of the current year for the following one. The range is considerable: from the statutory minimum in single-digit euros per person up to around 33 euros for the first and second family member in counties with heavy tourist demand, with a reduced rate for each additional family member.
The calculation almost nobody does
Because the owner gets a 70 per cent reduction when settling per night and only pays at all between 15 June and 15 September, the flat rate is often the worse deal financially.
An example for scale: if the rate per person per night in season is around one euro, the owner pays roughly 30 cents per night after the 70 per cent reduction. With an annual flat rate of 33 euros you would have to spend more than a hundred nights inside the 15 June to 15 September window for the flat rate to pay off — and that window has only 93 nights. Arithmetically it cannot work out. If the flat rate is 8 euros, the calculation tips in its favour after about 25 nights.
The real advantage of the flat rate is not the money, though. It is the administration. Anyone paying the annual flat rate for themselves and their closest family registers and deregisters with the tourist board only once, namely when paying it. Anyone settling per night has to act within 24 hours of every single arrival.
For an owner who comes five or six times a year for a few days, that is five or six deadline-bound tasks a year — each one an opportunity to forget something. Against a handful of euros in extra cost, that is often a good trade.
Two limits remain: the flat rate covers only you and your closest family. Every friend, colleague or neighbour who stays the night still has to be registered individually and — inside the summer window — settled at the full rate.
The deadlines that matter
- Registering overnight guests in eVisitor: within 24 hours of arrival
- Deregistration: on the last day of the stay
- Payment when settling per overnight stay: on the last day of the stay
- Payment of the annual flat rate: by 15 July of the current year at the latest
What happens if you do not do it
Calculation, collection and remittance of the tourist tax, as well as the registration and deregistration of tourists, are supervised by the tourism inspectorate of the State Inspectorate. If an owner does not pay on time, the responsible inspector orders payment by formal notice.
For private owners of a holiday property the penalty ranges in the act are comparatively moderate — the published consolidated text still states them in kuna; converted, they sit in the low three-digit euro range for a first offence and considerably higher for repeat offences. The inspector can also impose a penalty on the spot.
The real risk lies elsewhere. First, the obligation to pay tourist tax that was not remitted only becomes time-barred five years after it fell due — a back-claim can therefore cover a substantial period. Second, the mild range described above applies only to the owner who does not let. Anyone actually letting their property without the required approval is in a completely different sanction bracket — more on that in part three of this series.
What you should actually do
Check that your property is correctly recorded in the system. In practice this is the main source of error. If the tourist board has your house recorded as belonging to a local resident rather than as a holiday property, eVisitor offers you the wrong guest categories — and every registration turns into guesswork. The local tourist board makes the correction.
Get access credentials. You obtain them from the tourist board (turistička zajednica) responsible for your municipality. Without access you simply cannot meet the obligation.
Decide deliberately between the flat rate and per-night settlement — and do it before 15 July, not after.
If you have not registered anything so far: the pragmatic route runs through the local tourist board. Access can be set up there and the situation put right. A conversation before an inspection is in our experience considerably more pleasant than one afterwards.
Why this is hard from a distance
The 24-hour deadline is the heart of the problem. It starts on arrival — that is, exactly when you are busy with luggage, shutters and the state of the house after a long journey. And it applies equally when it is not you arriving but your sister and her family, while you are at home.
That is precisely where we come in. We handle registration and deregistration in eVisitor on time, keep your property and its master data correct with the tourist board, watch the 15 July deadline and settle the tourist tax. We charge for the work, not as a percentage of your income. Someone who does not let has none, after all.
This article gives a practical overview of the position under the Croatian law on the tourist tax (Zakon o turističkoj pristojbi, NN 52/19, 32/20, 42/20). It is not legal or tax advice. The specific amounts are set annually by each county and differ from municipality to municipality — what governs is always the current decision of your county and the information given by your local tourist board. For legal and tax questions we will introduce you to independent professionals, without taking a commission.