Croatia
Min. wage
(x12 payments)
€1,050 /mo
About the minimum wage
Employer tax
Annual leave
20 days
Learn about annual leave
Notice period
2 weeks-3 months (by tenure)
Termination and notice info
Updated
Sep 2026
An indefinite (permanent) contract is the default form of employment and must be concluded in writing before work begins.
Allowed for objective reasons; limited to a maximum of three successive contracts and three years in total with the same employer, after which employment converts to indefinite.
Standard full-time is 40 hrs/week; overtime capped at 180 hours/year (250 by collective agreement) and 50 hours/week total, paid at an increased rate (commonly +50%).
Probation may last a maximum of six months, during which employment can be terminated with seven days' notice.
Not mandatory, but Christmas (božićnica) and holiday (regres) bonuses are customary, often required by collective agreements, tax-free up to the annual allowance.
Job titles not generally regulated, but professions like healthcare, law, education and construction require recognized qualifications or licenses; titles must be stated in the written contract.
Employers pay a single mandatory contribution of 16.5% of gross salary for health insurance (HZZO); a one-year exemption applies for first-time labour-market entrants (the five-year under-30 exemption was abolished for new hires from 2025).
Employees contribute 20% to pension (15% pillar I + 5% pillar II, with a pillar I base reduction for gross salaries up to EUR 1,300); income tax levied separately at municipal rates (~15-23% up to EUR 60,000/yr, 25-33% above; Zagreb 23%/33%) after a EUR 600/mo personal allowance.
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
Croatian social security is funded from employee pension contributions and an employer health contribution:
There is no separate workers' compensation premium in Croatia. Insurance against accidents at work and occupational diseases is included in the employer's 16.5% health insurance contribution to the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO), which also finances treatment and sickness benefits for work-related injuries.
Employees dismissed after at least two years of continuous service (except for misconduct) are entitled to statutory severance of at least one-third of their average monthly salary (average of the previous three months) per year of service, capped at six average monthly salaries unless a contract or collective agreement provides more.
A 13th-month salary is not required by law in Croatia. However, many employers pay a Christmas bonus (božićnica) and/or a holiday allowance (regres), which are customary and frequently mandated by collective agreements; such occasional awards are tax-free up to EUR 700 per year in total.
P.S. our team speaks multiple languages and we'd love to chat in your preferred language if requested.
Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. RemoFirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees are paid on time. To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
Whenever the employee or employer has a question about, or anything else related to international employment, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.
