Croatia makes digital nomads wait six months before reapplying

Croatia’s digital nomad temporary stay is granted for up to 18 months to remote workers whose employer, or own company, is not registered in Croatia. When a nomad stay ends, a new digital-nomad application can be lodged only six months after it expires. A Vietnamese applicant must file at a Croatian mission abroad with a health certificate (required since 30 April 2026) and obtain a long-stay visa after the grant.

Who counts as a digital nomad

The interior ministry restates the Aliens Act definition: a third-country national who is employed by, or works through communication technology for, a company or their own company that is not registered in Croatia. The person must not work for or provide services to employers in Croatia.

This means a Vietnamese employer, or a company the applicant owns outside Croatia, fits the definition, as long as no work or services go to employers in Croatia.

Eighteen months, then a pause

Since 15 March 2025, a digital-nomad stay is granted for up to 18 months and may be extended once within that period; before then the limit was one year. An extension is applied for at the police at least 60 days before expiry, in person according to the interior ministry.

The ministry’s page adds that an extension of a stay granted for less than 18 months is limited to six months.

A new digital-nomad application may be lodged only after six months from the expiry of the previous stay, according to the 2025 amendment to the Aliens Act. The previous stay can be a nomad stay, a stay for “other purposes” or a stay as a nomad’s family member. The six months run from the expiry date, not from the day of leaving.

An application for “other purposes” lodged after a nomad stay must also wait six months from expiry. The Act lists work and study as separate purposes of temporary stay, and the wait names only “other purposes” and digital nomads. This means a person who qualifies for work or study can apply on that basis without waiting.

The income test is a formula

Under the Regulation on means of subsistence, an applicant must show monthly means of at least 2.5 times the previous year’s average monthly net salary per employee at Croatian legal entities. The amount rises by 10% of that salary for each additional family member. The statistics office put the 2025 average at EUR 1,449 on 20 February 2026.

That gives EUR 3,622.50 a month, and EUR 144.90 more for each additional family member. The interior ministry’s page, which carries no date, gives the same EUR 3,622.50 as the current monthly minimum.

The page also accepts a bank balance of EUR 43,470 for a 12-month stay or EUR 65,205 for 18 months, which equal 12 and 18 times the monthly amount. Because the base is the previous year’s average, the euro amounts change each year. Croatian law grants no citizenship or residence for money alone.

The Vietnamese route

The foreign ministry’s visa requirements overview lists a visa as required for Vietnamese ordinary passports, while holders of diplomatic or service passports may stay up to 30 days without one. The same page says visa applications can also be submitted at a visa application centre in Hanoi.

The ministry’s list of missions shows the embassy in Kuala Lumpur as covering Vietnam, and refers consular matters to the embassy in Jakarta.

A visa-required applicant must file the stay application at a Croatian diplomatic or consular office, and the interior ministry says one filed at a police station is rejected. The Aliens Act allows police filing by visa-required nationals only in listed cases, such as students and relatives of Croatian citizens; digital nomads are not among them.

Once the stay is granted, the applicant applies for a long-stay D visa, an authorisation to stay in Croatia for up to 30 days. The visa application may be submitted no earlier than three months before, and no later than three months after, the start of validity of the temporary stay.

Within 30 days of the visa’s start, the holder contacts the police to register a residence address and obtain a biometric residence permit.

Since 30 April 2026, the stay rulebook requires an application for a first temporary stay from a national of a visa-required country to include a health and vaccination certificate, Form 18a, no older than 90 days. The interior ministry’s digital-nomad page does not list the form.

Documents and the Apostille

Documents must be no older than six months and submitted in Croatian or English, with translations by an authorised translator.

The interior ministry asks for a criminal record certificate from the home country, or from a country where the applicant lived for more than a year before arriving, and says it must be a “legalised” document.

Vietnam acceded to the Apostille Convention on 31 December 2025, and the Convention took effect for it on 11 September 2026. Croatia was not among the three states that objected: Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic.

Vietnam’s Decree 293/2026 lists criminal record certificates among the documents eligible for an Apostille. The Croatian foreign ministry’s legalisation page says foreign public documents require legalisation unless a treaty provides otherwise.

This indicates that an apostilled Vietnamese criminal record should meet Croatia’s requirement, although the interior ministry’s page still says “legalised” and does not mention the Apostille.

Registration and absence limits

Since 4 June 2026, a third-country national on temporary stay must register an address with the police within 15 days of entering Croatia, under the Aliens Act as amended in May 2026. The interior ministry’s page still shows the earlier three days.

The Act revokes a temporary stay if residence is not registered within 30 days of the stay’s start, or within six months where a D visa is required.

Revocation also follows long absences. For a stay granted for one year or less, the limit is more than 30 days abroad at once or more than 90 days in total; for a stay of up to two years, it is more than 60 days at once or more than 180 days in total.

This means an 18-month stay falls under the second pair of limits. None of the four exceptions in the Act names digital nomads.

The Act separately protects a single absence of up to 90 days for justified reasons: the stay is not revoked if the holder notified the police before leaving. Exceptional circumstances arising after departure must be reported to a Croatian mission within 30 days of their arising.

Family, tax and health cover

Family members may apply only after the nomad’s stay has been granted, and the interior ministry says earlier applications are rejected. A family stay lasts until the nomad’s stay expires, and no longer than two years.

Under article 9(1) of the Income Tax Act, Croatian income tax is not paid on receipts from employment or activity for an employer not registered in Croatia, earned on the basis of digital-nomad status. The provision was added by a 2020 amendment and took effect on 1 January 2021.

A digital nomad is not obliged to register for compulsory Croatian health insurance and bears the cost of care personally, under a 2021 amendment to the law on health insurance for foreigners. The interior ministry requires proof of travel or private insurance covering Croatia.

Fees

On the interior ministry’s page, which carries no date, filing at a mission costs EUR 55.74 for the stay and EUR 93 for the D visa, plus a service fee if the visa application goes through the visa centre.

The page also lists EUR 41.14 for the biometric residence card where the mission issues one. For applicants who file at the police, the page lists EUR 46.45 for the stay, EUR 9.29 in administrative fees and EUR 31.85 for the card; the last two add up to the same EUR 41.14.

What this article has not established

Which Croatian post receives a stay application lodged from Vietnam, and whether it can be filed online from abroad, were not established.

Whether Croatian offices accept Vietnamese apostilles in practice was not confirmed by a Croatian source.

The statutory basis of the six-month cap on extensions, and of the rule rejecting family applications filed before the nomad’s grant, was not found. The content of Form 18a was not found.

Which absence limits govern a stay of exactly 12 months, where the Act’s two bands both include one year, was not established. No definition of “justified reasons” for an absence of up to 90 days was found.

Tax residence on both sides, and whether a Croatia–Vietnam tax treaty applies, were not researched. No official processing times or application figures were found.