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Situation: I'm a German in the UK. I'll be traveling from London to Zagreb next week and staying at a friends house.

The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office says:

Unless staying at a hotel or official tourist accommodation (hostels, campsites or registered private accommodation), you are required to register with the local police or the local town tourist centre within 48 hours of arrival (in Zagreb you should register at the Police Station at Petrinjska 30. For elsewhere in Croatia, you should register at the nearest main Police Station).

Failure to register may result in a fine or possible removal from Croatia (which may include a restriction on your ability to return to Croatia for a certain period).

However my Croatian friend says they've never heard of this before and the Croatian embassy doesn't seem to mention it either.

So what is the situation here? Do I or do I not need to waddle to the local police station and register (which probably involves some waiting time and navigating language barriers). I figure I can just ask at the immigration counter, but it would be nice to have a definite answer beforehand. I'd rather not be fined or kicked out and barred from re-entry.

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    Usually when you are "local" you don't care/know about the requirements/restrictions for foreigners. I think the best way to go is just do what they require and probably wait in queue for a while to get that done.
    – SERPRO
    Commented May 28, 2012 at 11:28
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    Well, what the UK FCO office says is, in the end, not relevant for what requirements Croatia might have. What matters is what the Croatian consular service says. I doubt there will be any issues, but to make sure, you'll likely have to call the Croatian embassy.
    – MastaBaba
    Commented May 28, 2012 at 14:01

2 Answers 2

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Yes, foreigners are required to register with the police, unless it is done by the accommodation you are staying in.

This is regulated in the Croatian Aliens Act, sections 147(1) and 147(5):

Članak 147.

(1) Stranac na kratkotrajnom boravku dužan je sam prijaviti svoj smještaj u roku od 2 dana od ulaska u Republiku Hrvatsku, odnosno od promjene smještaja.

(5) Prijava se podnosi policijskoj upravi, odnosno policijskoj postaji nadležnoj prema mjestu smještaja stranca, a može se izvršiti i u elektroničkom obliku, putem interneta na propisani način.

This roughly translates as:

(1) Aliens on a short-term stay must register their accommodation within two days of entry to the Republic of Croatia or after a change of accommodation.

(5) The application must be submitted to the police or an authorized place of accommodation and can be done electronically over the Internet in due form.

The option to register online was probably added to the most recent edition of the act, valid from January 1st 2012, and I am unable to find any practical implementation of that option. If you want to save time when visiting the police station in Zagreb, you can find the registration form here and fill it out in advance.

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  • Aliens ?? LOL...
    – Jess Stone
    Commented Jul 21, 2014 at 16:40
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    Now that Croatia is a member of the EU, this presumably no longer applies to EU citizens, since "Union citizens shall have the right of residence on the territory of another Member State for a period of up to three months without any conditions or any formalities other than the requirement to hold a valid identity card or passport." (emphasis added)
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 14, 2015 at 5:02
  • @phoog Where is that quoted from? AFAIK, it is not correct.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Commented Jul 22, 2015 at 23:44
  • @Tor-EinarJarnbjo Directive 2004/38/EC article 6 paragraph 1. What did you think was correct?
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 2:53
  • I had assumed that when I checked in to a Viennese hotel last summer, this was why the hotel clerk ceased to be interested in my passport once she found out that it was an EU passport. Subsequent research supports this. Croatia may not yet have changed its procedures, but it are certainly subject to the same rules.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 3:13
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EU-Bürger müssen sich bei einem Aufenthalt von bis zu 90 Tagen nicht mehr bei den örtlichen Behörden registrieren lassen.

source: http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/DE/Laenderinformationen/00-SiHi/Nodes/KroatienSicherheit_node.html#doc358506bodyText4

translation:

EU citizens no longer have to register locally during a stay (in Croatia) of up to 90 days.

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