Employment Laws in Croatia

Contractual Agreements

All employment relationships in Croatia conclude under employment agreements. You may draft a written employment agreement including the following details:

• Basic information about the employer and employee
• The contract signing date and the employee's start date.
• The job title, nature of the work, or work descriptions.
• The duration of the workday/workweek in hours.
• An account of employee benefits and termination procedure
• Details of the gross salary along with payment schedules.
• Probationary period (if applicable)

Additionally, you must differentiate between remote work and a separate workplace. A separate workplace prioritizes a predetermined location and specific contractual arrangements regarding equipment and costs.

Types of employment contracts in Croatia

• Open-ended contract: Follows indefinite employment with no predetermined end date unless terminated based on specific legal grounds.
• Fixed-term contract: Specifies a predefined end date for employment, with a maximum validity of three years. 
• Further, the employment laws in Croatia regulate the gig economy to delegate employers and digital platforms with shared liability around timely salary payments, information transparency, and misclassification risks. 

Obligations and rights for both parties

In addition to obligations under the labor laws, you must ensure compliance with the following provisions: 

• Right to disconnect: You may avoid contacting employees for work-related queries outside of usual working hours unless necessary.

• Right to additional maternity leave: You may provide unpaid leave after the statutory period ends, up to six months after childbirth. 

• Right to temporarily work from a separate workplace: You may not deny an employee’s request to temporarily work from a separate workplace without a written explanation.  

• Disability employment: Specially-abled individuals must constitute at least 3% of the total workforce in a company with more than 20 employees. Otherwise, you must keep aside a monthly fee of 20% of the minimum gross salary (EUR 168 in 2024) for each vacant position.

Working Hours and Overtime

The employment laws in Croatia regulate full-time, part-time, short-work, night-work, and overtime work. 

Regular working hours

• You may schedule full-time work up to 40 hours a week. 
• Regular working hours may average 48 hours a week, including overtime work, over a reference period of four consecutive months when working time is unevenly distributed. 
• You must limit night work to an average of eight hours a day over four months. For reference, at least three hours of work between 10 pm and 6 am is considered night work in Croatia. 
• Additionally, you must ensure the following rest period: 
  • Break: at least 30 minutes for every six hours of continuous work. 
  • Daily rest: minimum 12 hours for every 24 hours
  • Weekly rest: at least 24 hours every seven-day week 

Overtime regulations and compensation

• You may ask employees to work overtime up to 180 hours a year, whereas collective agreements can increase it to 250 hours annually. 
• Croatia labor law fixes a statutory limit on total working hours, including overtime, at 50 hours per week. 

While there are no statutory provisions for overtime pay in Croatia, you can still offer compensation and benefits per local market standards.

Minimum Wage and Compensation

Croatia labor law regulates terms of salary and salary compensation for full-time or remote employees as follows: 

The minimum wage rate in 2024

• The Croatian government has revised the monthly minimum wage rate to 840 euros ($884.40) in 2024. 
• The labor law in Croatia encourages you to extend equal pay benefits for equal work. 
• You must pay salaries in Croatia no later than the 15th of every month. Learn how you can pay your remote employees more effectively.

Factors affecting wage determination

• You may determine salaries in gross amount, inclusive of base or contracted pay, supplements, and other remuneration.  
• Market forces like supply and demand and individual traits like education and experience shape the base pay. 
• Government policies, collective agreements, location variations, and job types may determine supplements and other remuneration.

Employee Benefits and Social Security

The employment laws in Croatia specify limited benefits beyond minimum wage, including: 

Statutory benefits

• You must extend paid leave for vacation, public holidays, casual reasons, maternity, and parental leave benefits. 

• The labor laws of Croatia require you to cover the salary of eligible employees for the first 42 days of sick leave.
• You must enroll employees into the Croatian social security system for pension and health insurance coverage (from the 43rd day onwards). 

Additional perks and benefits

• Typically, employees dismissed after two years of continuous work qualify for severance pay benefits in Croatia.
• Individual contracts or collective agreements may provide for more benefits. 

Social security contributions and requirements

Vacations and Paid Time Off

Here’s an overview of your obligations to offer vacations and paid time off in Croatia: 

Annual leave entitlement

• You must extend at least four weeks of paid annual leave for most employees in Croatia.
• Employees in hazardous work conditions may get a minimum paid annual leave of five weeks. 
• You may allow employees to take annual leave in installments of at least two weeks. Any unused part of leave must be utilized within 30 June of the following year.   

Public holidays and special leaves

The employment laws in Croatia prescribe the following public holidays as usual rest days:

• The labor laws of Croatia provide for the following paid and unpaid leave entitlements: 
  • Personal leave: Up to seven days of paid leave per year for reasons not limited to marriage, birth of a child, serious illness, or death of an immediate family member.
  • Personal care leave: Unpaid leave of up to five days per year for personal care or to attend to a close family member.  
  • Absence from work: You may allow employees to be absent without prior intimation for one day a year. 

• Special regulations under the employment laws in Croatia require you to extend maternal and parental rights: 
  • Mandatory paid maternity leave of 98 days, starting 28 days before the pregnancy due date and extending for 70 days after the child’s birth. 
  • Paternity leave may be granted within six months and vary depending on the number of children born: some text
    • One child: 10 days
    • Multiple children: 15 days
  • Eight months (single child) to 30 months (multiple children) of parental leave may be offered for bonding and care of children aged between six months and up to eight years. You may extend it twice a year for a minimum of 30 days. 

Termination and Severance

The employment laws in Croatia lay out the following provisions for terminating an employee in Croatia:

Grounds for termination

• Automatic termination: Upon expiry of fixed-term contracts or when the employee reaches the retirement age of 65 and has 15 years of pensionable service.  
• Termination with notice: Due to economic, technological, or organizational reasons, the employee's inability to perform their duties due to permanent characteristics or abilities, or violation of the employment contract by the employee. 
• Termination for poor performance may be valid within the probation period of up to six months. 

Notice period and severance pay

The statutory minimum notice period in Croatia is summarized as follows:

• You may halve the prescribed notice period in case of violation of contractual terms. 
• Croatia labor law suggests not hiring new employees until six months after employee termination for business reasons. 

• You may calculate severance pay for eligible employees as follows: 
  • Minimum: 1/3 of average monthly salary in the last three months before termination per year of work.
  • Maximum: six times the average monthly salary in the last three months before termination.

Discrimination and Equal Opportunity

Here’s a summary of anti-discrimination and workplace protection provisions under the employment laws in Croatia. 

Prohibitions against workplace discrimination

• You must not treat someone less favorably based on protected characteristics like race, gender, age, or disability.
• You must avoid implementing seemingly neutral policies that disproportionately disadvantage certain groups.
• Employers with over 75 employees must implement a two-person oversight system for employees’ dignity at the workplace.

Health and Safety Regulations

The employment laws in Croatia define the following ways to a safer work environment and ensure employee privacy protection: 

• The labor law in Croatia requires you to reduce working time in proportion to the harmful effects of working conditions on employees’ health and work capacity.
• You must provide and maintain facilities, equipment, and workspaces that prioritize worker safety and health. 
• You may only collect, process, and share employee data essential for employment purposes. You must also delete unnecessary information after a reasonable timeframe. 
• If employing more than 20 employees, the internal regulations must define what employee data you collect and use. 

Additionally, you may enter into Data Processing Agreements to ensure compliance with employee data protection laws.  

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FAQs

Q1. What is the notice period in Croatia?

A1. The notice period in Croatia varies from two weeks to three months, depending on the tenure of employment. 

Q2. What are the working hours in Croatia?

A2. The regular working hours in Croatia are 40 hours a week, but they can go up to 50 hours a week, including overtime. 

Q3. How much is overtime pay in Croatia?

A3. Croatian labor law does not mandate a specific overtime pay rate. It can vary depending on individual contracts or the applicable collective agreement. 

Q4. What are quiet hours in Croatia?

A4. Quiet hours in Croatia may relate to the employees’ right to disconnect. Employers must avoid contacting employees outside of usual work hours unless necessary.