First steps

Legal and administrative systems of any country are complex—we are here help you navigate through them in a faster and simpler way

First step—a visit the competent police administration/police station
You need to visit your police administration/police station to register your permanent/temporary residence, as well as to regulate temporary stay of family members who are not Croatian citizens and obtain Croatian personal documents.  
 
Registration of permanent/temporary residence 
Upon your arrival to the Republic of Croatia, you and your family need to register your permanent/temporary residence in the Republic of Croatia.
 
For Croatian citizens, the registration of permanent/temporary residence needs to be done within 15 days from settling in a place of permanent residence or arriving in the place of temporary stay.
 
If your spouse or other family member is not a Croatian citizen and is a citizen of a third-country, please take into account all the steps and deadlines for registering temporary stay of third-country citizens. This should be followed by other steps of regulating legal stay, and you can find this important information in the chapter Foreign nationals in Croatia.
 
Obtaining Croatian personal documents
The most important personal document you will be required to have for a number of activities is a Croatian electronic identity card.
All Croatian citizens—irrelevant of their age and whether they have a place of permanent residence in the Republic of Croatia or not—are entitled to a Croatian electronic identity card.
The application for an identity card is submitted in person.
You can also obtain other Croatian personal documents, such as a passport, driving licence, etc., as well as apply for Croatian citizenship in a police administration/police station.
 
Second step—a visit to a registry office
Documents from public registers
The information on your birth and entry into marriage abroad are entered in the public registers pursuant to an extract from a foreign authority.
If you still have not had your information entered in the public registers, such as information on your birth, entry into marriage or entry of your child in the register of citizenship and the birth register and you have registered permanent residence in the Republic of Croatia, you can have this done by visiting the registry office in the place of your permanent residence.
If you have registered temporary stay instead of permanent residence in the Republic of Croatia, you need to have the subsequent entry of information in the registers done in your place of birth in the Republic of Croatia.
If you were not born in the Republic of Croatia, the subsequent entry can be done in one of the registry offices in the City of Zagreb.
You can find the information on registry offices in the Republic of Croatia on the website of the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration.

You will also need public register extracts to apply for Croatian citizenship, enrol your child in kindergarten and/or school and exercise other rights from the healthcare and pension insurance systems. You can also obtain electronic extracts from the birth register, marriage register and register of citizenship via e-Citizens.

For further information about using foreign public documents in the Republic of Croatia and whether you will need to have your documents legalised/certified, please read the article Certification of foreign and national public documents.
 
We are also providing the link to the Judge's Web, a unique electronic database for whole Croatia, where you can find a court interpreter authorised to translate your documents.
 
Useful information…
Since administrative and other procedures require payment of an administrative fee or buying a duty stamp, it is useful and practical to open a personal bank account in one of the financial institutions in the Republic of Croatia. To do this, you will need an ID card (a valid travel document) and a personal identification number (PIN).
You can find your PIN on the website of the Tax Administration our you can access this service directly via e-Citizens.