Where to live in Croatia
We track 4 cities in Croatia: Dubrovnik, Rijeka, Split and Zagreb. Average temperatures run from 12°C to 17°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,440 to €2,777 a month to live centrally. Croatia sits in our low to medium tax tier. For citizens from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
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- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Languages
- Croatian, English
- Some English
- Safety
- 80/100
- country-level
- Healthcare
- 64/100
- country-level
- Internet
- ~70 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
The 4 cities we track
Source: City size from GeoNames, temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages), rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals), coast distance from Natural Earth. Cost is our model estimate for a couple living centrally.
Taxes
Croatia sits in our low to medium tax tier: moderate personal income tax. The tier applies to every city here, and couples who cap tax below it will not see these cities in their results.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Residency and visas
Possible, with conditions, for people from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland. Realistic long-term residency runs through skilled employment or an EU Blue Card and the self-employment/company route; the self-funded digital-nomad permit grants a stay but caps at 18 months and does not count toward permanent residence, and Croatia deliberately offers no golden-visa investment option.
Citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland have freedom-of-movement or simplified residency rights here.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Croatia:
- Income: about $4,215 a month (Croatia digital nomad temporary-stay permit, EUR 3,622.50/mo (official MUP 2026 figure = 2.5x the prior-year average net salary, per Narodne novine 3/26); self-funded remote work for a non-Croatian employer; converted at EUR/USD 1.1637 on 2026-06-02; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 93 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 105 need a visa in advance.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).