Expenses and cost of living in Croatia

Property maintenance costs and taxes

Everybody buying a second home always pays attention to the questions: “How much it will cost to me to have my personal private dacha in Croatia?”. “ Will I be able to finance a property in Croatia?”. “Is that financially reasonable to buy when I can rent?”.

Municipality tax  

At the moment there is municipality level annual taxation of property at the level of 1-2 euro per m2 of space of the property. The government of Croatia is planning to rise annual property tax basing on cadastial value of the property. But in order to fulfil those plans it is required to update cadastre data and evaluate all the properties which is costly and long procedure. Therefore it is unlikely that the abovementioned rise in tax will take place before 2015.  

Management company expenses

The fees of management companies apply only to apartment complexes, especially new ones. It is normal for a developer to create his own management company, alternatively the owners of apartments choose an independent management company to monitor engineering condition of the building, clean the staircases, cut grass on a common land, etc. Including insurance the fees of such management companies are about 200-300 euro per year in average building of 6-10 apartments, it can be 400-800 eur in case there is a swimming pool at the territory of the compex. Should it concern large residential complexes like Skyper, Kempinsky, the fee can be as high as 1-3 euro per m2 of property per month as the territory of those complexes is large enough and requires maintenance.  

Utility expenses

This question largerly depends on whether you permanently live in Croatia or just periodically. When you are not living in your property, you pay a small fixed fee for the fact of connection to electricity or telephone lines. Those fixed payments are monthly - 165 kn for telephone 59 kn for Internet connection 22 kn for electricity 113 kn for water connection. If you start to use your property it may come to average figures for 100-120 m2 property like - 500 kn for telephone with international calls 200-450 kn for Internet with unlimited traffic 450 kn for water supply 450 kn for electricity 80 kn – television (per TV device) It will depend on your water-meter and electricity-meter data. Please, get familiarized with tariff models on electricity supply - www.hep.hr/hep/en/customers/default.aspx. See sample of tariffs for water supply in Istria - www.vodovod-pula.hr/Hcjenik.html. See info on telephone and internet services at - www.hrvatskitelekom.hr