What you need for an online shop in Croatia
Honestly, building the shop is the easy bit. Here's everything that has to be sorted before your first payment comes in.
Most guides to opening a web shop end with “choose a platform”. The legal side, which is where the fines actually come from, either gets skipped or is described by rules that no longer apply. Here's where things stand in 2026, after Fiscalisation 2.0 came into force and after the changes to the Croatian Consumer Protection Act. This won't replace your accountant. But once you've read it, you'll know which questions to take to them.
In short
- From 1 January 2026 every invoice is fiscalised, however the customer pays.
- If you're VAT registered, you have to issue eInvoices to business customers.
- If you don't give customers the required withdrawal information and form, the 14-day window gets extended by another 12 months.
- From 19 June 2026 every online shop needs a withdrawal button, not just the ones selling subscriptions.
Start with the name you sell under
A web shop isn't a legal form of its own. You sell either as a sole trader or as a company, and your registered activity has to cover distance selling. Say you already run a sole trader business making jewellery and now you'd like to sell it online too. First, check with your accountant whether your registered activity also covers selling online. This is where people most often slip up at the start.
The threshold for entering the VAT system is 60,000 euro of annual turnover. Below it you can trade without VAT. That also affects when the obligation to issue eInvoices catches up with you, though, and we'll come back to that.
What changed with Fiscalisation 2.0
Fiscalisation is the Croatian system of reporting every invoice to the Tax Administration in real time. Until the end of 2025 it applied, in practice, to cash and card. From 1 January 2026 the rule is simpler, and it's also wider. Every invoice is fiscalised, whatever the payment method, so a transfer made through internet banking is no longer an exception.
For a web shop, that means every order from a private customer ends in a fiscalised invoice, reported as it happens. And no, this isn't something you do by hand at the end of the day. It has to be built into the shop itself, or into a system the shop calls.
When you sell to end customers, meaning private individuals, an eInvoice isn't mandatory. Fiscalisation in retail applies to them instead. Business customers are a different story. If you're VAT registered, invoices to them inside Croatia have to be eInvoices, which are structured electronic invoices rather than PDFs. If you're not VAT registered, the same obligation reaches you on 1 January 2027.
Regulations change, and they come with exceptions that depend on your line of business. So treat this as a guide rather than a ruling, and get final confirmation from your accountant before the shop goes live.
Taking payment, and what comes with it
Choosing payment methods looks like a technical decision at first. But each one drags its own bit of paperwork along with it.
- Bank transfer. The easiest one to set up. But the customer has to go off and make the payment themselves, so some orders fall away along the way. The invoice is fiscalised all the same.
- Cash on delivery. Popular with Croatian customers who don't trust paying online. The risk is parcels that the customer never ends up collecting.
- Card. More people finish their purchase with a card than any other way. But it needs a contract with a payment provider, a check on your company and 3-D Secure, and the fee on each transaction comes out of your margin.
For domestic customers the usual choice is WSPay or CorvusPay with a Croatian bank, and for international ones it's Stripe. You don't have to pick just one. If you sell to customers both at home and abroad, offering two often makes sense.
Terms of business and the right to return
A customer has the right to withdraw from the contract within 14 days of receiving the goods, without giving a reason. Most people know that. Fewer know what happens when you slip up here. If you don't give the customer the required information about withdrawal, along with the standard form, the window is extended by a further 12 months after the original 14 days. So one document you never published turns two weeks into more than a year.
Your terms of business have to be available before the order, not after it. They need to say plainly who is selling, how payment works, how long delivery takes, how goods are returned and where a complaint goes. Alongside them you need a privacy policy and a cookie notice, because a shop processes personal data by its very nature.
New in 2026: the cancellation button
Amendments to the Croatian Consumer Protection Act (NN 59/2026) introduced Article 81.a, which brings Directive (EU) 2023/2673 into national law. That sounds heavy, but the rule itself is simple. From 19 June 2026, a customer who bought something through your site has to be able to withdraw through that same site, just as easily as they bought. It isn't only about subscriptions. It covers every order the customer can withdraw from within 14 days, ordinary goods from a web shop included.
In practice that means a button labelled something like “Withdraw from contract”, clearly visible for as long as the withdrawal period runs. The customer clicks it, fills in a short statement, confirms it and sends it, with no phone call and no paperwork. You then automatically send them a confirmation, by email for example, showing the date and time the statement arrived. Say you sell a monthly coffee subscription. You can't ask a customer who has changed their mind to post their cancellation or ring you during office hours.
Fines for breaching the consumer protection rules run from roughly 1,330 to 26,540 euro, depending on the offence. This really isn't the place to cut corners.
The list before you put the shop live
We've put it in the order these things usually get done. If anything on it is still open, the shop isn't ready for its first order.
- A registered activity that covers distance selling
- Fiscalisation of invoices sorted, built into the shop rather than bolted on afterwards
- Checked with your accountant whether the eInvoice obligation already applies to you
- A contract with a payment provider, and a test run that includes a declined card
- Terms of business, privacy policy and cookie notice published
- The withdrawal form available to download
- A withdrawal button, visible for the whole 14-day window
- Shipping prices stated clearly before the payment step
- A contact the customer can actually reach you on
Without terms of business a shop isn't ready, however well it works technically.
The technical side of all this is our job. For the bookkeeping and tax side, find an accountant who has already looked after a web shop, because it's not the same as a sole trader business that issues ten invoices a month. The web shop page shows how a build looks from our side. If you're still putting a budget together, read how much a web shop costs as well. And if you already have a shop, the first thing to decide is redesign or a new site.
Frequently asked
Do I have to fiscalise an invoice if the customer pays by bank transfer?
Yes. From 1 January 2026 every invoice is fiscalised, however the customer pays, and that includes transfers through internet banking. The old rule, under which this only concerned cash and card, no longer applies.
Do I have to send eInvoices to my customers?
Not to private individuals. For them, fiscalisation in retail applies instead. To business customers in Croatia, yes, if you're VAT registered. If you're not VAT registered, the obligation reaches you too, just a little later, on 1 January 2027.
What happens if I do not have a withdrawal form?
The window in which a customer can return the goods is extended by a further 12 months after the first 14 days. It's one of the most expensive oversights, because you usually only find out when somebody asks for a refund many months after buying.
Do I need a cancellation button if I do not sell subscriptions?
Yes. From 19 June 2026 every shop where customers conclude contracts through the site and can withdraw within 14 days needs the button, including shops that only sell physical goods. The exceptions are things like made-to-measure products and perishable goods.
When do I have to register for VAT?
The threshold is 60,000 euro of annual turnover. Below it you don't have to register, but you can choose to if input VAT makes it worth your while. Leave that call to your accountant, though, because it depends on who you buy from and who you sell to.
Building a shop and not sure where to start?
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