How to Move to Croatia to Work with an Employment Visa

If you are thinking about moving abroad to Croatia to live and work you should look into the conditions and requirements that must be met in order for you to do so. In Croatia, the employment of foreign workers is tightly regulated under the law on the Employment of Foreign Nationals. Foreign nationals can only legally work in Croatia if they possess either a valid business visa or a valid employment visa and also have a valid work permit.

If you will be coming to Croatia to work for a Croatian companies with an employment assignment that lasts no longer than one year then the business visa is the most appropriate visa for you to have. You will also need to have a business visa if you plan on coming to Croatia to be a company director or a new investor. In these two instances you will not need to have a work permit. If you do not fall into any of those categories mentioned for a business visa then you will need to have an employment visa.

You can submit your application for an employment visa at the consulate in your home country or at the Ministry of the Interior in Croatia. The time it will take to process your application will vary depending on how many applications are ahead of yours at the place you submit your application to. Typically thought you can expect the wait time to be somewhere between four to six weeks before you get your employment visa. When you are ready to submit your application you will also need to have some additional items with it. Besides the completed application, you will need two passport size photographs, a valid passport, a letter of employment or an employment contract that is in Croatian, a letter from the employer detailing your qualifications for the position and information justifying why a Croatian citizen cannot fill the position.

Once you have your employment visa and arrive in Croatia you will need to visit a local police station to register with the Ministry of Internal Affairs within 24 hours of arriving. You can expect this registration process to take an hour or two. There you will submit an application for an extended residency permit, also simply called a white card. You can expect to receive it within two or three weeks. Then you will go to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to get the information stamped into your passport. Once you have received your extended residency permit you can then apply for your work permit.