Croatia: gambling regulation and licensing
Republic of Croatia
- Online casinoRegulated
- Online sports bettingRegulated
- Online pokerRegulated
- iLotteryMonopoly
- Online bingoMonopoly
- Regulator
- Ministry of Finance
- Headline tax
- Not yet verified
- Licence required
- Yes
- Last verified
- 4 Aug 2026
Summary
Croatia licenses online gambling only through the back door of the land-based market. Under the Games of Chance Act, lottery games and bingo are the exclusive right of the state-owned Hrvatska Lutrija, while casino games and betting are licensable to commercial operators with ICLG reporting a cap of twenty licences each and a fifteen-year term. To go online, an operator must already hold the corresponding land-based right and then obtain a separate approval from the Ministry of Finance, connect its system directly to the Ministry information system and pass laboratory certification. The regime was overhauled in 2025: the amending act published in Narodne novine 72/2025 on 23 April 2025 set annual online fees of EUR 600,000 for casino and EUR 400,000 for betting, replaced the tax on winnings with a tiered 10 to 30 per cent scale, banned gambling advertising in printed media, on publicly visible surfaces and online between 06:00 and 23:00, and created a national register of excluded players run by the Croatian Institute of Public Health with a 24-hour operator reporting duty.
Key facts
- Regulator
- Ministry of Finance
- Regulator type
- Government ministry
- Headline tax
- Not yet verified
- Licence required
- Yes
- Minimum age
- 18+
- Tax base
- Croatia charges operators through concession and monthly fees rather than a single headline gross gaming revenue tax, and no current online GGR rate could be traced to a source we fetched, so ggrTaxRate is left null. ICLG describes a 5 per cent monthly fee for betting plus annual fees, a 10 per cent charge on lottery ticket sales and a 25 per cent daily revenue charge on slot machines, but that chapter predates the 2025 amendments, which raised operator fees. The 2025 online annual fees of EUR 600,000 for casino and EUR 400,000 for betting are recorded on the licence type instead.
- Capital
- Zagreb
- Currency
- EUR
- Official languages
- Croatian
Legal framework
Primary statutes
Games of Chance Act
Zakon o igrama na srecu
- Year
- 2009
- In force
- Yes
- Summary
- The Games of Chance Act is the framework statute, enacted in 2009 and amended several times since. It divides games of chance into lottery games, casino games, betting games, games on slot machines, one-off games of chance and promotional games. Lottery games and bingo are the exclusive right of the state-owned Hrvatska Lutrija. Casino games and betting are licensable to commercial operators, and a company holding one of those rights may obtain a separate approval from the Ministry of Finance to offer the same games through interactive online sales channels. The most recent amendment, published in Narodne novine 72/2025 of 23 April 2025, is a responsible-gambling and advertising package.
Key amendments
- 23 Apr 2025The Act on Amendments to the Games of Chance Act was published in Narodne novine 72/2025 on 23 April 2025 and enters into force on the eighth day after publication. It sets annual online fees of EUR 600,000 for online casino operations and EUR 400,000 for online betting operations, replaces the tax on winnings with a tiered scale, imposes comprehensive advertising bans, creates a national register of excluded players administered by the Croatian Institute of Public Health with a 24-hour operator reporting duty, and tightens age verification at 18.
Licensing
- Licence required
- Yes
- Application window
- Capped
- Local establishment required
- Yes
- Local server required
- Not yet verified
- Licence cap
- 20
- Certification requirements
- Online operator systems must be built to the technical documentation and standards issued by the Ministry of Finance, must be directly connected to the Ministry information system under the Rulebook on casino games via interactive online sales channels, and must be laboratory certified before operations begin.
- Barriers to entry
- The barrier is structural. An operator cannot offer online casino or online betting in Croatia without first holding the corresponding land-based right, and those rights are capped at twenty each. On top of that sit annual online fees of EUR 600,000 for casino and EUR 400,000 for betting introduced in 2025, and mandatory direct connection to the Ministry of Finance information system.
Licence types
Casino games licence
- Scope
- Land-based casino games. ICLG reports a maximum of twenty licences.
- Term
- 15 years
Betting games licence
- Scope
- Land-based betting. ICLG reports a maximum of twenty licences.
- Term
- 15 years
Approval for organising games through interactive online sales channels
- Scope
- The online extension. Available only to a company that already holds the right to organise casino games or betting games. Granted by the Ministry of Finance following verification of legal compliance, and conditional on the operator system being directly connected to the Ministry of Finance information system and laboratory certified before launch.
- Annual fee
- €600,000 as of 4 Aug 2026
- Fee basis
- Narodne novine 72/2025 sets EUR 600,000 a year for online casino operations and EUR 400,000 a year for online betting operations. The value recorded here is the online casino figure.
Taxation
- Headline GGR tax
- Not yet verified
- Effective date
- 1 May 2025
- Player winnings tax
- Narodne novine 72/2025 sets a tiered tax on lottery and betting winnings: 10 per cent on winnings up to EUR 1,500, 15 per cent from EUR 1,500 to EUR 4,000, 20 per cent from EUR 4,000 to EUR 70,000, and 30 per cent above EUR 70,000.
- Tax base
- Croatia charges operators through concession and monthly fees rather than a single headline gross gaming revenue tax, and no current online GGR rate could be traced to a source we fetched, so ggrTaxRate is left null. ICLG describes a 5 per cent monthly fee for betting plus annual fees, a 10 per cent charge on lottery ticket sales and a 25 per cent daily revenue charge on slot machines, but that chapter predates the 2025 amendments, which raised operator fees. The 2025 online annual fees of EUR 600,000 for casino and EUR 400,000 for betting are recorded on the licence type instead.
Compliance
- Minimum age
- 18+
- National self-exclusion
- National register of excluded players, administered by the Croatian Institute of Public Health (mandatory)
- KYC requirements
- Not yet verified
- Stake limits
- Not yet verified
- Reporting obligations
- Operators must submit exclusion data to the national register of excluded players within 24 hours. Online operators must be directly connected to the Ministry of Finance information system for supervision purposes.
Advertising
- Advertising permitted
- Yes
Restrictions
- Prohibited in media aimed at children
- Prohibited on the internet and in audiovisual programmes between 06:00 and 23:00
- Prohibited in printed media
- Prohibited on publicly visible surfaces
- Low-risk lottery games are excepted
Enforcement
- ISP blocking
- Yes
- DNS blocking
- Not yet verified
- Payment blocking
- Yes
- App store takedowns
- Not yet verified
- Operator liability
- ICLG reports IP address blocking of unlicensed operators, restrictions imposed on payment service providers, monetary fines, licence revocation and confiscation of unlawful profits.
Outlook
Croatia is the most aggressive responsible-gambling mover in this batch, and the 2025 package is still bedding in through 2026 as operators complete the transition on self-service terminals, player identification and the exclusion register. The open question is whether the government follows the amendments with a fully new Games of Chance Act rather than another round of amendments, and whether the land-based precondition for online licensing survives that rewrite. Given the fee increases already imposed, watch for consolidation among the capped licence holders.
Frequently asked questions
- Can an operator get an online-only licence in Croatia?
- No. Only a company that already holds the right to organise casino games or betting games in Croatia can obtain approval from the Ministry of Finance to offer those games through interactive online sales channels.
- How are gambling winnings taxed in Croatia?
- On a tiered scale set by the 2025 amendments: 10 per cent up to EUR 1,500, 15 per cent from EUR 1,500 to EUR 4,000, 20 per cent from EUR 4,000 to EUR 70,000 and 30 per cent above EUR 70,000.
- What are the annual online gambling fees in Croatia?
- Narodne novine 72/2025 sets EUR 600,000 a year for online casino operations and EUR 400,000 a year for online betting operations.
Sources
- Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o igrama na srecu (Act on Amendments to the Games of Chance Act)
Narodne novine (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia), NN 72/2025
Tier 1Accessed 4 Aug 2026Published 23 Apr 2025 - Igre na srecu i nagradne igre (Games of chance and prize games)
Ministarstvo financija - Porezna uprava (Croatian Ministry of Finance, Tax Administration)
Tier 1Accessed 4 Aug 2026 - Igre na srecu u casinima (Casino games of chance)
Ministarstvo financija - Porezna uprava (Croatian Ministry of Finance, Tax Administration)
Tier 1Accessed 4 Aug 2026 - Gambling Laws and Regulations - Croatia
ICLG (International Comparative Legal Guides)
This is the archived 2024 edition, published 28 November 2023, and is the most recent Croatia chapter available. Its fee figures (EUR 398,168.43 annual online betting fee, EUR 132,722.81 land-based) are superseded by the 2025 amendments published in Narodne novine 72/2025, which set EUR 400,000 for online betting and EUR 600,000 for online casino. The record uses the Narodne novine figures. Structural facts taken from ICLG, namely the cap of twenty casino and twenty betting licences, the fifteen-year term and the Hrvatska Lutrija lottery and bingo monopoly, have not been re-verified against a 2026 source and carry medium confidence.
Tier 3Accessed 4 Aug 2026Published 28 Nov 2023