Sojourn tax for boat owners in Croatia: price increases of up to 800%. Exodus of boat owners to their own home countries

Croatia, sojourn tax for boat owners. New rates have come into force. Here are the coefficients

Politicians’ memory, you know, is very short, even when the disaster is very recent.

The Croatian Government has indeed learnt nothing from the recent Italian yachting cataclysm and, pursuant to article 16 and article 20, paragraph 7 of the Sojourn Tax Act, at its session held on 4 August 2017, it adopted the decree on determining the amount of sojourn tax for 2018.

Passed over almost in silence at first, the decree has progressively raised more and more concerns until it finally came into effect, provoking, despite the efforts of the association of Croatian marinas, significant price increases of up to 800%.

More specifically, two aspects contribute to make this tax completely crazy: the sojourn tax for boat owners and the navigation safety fee, which is compulsory for all boats more than 2.5 meters in length, equipped with a propulsion system of over 5kW/hp.

Just to illustrate the concrete effects of the law, we’ll try to make two practical examples of the annual berthing rates for a motoryacht and a sailing yacht, both 14 meters in length.

Annual Berthing Rate	14-meter motoryacht – 2 x 320 Kw engines	14-meter sailboat- 1 x 55 Kw engine
Sojourn Tax	1, 001	1,001
Administrative Fee	40	40
Navigation Safety Fee	202.8	50.4
Maritime Chart Fee	2.6	2.6
Aids to navigation Fee	45.5	45.5
Total Price	1,291.9	1,139.5

These are important figures which, for boats between 12 and 15 meters in length, generally result into a 300% price increase compared to last year. Increases are of up to 850% for boats more than 20 meters in length. For a 20-meter yacht, we indeed go from € 230 of last year to almost € 2,000.00 in 2018.

During this Easter weekend, which has represented the real first occasion to set sail, many boats have left their Croatian berths to come back to the Italian, Slovenian, Greek, Turkish and many other Mediterranean marinas.

It was a serious blow to the Dalmatian yachting economy yet good news for the Adriatic port facilities which, this way, will have the opportunity to recover from their lean years, caused by the short-sighted Italian government.

If you want to take delight in the calculations of this fanciful heavy tax, please find below the tables updated to the current exchange rate.

Sojourn tax for boat owners in Croatia

P e r i o d		5-9 m	9-12 m	12-15 m	15-20 m	>20 m
up to 8 days	Kn	130	400	500	650	950
	Eur	17	52	65	85	124
up to 15 days	Kn	240	700	950	1,200	1,800
	Eur	31	91	124	156	234
up to 30 days	Kn	400	1,200	1,600	2,000	3,000
	Eur	52	156	208	260	390
up to 90 days	Kn	950	2,900	3,850	4,800	7,200
	Eur	124	377	501	624	936
up to 1 year	Kn	2,000	5,800	7,700	9,600	14,500
	Eur	260	754	1,001	1,248	1,885

Navigation Safety Fee

Boat length in m	Administrative Fee	Navigation Safety Fee	Maritime Chart Fee	Aids for Navigation Fee
<2,5	40 kn – 5.2 Eur	20*L+2*P – 2.6Eur*L+0.26 Eur*P	20 kn – 2.6 Eur	10 kn/m – 1.3 Eur/m
2.51 -11,99	40 kn – 5.2 Eur	20*L+2*P – 2.6Eur*L+0.26 Eur*P	20 kn – 2.6 Eur	10 kn/m – 1.3 Eur/m
12,00-40,00	40 kn – 5.2 Eur	20*L+2*P – 2.6Eur*L+0.26 Eur*P	20 kn – 2.6 Eur	25 kn/m – 3.25 Eur/m
40,01 –	40 kn – 5.2 Eur	7,500 kn – 975 Eur	20 kn – 2.6 Eur	25 kn/m – 3.25 Eur/m

L = boat length

P = total engine power in kw