Croatia permanent residence and long-term residence

Permanent stay (stalni boravak) is a separate national status. It can be granted to a family member or life partner of a Croatian citizen after four years of uninterrupted temporary stay for family reunification or life partnership; to members of the Croatian people with foreign citizenship, or stateless, who returned to live permanently, after three years of temporary stay; to former refugees with at least ten years of refugee status and three years of temporary stay; and to a minor child after three years of temporary stay for family reunification where a parent has permanent or long-term residence.

It is also open to people who had permanent residence in Croatia on 8 October 1991 and benefit from return or housing programmes, to children born in Croatia to a parent with permanent or long-term residence, and to people born and living in Croatia since birth who could not regulate their status for reasons beyond their control. Absences of up to six months in total or four months at once are allowed in the qualifying period.

Long-term residence can be granted to a third-country national who has stayed legally in Croatia without interruption for five years immediately before applying, on temporary stay, asylum or subsidiary protection, and who still holds one of those statuses when the decision is made. The stay counts as uninterrupted if absences did not exceed ten months in total or six months at once; absences of up to three days in a calendar month are ignored. Longer absences of up to 18 months in total or 12 at once are tolerated for family of Croatian civil servants posted abroad, people posted to another EEA state, and seafarers, pilots or international drivers.

Some periods do not count at all: seasonal work, service provision, posted work, volunteering, traineeships, intra-corporate transfers and their families, other essential personnel under the WTO protocol, frontier work, stays for other purposes, secondary school and time in prison. Only half of the time on a university study permit counts. For refugees and people with subsidiary protection, half of the time between the asylum application and the decision counts, or all of it if the procedure took longer than 18 months.

You must have a valid passport, means of support, health insurance and knowledge of the Croatian language and Latin script, and you must not pose a threat to public order, national security or public health. The exam is run by the faculties of humanities and social sciences of the universities of Zagreb, Rijeka, Osijek, Zadar, Split and Pula, and by other institutions on the list published by MUP, under Ordinance 100/2021.

Preschool children, people who attend or completed primary, secondary or higher education in Croatia, and people over 65 who are not employed do not need to take the exam. EU Blue Card holders follow the same conditions after five years with a Croatian Blue Card, or five years in the EEA with at least the last two in Croatia.

Long-term residence and permanent stay are both requested on Form 1a at the police administration or station for your registered address; the Ministry of the Interior decides. Once granted, you apply for a biometric residence permit with a 30 x 35 mm photo, which costs EUR 31.85 (EUR 59.73 in the accelerated procedure) and is collected in person where you applied. A certified copy of a long-term or permanent stay decision costs EUR 13.94.

Long-term residence is withdrawn if you live outside the EEA for 12 consecutive months, are absent from Croatia for more than six years, obtain long-term residence in another EEA state, have your asylum or subsidiary protection annulled, are banned from entry, pose a threat to public order or security, or ask for it to be withdrawn. Permanent stay is withdrawn after moving out of Croatia or living abroad for more than one year without interruption, after an entry ban or on request.