August the 28th, 2022 - Croatian business entities are now intensively preparing for the country's Eurozone accession, which is now very rapidly approaching. All wages which would have otherwise been paid out in Croatian kuna for the month of December 2022, will be paid out in January 2023 in the new currency - euros.
As Novac/Gordana Galovic/Jutarnji list writes, due to the upcoming introduction of the euro, Croatian business entities are undergoing the demanding process of adjusting their accounting processes, preparing financial statements, paying out wages, reporting taxes and other similar activities in euros. According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), at the end of June 2022, there were 316,052 registered business entities operating in Croatia, of which 56 percent or 176,882 are active.
Most commercial companies, 141,743 of them to be more precise, are active, and 93,393 are trades and the like. The main cost for everyone is the adjustment of IT and accounting systems.
Invoices, wages and payment slips, giro account statements, delivery notes, purchase orders, receipts and other accounting documents on the basis of which business events are entered in the business books must be expressed in the official currency of whatever country they're being carried out in. This means that companies report them in kuna until December the 31st of this year, and after January the 1st, 2023, this will all be done exclusively in euros. Invoices and other accounting documents dated before and on December the 31st, 2022, which companies will issue after January the 1st, 2023, regardless of whether they contain dual amounts in kuna and euro, must be issued in euros.
Croatian business entities will pay all of their outgoings in euros from January the 1st, 2023 onwards. Only during the period of dual circulation, i.e. the first fourteen days of January 2023, can cash kuna be used as legal tender when paying in cash. If something is paid cashless, from January the 1st, 2023, it will be automatically paid in euros because the amounts on deposit, savings and transaction accounts, other payment accounts, payment instruments and other records will be converted from kuna to euros without any charge, with the application of a fixed conversion rate and in accordance with the rules for conversion and rounding.
Companies will need report their profit tax returns, as well as their income tax returns for 2022, but submitted in 2023, in kuna. An exception is for corporate tax payers whose tax period begins before the introduction of the euro and ends after the day of the introduction of the euro, they may submit their corporate tax return for that tax period in euros.
When it comes to companies that are obliged to submit annual financial statements, all those whose business year is equal to the calendar year will need to prepare and submit annual financial statements for 2022 in kuna.
If Croatian business entities receive an invoice after closing the business year for the previous period, it must be in euros. The exception is companies whose business year is different from the calendar year. If the last day of their financial year is after the day of the introduction of the euro, they must state all of their data for the previous business year in their financial statements in euros.
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