April 8, 2021 - Nautical tourists will now be able to pay the fees related to their stay online thanks to the digitalisation of nautical fees as Croatia continues dragging itself into the modern era.

Tourist fees for nautical tourists in Croatia can now be paid online, reports Goran Rihelj for Hrturizam. The website Nautika E-visitor, available in English, Croatian, German and Italian, offers the ability to accept payments according to the size of the vessel, which can stretch from 7 to over 20 metres in length, as well as by the number of people. These options are aligned with the Tourist Tax Act.

The site was launched last year as a service of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport, and Infrastructure and allowed tourists to pay and download an electronic confirmation of payment of navigation safety fees online. The entire system has been updated in regard to the digitalisation of nautical fees, and there is no longer an option to pay the fee in person, which was the only way to do it previously.

''Croatia has a fleet of 4,300 vessels, more than 140 nautical tourism ports with over 17,000 berths and over a million cruise passengers. The average consumption of nautical tourists is 126 euros per day, and in the charter sector, 183 euros per day. More than 30 percent of that money is spent on other forms of tourism, from cultural content to wine and gastronomy,'' reads the article on HRturizam.

port, pixabay

It goes on to remind readers that Croatia.hr, the main website for information on tourism owned and run by the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ), also has a subsite for nautical tourits. The subsite, just like the main site, is available to view in Croatian, English, German, Italian, Czech, French, Japanese, Hungarian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish, and the Swedish language.

An important step in digitalisation development of Croatia has proven and continues to prove especially useful during the ongoing global pandemic, which makes frequent physical contact with other people risky.

As such, nautical tourists generally have an edge when it comes to being able to self-isolate and enjoy their holidays safely with a chosen group of friends or family on their private vessel. This is yet another argument for them to visit Croatia, along with the breath-taking coastal landscape accompanying clear Adriatic sea.

Learn more about sailing in Croatia on our TC Page.  

For more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 5th of September, 2020, a proposal for an amendment to the Ordinance on the exemption from paying tourist tax for individuals providing hospitality services in a household or on a family farm has now been sent to e-counselling/e-savjetovanje. Just who can apply for this new Croatian coronavirus measure?

Taking into account the special circumstances caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that have negatively affected the work of private renters and family farms (OPGs), the Ministry of Tourism and Sport sent an e-consultation recently to propose an amendment to the Ordinance on the exemption from paying tourist tax.

"Tourism is extremely important for the entire economy of the Republic of Croatia. From the very beginning of the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Government of the Republic of Croatia has adopted measures to enable the preservation of jobs and the liquidity of the economy. The measures presented by the Prime Minister at the session held on September the 3rd, 2020, provided the most important preconditions for the continuation of healthy tourism in the uncertain days and months ahead of us. Bearing in mind the specific role of private accommodation in the Croatian tourist offer, we want to help the most vulnerable private renters and family farms with the measures in the amended Ordinance, and we believe that this proposal will enable the better and more successful preparation of the entire sector for tourism in 2021,'' said Nikolina Brnjac.

The amended ordinance, which is in essence a new coronavirus measure would completely exempt renters who, owing to the previous decision on the termination of the provision of hospitality services, and those who did not have any registered overnight stays in 2020, from the payment of tourist tax. The same ordinance will exempt a person from the area of ​​the City of Zagreb, Zagreb County and Krapina-Zagorje County from paying the tourist tax for those capacities located in buildings that were damaged in the earthquake and were marked unusable (with a red mark) or temporarily unusable (with a yellow mark).

"Given the extremely challenging year during which there was a significant decline in tourism activity as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, this regulation seeks to further mitigate the negative consequences for those renters who failed to realise tourist traffic and decided to deregister their capacities, and who would, otherwise, in accordance with the regulations in force from 2020, have been required to pay a lump sum. This ordinance will significantly help in the further implementation of the competent legal norms that regulate the payment of tourist tax,'' said the director of the Main Office of the Croatian Tourist Board, Kristjan Stanicic.

In order to avoid the collection of tourist tax from persons who will be exempted as a result of the the amended ordinance and reduce the administrative burden to the system, for taxpayers who aren't exempt from payment, the deadline for the payment of the remaining debt has been moved to the 30th of September 2020.

For taxpayers who don't meet the criteria for this new coronavirus measure which regards the full exemption from having to pay tourist tax, there are no legal obstacles to the payment of the tourist tax.

It's worth mentioning that since the outbreak of the ongoing pandemic, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport has also adopted an ordinance on the deferral or total exemption from the payment of tourist tax for persons providing hospitality services in households or on a family farm (OPG).

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Even local tourist boards admit that the holiday home zone is a grey area where commercial activity is suspected.

Can sailors and all those involved in nautical tourism breathe a sigh of relief after all?

Due to an enormous hike of tourist taxes, yachtsmen have begun moving their ships to Italian, Greek and Turkish marinas, and just one Dalmatian port calculated a loss of 150 thousand euro