In 2017 the City of Zagreb generated an income of 6.57 billion kuna (€885 million), or 42 percent of the total income generated by all city governments in the country, with income per capita amounting to 8,177 kuna (€1,102) in the country's capital, a recent report by the Institute for Public Finances (IJF) said.

Meanwhile, in 12 cities and as many as 33 municipalities, income per capita was higher than in Zagreb.

Croatia is administratively divided into 128 officially designated cities or towns and 428 municipalities at the lowest level of government, with all 556 having the same level of local authority, which are grouped into 20 larger counties. The City of Zagreb is both a city and an extra county.

The IJF report analysed budgets of all units of local government in the country, and calculated their spending and income per capita.

In 2017, the average income of Croatia’s 20 counties was 202 million kuna (€27.2 million), cities including Zagreb posted an average revenue of 123 million kuna (€16.5 million), cities excluding Zagreb 72 million kuna (€9.7 million), and the average income of municipalities was 9 million kuna (€1.2 million).

In terms of average income per capita, cities were in the lead, with average income per capita in cities including Zagreb totalling 4,314 kuna (€581), and in cities without Zagreb 4,284 kuna (€577). Municipalities had an income of 3,863 kuna (€520) per capita.

The analysis showed that 12 cities and as many as 33 municipalities generated higher incomes per capita than Zagreb. In addition, as many as two-thirds of Croatia’s municipalities, and 60 percent of cities had an income per capita below the average.

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