With the legislative changes currently being prepared to improve the conditions for importing foreign labour, the Ministry of the Interior plans to strengthen supervision of employers by setting new conditions, such as introducing a ratio between the number of domestic and foreign workers.

In 2023, 172,499 residence and work permits were issued to third-country nationals in Croatia. An interdepartmental group, which includes representatives of trade unions and employers as well as government agencies, is working on changes to the legal provisions in order to bring order to the system of importing foreign labour.

The long-announced changes are intended to better regulate and monitor employers, as well as introduce quality controls on the labour imported by employers.

“Among many other changes, we would like to highlight those that better regulate and monitor the employment of foreign labour to protect foreign workers and enable their employment by employers who really need these workers, especially skilled workers,” the Ministry of Home Affairs told the Croatian state news agency Hina.

Ministry: We will expel those who abuse the system

The ministry said that in the future, the conditions for issuing work permits will be tightened so that new conditions for a positive opinion from the Croatian Labour Office will be introduced. According to the Aliens Act, a positive opinion from the Labour Office is the basis on which the Ministry of the Interior issues work permits.

In addition, the Ministry will check employers and the working conditions they offer to ensure that they are legitimate employers.

In addition, employers will be required to maintain a certain ratio between the number of domestic and foreign workers employed.

A further condition for a positive opinion from the Labour Office will be that employers applying for a work permit for foreign workers must have employed a domestic worker full-time for at least one year. This condition already existed previously, but the period of employment was shorter – companies had to employ a domestic worker for at least six months.

Ministry provides more detailed information on work permits

The Ministry of the Interior has also published more precise data on the number of active work permits in the past year.

Although a total of 172,499 residence and work permits were issued to third-country nationals in 2023, the number of foreign workers with a valid work permit on the last day of last year fell by 50,000 to 117,549.

The Ministry explained this by the fact that foreign workers in Croatia can change jobs, so the Ministry can issue several residence and work permits for the same person during the year.

In addition, of the total number of permits issued, more than 18,000 were issued for seasonal jobs, i.e. with a validity period of six months.