Croatia ERP and accounting: eRačun and Fiscalisation 2.0

Croatian compliance in one view

Running the books of a Croatian business in 2026 means issuing and receiving structured e-invoices (eRačun), fiscalising each one with the Tax Administration within tight deadlines, reporting payments and rejections every month, fiscalising consumer receipts, and keeping eleven years of records. It matters because Croatia now sees most domestic B2B invoices almost as they happen.

Tax administration is national. The Tax Administration (Porezna uprava), part of the Ministry of Finance, runs VAT, profit tax, income tax and fiscalisation. Businesses deal with it through ePorezna, the online tax portal, and FiskAplikacija, the application where a business authorises its information intermediary and watches the status of every fiscalisation message. The Financial Agency (FINA) receives and publishes annual financial statements.

This page explains why Croatia built Fiscalisation 2.0, how the flow works in practice, every dated step as of September 2026, and what Skyline Nexus ERP does for a Croatian business.

• Tax authority: Porezna uprava, via ePorezna and FiskAplikacija
• Currency: euro; standard VAT rate 25%
• E-invoicing: B2B and B2G eRačun live since 1 January 2026
• Accounts: Croatian Financial Reporting Standards or IFRS
• Retention: at least eleven years; payroll records permanently

Why Croatia built Fiscalisation 2.0

Croatia already fiscalised retail receipts, so the tax authority saw consumer sales but not the invoices businesses send each other. Fiscalisation 2.0 closes that gap. By taking a data set from every domestic e-invoice when it is issued and when it is received, the Tax Administration can match the seller's output VAT with the buyer's input VAT claim, invoice by invoice, instead of discovering mismatches years later in an audit.

The wider purpose is the VAT gap: the difference between the VAT a country should collect and what it actually collects, which the European Commission estimates every year for each member state. Invoice-level data makes missing traders, fake invoices and unreported sales visible quickly. The project behind the system, funded under Croatia's national recovery plan, also aims at cashless payment through e-invoices, an integrated e-archive and what the Tax Administration calls active tax bookkeeping, with more of the VAT picture prepared from data it already holds.

Payment e-reporting adds a second aim that is easy to miss. The Tax Administration states that the payment data will be used to monitor whether payment deadlines are respected, so late payment between businesses becomes visible too. For a finance team, that means the date a receivable is actually settled is now reported data, not just an internal ledger entry.

How an eRačun moves: intermediaries, AMS and fiscalisation

Every business in scope contracts an information intermediary, an access point that appears on the Tax Administration's published list. The seller's intermediary looks up the buyer in the address metadata service (AMS) to find the buyer's access point and delivers the invoice there over the AS4 protocol with digital certificates. Businesses that are not in the VAT register and are not public buyers may instead use MIKROeRAČUN, a free application in which the Tax Administration itself acts as the intermediary.

The Tax Administration has been explicit about the role of business software. The contract must exist between the taxpayer and a listed intermediary; accounting or ERP software is not an intermediary unless it holds that status itself, although the taxpayer may use the intermediary's services through the ERP as a technical platform. The intermediary is responsible for its software solution, while the taxpayer remains responsible for correct issuing, receiving, fiscalisation and e-reporting.

Fiscalisation runs alongside the exchange. A prescribed set of data is extracted from each issued and received e-invoice and sent to the Tax Administration, which confirms receipt; no stamp appears on the invoice itself. All amounts in fiscalisation messages and payment reports are in euro, even when the invoice is expressed in another currency, using the exchange rate required by the VAT Act.

• Format: EN 16931 with the Croatian extension (HR CIUS), in UBL or CII
• Business process codes in field BT-23, for example P7 for invoices referencing a dispatch note
• Corrections: a credit note (type 381) or a corrective invoice (type 384)
• KPD 2025 product classification on every line
• Intermediary chosen and authorised by the taxpayer in FiskAplikacija

Deadlines: every dated step as of September 2026

Croatia phased the reform in, starting with public procurement. The dates below come from the Tax Administration's Fiscalisation 2.0 guidance and the European Commission's country page, and describe the position as of September 2026. The Tax Administration's guidance, updated through 2026, shows no postponement of the 2027 step.

The practical deadline that most teams feel is the monthly one: payment and rejection data for a month must be in the system by the 20th of the next month. The Tax Administration's own example is 20 April 2026 for e-invoices paid between 1 and 31 March 2026. A late report cannot be treated as on time.

• 1 July 2019: suppliers to public bodies must issue structured e-invoices under the Act on e-invoicing in public procurement
• 1 September 2025: testing period for Fiscalisation 2.0 opens
• 1 January 2026: VAT-registered businesses issue, receive and fiscalise B2B e-invoices; e-reporting of payments and rejections begins
• 1 January 2026: non-VAT businesses and budget users must be able to receive and fiscalise e-invoices
• 1 January 2026: consumer receipt fiscalisation extended to all payment methods
• 1 January 2027: non-VAT businesses must also issue and fiscalise e-invoices
• 1 July 2030: EU-wide e-invoicing and digital reporting for intra-EU B2B supplies under ViDA

VAT rates, the small-business threshold and invoices in euro

Croatia's VAT Act sets rates of 25%, 13%, 5% and 0% as of September 2026. The standard rate of 25% is among the highest in the European Union, so rate mapping per product line matters: one invoice can mix standard-rated and reduced-rated lines, and each must be fiscalised with the right rate.

Since 1 January 2025 the special scheme for small taxpayers applies to a business established in Croatia whose annual domestic turnover did not exceed 60,000 euro; it supplies without charging VAT. A cross-border version lets small businesses use the exemption in other member states if their EU-wide turnover stays within 100,000 euro and the national threshold of each state concerned.

Invoice amounts must be shown in euro. Article 81 of the VAT Act allows amounts to be shown in another currency as well, provided the VAT payable is stated in euro at the rate the Act prescribes. The Tax Administration also publishes a Fiscalisation 2.0 guide and a register where any business can check whether a partner is VAT-registered.

• 25% standard rate
• 13% and 5% reduced rates, and 0% for certain supplies
• Small-taxpayer scheme up to 60,000 euro domestic turnover
• Cross-border small-business scheme up to 100,000 euro EU turnover

Accounting standards, annual statements and retention

The Accounting Act sets two frameworks. Micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs prepare annual financial statements under the Croatian Financial Reporting Standards, issued by the Financial Reporting Standards Board and published in the Official Gazette. Large entrepreneurs and public-interest entities must use IFRS as adopted in the EU, and a subsidiary whose parent reports under IFRS may choose IFRS for its own statements.

Annual financial statements are signed by every member of the management board, kept permanently in the original, and submitted to FINA for the public register, which FINA also keeps permanently. Entrepreneurs must take a physical inventory of assets and liabilities at the end of each business year and align the books with it.

Retention is long. Journals, the general ledger and subsidiary ledgers, and the documents on which their entries are based, must be kept for at least eleven years; payroll lists and analytical payroll records permanently. Books may be kept in another EU member state, but the entrepreneur stays responsible for access to them at any time. Received e-invoices must also be kept for the statutory retention period, which users of MIKROeRAČUN can do in the application.

Payroll: JOPPD and locally set income tax rates

Croatian employers report withholding tax and mandatory insurance contributions on the JOPPD form, filed electronically with the Tax Administration. Each JOPPD carries a report identifier in the form YYDDD, the year and the day of the year, which ties the filing to the specific day the obligation arose, so payroll dates drive filing dates.

Since 2024 the annual income tax rates are set by each local government unit, within the limits laid down in the Income Tax Act. The decision of the city or municipal council is published in the Official Gazette by the end of November and takes effect on 1 January of the following year. Payroll therefore has to know which city or municipality applies to each employee, and JOPPD uses the official code list of cities and municipalities.

For the ledger, the result is a monthly payroll journal with separate liabilities for tax withheld and each contribution, reconciled to what JOPPD reported and what was paid.

Cities and regions: where the rules differ

VAT, profit tax and Fiscalisation 2.0 are national, so a business in Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek, Zadar, Pula, Slavonski Brod, Varaždin, Dubrovnik or Šibenik issues the same eRačun under the same rules. The differences are local, and they sit mostly in payroll and hospitality.

Income tax rates now differ by city and municipality, because each local unit sets its own rates within the national bands. A company with staff living in Zagreb, Split and a small municipality nearby can therefore apply three different sets of rates in one payroll run.

Cities and municipalities may also levy a consumption tax of up to 3% on alcoholic drinks, wine, beer and soft drinks served in hospitality premises, excluding VAT, under the Local Taxes Act. A restaurant group in Dubrovnik and Osijek may face two different rates and two different local accounts to pay into. The Tax Administration runs regional offices, including Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek, Zadar and Dubrovnik, but the rules they apply are the same.

• Income tax rates: set by each city or municipality since 2024
• Consumption tax on drinks in hospitality: up to 3%, set locally
• E-invoicing, fiscalisation and VAT: identical nationwide

How Skyline Nexus ERP handles Croatian requirements

Skyline Nexus ERP is a cloud ERP with a double-entry general ledger under Fiscal Authority. With the auto-post switches on, final sales, purchases, payments, expenses and depreciation post balanced journals in the background, and output VAT is computed per line on the same basis as the tax report, so an invoice mixing 25%, 13% and 5% lines posts each rate correctly. The VAT Return screen prefills tax-exclusive sales and purchase bases and VAT for a date range and location, ready for the return on ePorezna. Corrections leave a trail: posted journals are reversed rather than edited, and sales returns are recorded as credit notes that post a reversing journal.

Control is built in. Fiscal periods can be soft-closed or locked, an Accounting Audit Trail records who changed what with old and new values, and the Audit Pack exports a full year's ledger, journals, sales, purchases and VAT summary to one Excel workbook for the eleven-year archive. Business locations carry their own invoice numbering and a branch-filtered trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet, useful for groups operating premises in several cities. The chart of accounts can be imported from CSV or Excel, so a Croatian chart can be loaded as it stands.

National e-invoicing connectors are being rolled out market by market, and Fiscalisation 2.0 is part of that programme: tell us your country and we will confirm your go-live date. Because Croatian law routes every eRačun through a listed information intermediary, with the ERP as the technical platform, the working setup is Skyline Nexus ERP alongside the intermediary you contract; a partner-led integration can read sales and sales returns through the Skyline Nexus ERP Connector REST API. JOPPD payroll runs in Croatian payroll software or through a payroll partner, with the payroll journal posted to the ledger each month.

Rates, regimes and deadlines in this summary change, and many countries are actively legislating on e-invoicing. This is general information, not tax or legal advice — confirm the current position with the authority named above or with your tax adviser before you rely on it.