About Expat in Croatia

expat in croatia team 2023
At our annual team building event October 2023. From left to right: CAM, Tamara P., Tamara I, Steve, Lorena, Sara, Dani, Marija (Sadly this photo is missing Teri and Danijela, two valuable members of the Expat in Croatia team)

Dobro došli! We are so happy you’re here. 🙂

To help get you started with Expat in Croatia, here is a list of what you can find on this page. Feel free to bounce around.

What is Expat in Croatia?

Expat in Croatia is the #1 English-language resource in Croatia for immigration, citizenship, business and healthcare. It is read in 185 countries around the world. All of our resources provide actionable, step-by-step instructions so that you can navigate the Croatian bureaucracy with ease.

This site offers free resources to foreign nationals, Croatian citizens, and diaspora on how to live and work in Croatia. It also includes guidance on cultural assimilation, language learning and everything else one needs to know to be a part of the Croatian community.

Our team offers both personalized one-on-one consulting as well as local assistance on the ground in Croatia.

We also connect people with our own network of vetted professionals from around Croatia including real estate agents, tax advisors, lawyers, and translators. If you’d like an introduction, contact us.

Who is behind Expat in Croatia?

sara blue dress

This site was started in 2013 by me, Sara Dyson. I am an American, born and raised in Texas. When I moved to Split in 2012, there were absolutely no English resources for foreigners looking to move to Croatia.

There were barely even tourism sites other than the ones run by tourist boards, which were all in the Croatian language. Expat groups were not yet a thing.

With no guidance, I navigated the pre-EU bureaucracy by showing up and figuring it out. At each step of the process, I recorded my experiences and put them up online so that any foreigner coming after me would have some idea of what to expect.

As my love of Croatia blossoms, so has the content on this site. Initially, the content was focused on getting residency and signing up for healthcare. It has now expanded to include operating a business, culture, adoption, transportation, language lessons, things to do, places to see, rights and everything else needed for assimilation.

I have fallen in love with this country and its kind, lovely, generous people. This place has changed my life for the better and I cannot imagine living anywhere else.

You can browse interviews, press mentions and speaking engagements here.

Personalized guidance

Since 2013, I have given personalized advice to thousands of people through comments, emails, video chat sessions and in-person consultations. Through these one-on-one sessions, I offer relevant guidance, resources and connections using my boots-on-the-ground knowledge, personal experience, and local connections – saving people weeks of time, stress and money.

If you are interested in scheduling a one-on-one session, contact me. You may read reviews here

Our Team

marija tkalec

Marija Tkalec

Content Manager

teri maxey 2022

Teri Maxey

Coordinator

steve fierens

Steve Fierens

Account Manager

Lorena

Lorena Curavić 

Account Manager

carolanne

Carol Anne (CAM) Škorvaga 

Consultant (Book a session here)

Danielle

Danielle Schiebel

Social Media Manager

Where we get our information

The content on this site comes from a variety of places, depending on the topic. All content related to government procedures comes from reading government web sites and the law as well as lots of calls and in-person visits to government offices personally to confirm. In most cases, posts are complimented and validated by real life experiences from our team, our friends and, most importantly, our readers.

When government information conflicts with real experiences, as happens all too frequently, it is noted in the post. For an extra check and added layer of legitimacy, procedural content is also verified with a professional, usually a lawyer, accountant, tax advisor or real estate agent – and all the locals that’ll speak to us. Each post, regardless of topic, is thoroughly researched.

If there is a gray area, we request an official decision from the government for clarity.

How to follow us

If you want to make sure you don’t miss anything, sign up for the newsletter here. The newsletter is only delivered once per week on Tuesdays and includes all the latest posts, a weekly Croatian language lesson and actionable content from Croatian news to make your life easier that we have exclusively curated and summarized in English just for our newsletter subscribers.

Plus, just for signing up, we’ll give you our FREE Croatia Starter Kit – a must have for anyone moving to Croatia. Zašto ne?

You can also follow Expat in Croatia on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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