Croatia’s anchor price rules are due back on 17 November, and the minister has confirmed the date. On 9 October he said the rulebook with the exemptions would go into public consultation on Monday, 12 October. On the morning of 13 October it was not yet on e-Savjetovanja. Consultations there usually run for 30 days. Opened that day, it would close on 12 November, five days before the rules apply.
We covered what the rules require and how they were postponed. This piece looks at one sentence that decides who is covered.
One Sentence Decides Who Is In
It is in the Ministry of Economy’s own clarification. The daily machine-readable price list applies to every retailer and service provider with a website, including sites used only for information or presentation. A profile on social networks, the same document says, does not count as a website. In practice:
- A hairdresser with a one-page site showing opening hours has to publish an XML or CSV price list with anchor prices, by 08:00 on every day a price changes. The same hairdresser with only an Instagram account publishes nothing.
- A shop with two locations and identical prices publishes two files.
- A shop with a webshop publishes a separate file for the webshop, even though every price is already on its product pages.
- A platform selling goods on behalf of others is out for those goods altogether.
Why Some Businesses Are Taking Their Sites Offline
For a small business, the cheapest way to comply is to have no website. Before the original 1 October date, Croatian web developers were already reporting on LinkedIn that clients were taking their sites offline. One wrote that they knew of several dozen and expected a four-digit number by the deadline. Not because the owners could not pay for the work, but because a fine of up to 30,000 euros for a company is a strong reason not to take part.
The stated goal of the measure is price transparency, yet the easiest way to comply is to publish fewer prices. A rule that makes a business safer without a website than with one works against its own purpose.
Foreign shops are still not covered. Amazon, Temu or a Slovenian webshop sell to the same customer in Zagreb with one price and no file. The postponement changed the date, not that.
It Is Becoming Permanent
This is no longer only a temporary price control. In June, the amended Consumer Protection Act wrote the duty into the Act itself: traders must publish their current price lists on their websites. How exactly is left to the minister’s rulebook, and that rulebook will shape every Croatian business website that shows prices.
The exemptions announced so far are intellectual services, activities with prices set by law, such as lawyers, and some public services. Reasonable choices, but none of them helps a family shop with a small website.
What Would Fix It
The consultation on the rulebook is the last chance to fix the trigger:
- Tie the obligation to selling online, not to having a website.
- One file per business, not one per location.
- Leave micro businesses out.
- Apply it to everyone selling to Croatian consumers, or to nobody.
- Notify it under TRIS, the EU procedure for technical rules on online services.
- Give the people who build it more than five days between the end of the consultation and the deadline, or move the deadline.
What It Means for You
If you have a website and show prices in Croatia, assume the daily price list applies to you until the final rulebook says otherwise. Keep what you built in September, follow e-Savjetovanja and comment on the draft when it appears: the consultation is where the trigger can still change. Do not take your site offline over this before the final text is out. If you want us to check what your site would need, book a 20-minute call. If you do not need us, we will tell you.
Sources: Ministry of Economy clarification on the additional price and price list publication (PDF, Croatian), Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o zaštiti potrošača, NN 59/2026, Index.hr on the rulebook and exemptions, 9 October 2026.