Selling into Croatia through distributors

How the market buys

Croatian public purchasing is done by ministries and state bodies, counties, cities and municipalities, public hospitals, universities and publicly owned companies. Whatever the buyer, the procedure is visible in one place.

That place is EOJN RH, the Elektronički oglasnik javne nabave Republike Hrvatske — the Republic of Croatia's electronic public procurement gazette. It carries the whole cycle: procurement plans, including those of central purchasing, market research and consultations, procedures for public and simple procurement, award decisions, and a register of contracts and framework agreements. Decisions of the State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures (DKOM) are also reachable from it, as are the CPV and NUTS code lists. For a supplier, the procurement plans and the contract register are the most useful parts: the first shows what buyers intend to purchase, the second shows who already holds contracts.

Croatian buyers usually award to companies that can bid in Croatian, invoice locally and deliver and service within the country. In our analysis of TED award notices for supplies (September 2026), 98% of the winners in the 3,051 notices from buyers in Croatia were companies registered in the country (96% across the 30 EU and EEA countries); those local winners include distributors and dealers as well as manufacturers' own local subsidiaries — see our methodology. A foreign manufacturer enters by being listed with them.

Lawful first contact

Croatia is one of the countries where a first e-mail to a company is lawful. Article 50(1) of the Electronic Communications Act (Zakon o elektroničkim komunikacijama, NN 76/22) allows the use of e-mail for direct marketing and sales "only with the prior consent of the end user". Article 50(4) then says that paragraphs 1 and 2 do not apply to such communication with legal persons. A direct-marketing e-mail to a Croatian distribution company therefore does not need prior consent. The provision is unchanged in the consolidated text that includes the 2024 and 2026 amendments.

Article 50(3) still applies to every message. It prohibits direct-marketing e-mail that misrepresents or conceals the identity of the sender, that has no valid address to which the recipient can send a free request to stop further communication, or that encourages recipients to visit websites contrary to e-commerce rules. Under article 51(1), HAKOM, the Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries, or the data protection authority can order a sender to stop breaching these provisions.

Two limits matter in practice. The exception covers legal persons only, so a sole trader (obrt) is a natural person and needs prior consent. And if you write to a named employee, data protection law applies to that personal data in addition to article 50. The safest route is the generic address a company publishes on its website, such as info@ or prodaja@.

Write briefly and specifically: say what you make, why it fits the distributor's range, and what you are asking for. Identify your company fully with registered name, address and VAT number, give a working reply address for opting out, and honour any objection immediately. Writing in Croatian, or opening in Croatian with an English version below, helps the message get read.

What local distributors expect

Croatian distributors serve a market that stretches from Slavonia to Dalmatia and expect a supplier who helps them plan:

• Croatian-language documentation: technical sheets, instructions, declarations and price lists ready for a bid in EOJN RH.
• Conformity evidence for the category — CE marking, declarations of conformity, test reports — and any national registrations the product needs.
• A margin that survives a price-driven tender and a clear position on price changes over a framework agreement.
• Reliable lead times, delivery to the coast and the islands as well as the interior, and service and spare parts available locally.
• A defined territory — some distributors also cover Slovenia or Bosnia and Herzegovina — and an open conversation about exclusivity.
• References and samples, ideally from public buyers in the region.

How to enter, step by step

1. Prepare a Croatian file. Translate technical sheets, instructions, declarations and price lists into Croatian so a distributor can put them straight into a bid in EOJN RH.
2. Assemble conformity evidence. Have CE marking, declarations of conformity and test reports ready, and check whether your product needs any national registration.
3. Find who already wins your category. Start with the award notices above the EU thresholds on TED for your CPV codes; Cresques reads these and lists the winning companies. In EOJN RH, use the register of contracts and framework agreements to see who already holds contracts, and the procurement plans to see what buyers intend to purchase.
4. Check central purchasing. The Central State Office for Central Public Procurement (Središnji državni ured za središnju javnu nabavu) concludes framework agreements for the bodies that use central procurement — recent ones cover computers and computer equipment, toners and inks, fuel and electricity — and publishes a plan of its procedures for 2026. If your category is there, the framework holders are the distributors to approach.
5. Write the first e-mail to a company address. Check that the distributor is a legal person, not an obrt, and use the generic address it publishes, such as info@ or prodaja@. Give your registered name, address and VAT number and a working reply address for opting out, write in Croatian or open in Croatian with English below, and honour any objection immediately.
6. Prepare the first meeting. Bring a margin that survives a price-driven tender, a clear position on price changes over a framework agreement, a proposed territory and an open view on exclusivity.
7. Show you can serve the whole country. Explain lead times, delivery to the coast and the islands as well as the interior, and where service and spare parts will be available locally; bring references and samples, ideally from public buyers in the region.
8. Follow the plans. Keep watching procurement plans and new award notices in your categories, so you and the distributor see the next tender before it is published.

Where the evidence comes from

Above the EU thresholds — EUR 140,000 for supplies and services bought by central government bodies and EUR 216,000 for other public authorities from 1 January 2026 — Croatian buyers must publish contract award notices, and those notices appear on TED, the online supplement to the Official Journal of the EU. Each notice names the winning company and carries CPV codes, so the distributors that repeatedly win, for example, hospital consumables or school furniture contracts across Croatian counties can be identified from the public record. National procedures, award decisions and contracts are published in EOJN RH.

Cresques reads the award notices for the CPV categories you choose and shows who already sells that category in Croatia. It does not help you bid for the contracts; the notices are evidence of who the buyers already trust, and the lawful first contact above is how you reach them.