Software Engineer Salary in Croatia: Official Pay Data 2025

What software engineers earn in Croatia

Employees of firms in computer programming, consultancy and related activities (division 62 of the Croatian activity classification NKD 2007) earned an average of €2,926 gross a month in 2025, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS). Their average net pay, after employee pension contributions and income tax, was €2,000. The averages for all employees in legal entities were €2,016 gross and €1,449 net, so pay in software firms sits about 1.45 times the national average (our calculation).

Over 12 months the 2025 gross average comes to about €35,112 a year (our calculation). Pay in the sector rose from €2,699 gross a month in 2024, an increase of 8.4% (our calculation). The wider information and communication section averaged €2,722 gross and €1,875 net in 2025.

These are averages for everyone employed in software firms, including managers, sales and support staff, not for the job title software engineer. DZS does not publish medians by activity. For context, across all employees in August 2026 the median gross pay was €1,850 a month, a quarter earned more than €2,514 and a tenth more than €3,430 (DZS, First Release RAD-2026-1-1/8).

Pay by education

DZS also publishes pay by the level of education required for the job, for October of each year. In October 2024 the average in computer programming, consultancy and related activities was €2,711 gross a month. Jobs requiring a university degree averaged €2,982 gross (€2,022 net), jobs requiring a non-university college degree €2,612 and jobs requiring secondary school education €2,152. Across all activities, jobs requiring a university degree averaged €2,697 gross.

How Croatia compares in Europe

In Eurostat's Structure of Earnings Survey for 2022, professionals in the information and communication sector in Croatia earned a mean of €32,494 a year, 0.56 times the EU average of €57,522 (our calculation). Hungary (€30,147) was slightly lower, while Slovenia (€43,817), Italy (€49,625) and Austria (€71,668) were higher. Croatia had 82,700 ICT specialists in work in 2025, 4.9% of total employment, against 5.0% across the EU.

What an employer pays on top of salary

In Croatia most social contributions come out of the employee's gross pay. The Tax Administration (Porezna uprava) lists a pension insurance contribution of 20% from gross pay (15% for the first pillar and 5% for individual capitalised savings, for people in the second pillar). On top of gross pay, the employer pays the health insurance contribution of 16.5%.

For a software engineer on the 2025 sector average of €2,926 a month, the employer's health contribution is €482.79 a month. Over 12 months that is €5,793.48 on a gross of €35,112, for a total of €40,905.48 a year (our calculation, 16.5% rate as listed by the Tax Administration in November 2026). Reliefs or special rates for specific groups, any bonuses paid outside the monthly figures, workplace insurances and any voluntary pension schemes are not included.

Hiring a software engineer in Croatia remotely

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Once you have chosen someone, there are 3 common ways to employ them in Croatia:

• Croatian entity: you register a company in Croatia, run payroll, withhold the employee's contributions and tax and pay the employer's health contribution yourself.
• Employer of record (EOR): a third-party provider becomes the legal employer and runs Croatian payroll for a monthly fee. Your company directs the work.
• Contractor: the person invoices you as an independent worker. The relationship has to be genuinely independent, or it can count as employment.

Euro Remote Talent does not employ people on your behalf. We find and shortlist the candidate, and you employ them through the route that fits.

Looking for a role yourself? Browse remote jobs in Croatia or see how our Land a Great Remote Job program helps.

How we built these figures

The monthly figures come from DZS processing of the JOPPD forms that employers file with the Tax Administration. They cover persons in paid employment in legal entities of all types of ownership, government bodies and local and regional government, by the main activity of the employer; part-time employees are converted to full-time equivalents. The 2025 figures are DZS annual averages of the monthly data under NKD 2007. From January 2026 DZS publishes earnings under the new classification NKD 2025, in which computer programming sits in a new section, so 2026 activity figures are not directly comparable. The figures by education are for October 2024, from JOPPD data matched with the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute's records. DZS does not publish figures for software engineers as an occupation, by years of experience, by city for this activity or by remote status, and gives averages, not medians, by activity. The Eurostat comparison is from 2022 and covers all professionals in the information and communication sector, not software engineers alone. Where we multiply or divide, we say so.

More guides

• Hiring in Croatia: employer costs and labor laws
• Average salary in Croatia
• Cost of living in Croatia
• Minimum wage in Croatia
• Software engineer salaries in Europe, compared by country
• Remote engineering jobs open to people in Europe