Cost of living in Zagreb 2026

Rent: what flats ask now

The table shows the median asking rent by number of rooms and the median price per m², calculated from active flat listings on NajamStanova.com. It updates itself, and a row with too few listings shows no price.

These are the prices advertisers ask, not agreed rents. Croatian listings count rooms, not bedroomsBedroom (spavaća soba)A room for sleeping. Croatian listings count all rooms including the living room, so a two-room flat usually has one bedroom and a three-room flat two.Source: Pravilnik minimalnih tehničkih uvjeta za projektiranje i gradnju stanova iz POS-a (NN 106/04, 25/06, 121/11), čl. 2., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary: a two-room flatTwo-room flat (dvosoban stan)A flat with two rooms, usually a living room and one bedroom. In Croatian listings the room count isn't the number of bedrooms.Source: Pravilnik minimalnih tehničkih uvjeta za projektiranje i gradnju stanova iz POS-a (NN 106/04, 25/06, 121/11), čl. 2., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary (dvosobni) usually has a living room and one bedroom. Listings that state the number of bedrooms are collected separately: one-bedroom flats, two-bedroom and three or more.

For comparison, an official figure from last year: in flat leases registered in Zagreb in 2025, the median rent was €12.8 per m² a month. Only 11.2% of registered leases had been entered in the official price register the median comes from, so the sample is small.

Whether buying beats renting, work out with Rent or buy?.

Monthly bills at official prices

What you'll pay depends on the flat, its heating and your use, so we give no total. The official prices, including VAT:

• Electricity: about €0.18 per kWh on the single-rate tariff, for up to 3,000 kWh in six months, plus two fixed monthly charges. The Government has set the energy price until 31 March 2027.
• Gas, if the flat has it: about €0.0545 per kWh at the public-service price (TM1) after the state subsidy, plus a fixed monthly charge. The tariff runs to 31 December 2026, and the subsidy and the 5% VAT rate to 31 March 2027.
• District heatingDistrict heating (centralno grijanje)Heating from a plant that supplies many buildings through a heat network. In Zagreb HEP Toplinarstvo sends the bill, and the cost is split among the building's flats.Source: Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o tržištu toplinske energije (NN 67/2025), čl. 2., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary: no price, because Zagreb's new heat distribution tariffs and the Government decision setting this season's subsidy hadn't been published by 19 October 2026. Ask for last winter's bills.
• Water: €2.04 per m³ plus €1.32 a month for a flat on the sewer and treatment plant, since 1 March 2026.
• Waste collection: at least €5.97 a month, plus ZG bags for mixed waste.
• HRT licence feeHRT licence fee (HRT pristojba)The monthly fee for public television and radio. A household with a radio or TV pays one fee, however many sets it has, on HRT's own bill.Source: HRT: Pristojba, checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary: €10.62 a month per household with a radio or TV.

The lease decides which bills you pay; the building's reserve fund (pričuva)Reserve fund (pričuva)simplifiedMoney the co-owners pay each month to maintain the building's common parts and run it. The flat's owner owes it to the building, not the tenant.Source: Zakon o upravljanju i održavanju zgrada (NN 152/24, 47/26), čl. 28. i 29., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary is the owner's by law. Each bill is explained in our guide to utilities in Zagreb.

Getting around: ZET tickets and passes

ZET runs the trams and buses, and the whole city is one fare zone. Prices are from ZET's price list, in force since 1 April 2019, as shown on zet.hr on 19 October 2026:

• Single ticket, bought before boarding or paid with a value card: €0.53 for 30 minutes, €0.93 for 60 and €1.33 for 90. From the driver: €0.80, €1.33 and €1.99. At night (midnight to 4 am): €1.99. Choose the 30- or 60-minute fare on the reader before tapping.
• Day ticket: €3.98. 30-day ticket: €53.09, day and night, sold only at ZET's sales points.
• Monthly pass: €47.78 for a calendar month. It's personal: you apply with a photo and ID, and the card costs €3.98. You can also keep the pass in ZET's MojZET app.
• Annual pass: €461.88 by card (also in 2 to 12 instalments), or €415.69 paid at once in cash. That's €38.49 or €34.64 a month (our arithmetic).

Reduced monthly passes cost €13.27 for secondary-school pupils, full-time students, pensioners, over-65s and unemployed people registered with the employment service (HZZ), and €11.95 for primary-school pupils. Part-time students (unless unemployed), postgraduates and students in work can't get the student pass.

A free annual pass is open to people under 18 and over 65 with a registered permanent addressPermanent address (prebivalište)simplifiedThe address where you've settled for good, the centre of your life. You register it with the police within 15 days of moving in.Source: Zakon o prebivalištu (NN 144/12, 158/13, 114/22), čl. 2.–4. i 10., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary (prebivalište) in Zagreb, and to some other groups under the City's social welfare decision. Full-time students with a permanent address in Zagreb qualify only on a household income of no more than €265.45 a month per member. See our guide to registering your address.

Wages for context: the average net wage

According to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS), the average monthly net wage of City of Zagreb residents employed by companies and other legal entities was €1,784 (Q2 2026), against €1,553 for Croatia as a whole. For all of 2025, the Zagreb average was €1,661. People working in crafts businesses (obrt) and the liberal professions, and farmers, aren't included.

It's an arithmetic mean, which high earners pull up, and DZS publishes no median by county. Nationally, in July 2026, half of employees earned €1,346 net or less against an average of €1,540.

A common rule of thumb is that rent shouldn't take more than 30% of net income. On the Zagreb average, that's about €535 a month (our arithmetic). Compare it with the rents in the table above.

One-off costs when you move in

The first month costs more than the rest. Allow for:

• The first month's rent.
• A depositDeposit (polog)simplifiedMoney the tenant pays as security for unpaid rent, bills or damage, and gets back at the end of the lease. The lease sets the amount and when it's returned.Source: Zakon o najmu stanova (NN 91/96 … 105/20), čl. 3. i 17., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary, if the lease asks for one. The Housing Lease Act sets no amount or cap; our deposit guide explains how to protect it.
• An agency feeAgency fee (agencijska provizija)simplifiedThe fee for an agency's brokerage. Only someone who has signed a written brokerage contract with the agency pays it, as a rule once the lease is signed.Source: Zakon o posredovanju u prometu nekretnina (NN 69/2026), čl. 23., 28. i 29., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary, only if you signed a written brokerage contract with the agency, and never in advance (the rule since 7 July 2026). You can show only listings with no agency fee.
• Certifying the lease, if you need it, at the notarial tariff. Ask for the price first.
• The ZET card (€3.98) and connecting the internet.

More on each in our guide to the cost of renting in Zagreb.

How much money do you need to live in Zagreb?

We don't give one monthly figure, because it depends on the flat, its heating and your habits. What we can measure: rent by number of rooms in the table above, €47.78 for a monthly ZET pass, and bills, which you can work out from your own readings with our bills calculator. Food, phone and the rest aren't estimated here. What a given budget gets you is on our budget map.

What this page leaves out, and why

We only publish what we measure or quote from an official source, so this page has no figures for:

• Groceries, eating out, coffee or a gym. We don't collect these prices and found no official price list for Zagreb.
• Kindergarten, school, health insurance, a car or parking, which differ from person to person.
• Internet and mobile, which depend on the provider and the tariff.
• One monthly total, which would mean guessing how much you eat, heat and travel.

Sites ranking for “cost of living in Zagreb” do give averages for these, but mostly from prices their visitors enter, with no official method. We don't repeat them.

Is Zagreb expensive? Rent against wages

It depends on what you compare it with. Two official figures help.

Rent against wages. At the median rent in leases registered in 2025 (€12.8/m²), a 50 m² flat would have cost €640 a month, 39% of that year's average net wage for Zagreb residents (€1,661). That's our arithmetic on official data, and today's asking rents are a different measure. How much of the average wage the median two-room asking rent takes, district by district, is in our story Rent and wages.

Prices against the EU. Eurostat's price level index puts Croatia's household consumption prices in 2025 at 78.4% of the EU average (EU = 100), but food and non-alcoholic drinks at 105.5, above it. These are national figures for a comparable basket of goods and services, not Zagreb prices or what a household spends, and Eurostat revises them.

Frequently asked questions