Almost 20 thousand euros annually will have to be secured by small entrepreneurs next year just for the minimum salary cost of the employed owner-director. If the current growth of the average salary continues, the monthly gross 2 cost of the director’s salary in 2027 will rise to around 1,638 euros, which will be almost 129 euros higher than this year.
This is shown by the latest calculations based on data from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics for the first seven months of this year. If the current estimate materializes, an entrepreneur will spend about 1,545 euros more for one employed director at the minimum base during the year compared to 2026.
Cost increases by 129 euros monthly
The minimum base is calculated by multiplying the average Croatian gross salary from January to August by a coefficient of 0.65. Since the average gross salary for the first seven months reached 2,163 euros, the director’s base in 2027 should jump from this year’s 1,295.45 to 1,405.95 euros gross.
When the health insurance contribution of 16.5 percent is added to this amount, the total cost increases by 128.73 euros monthly. Annually, this means 1,545 euros of new fixed costs per person, representing an increase of 8.5 percent.
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The increase will only partially end up in the net salary of the director, as part of the additional amount goes to pension contributions, income tax, and health insurance.
The final figures will be officially known on October 21, when the CBS publishes data for August, but no significant deviations are expected. Since the gross amount for July was 2,164 euros, just one euro more than the semi-annual average, it is certain that the final amount will remain almost identical to this.
Since 2019, costs have increased by almost 78 percent
The new increase in contributions will hit micro and small companies the hardest, especially those with a single employed owner-director. Unlike large companies that can more easily distribute labor costs across a larger number of employees and clients, small entrepreneurs will feel this increase more acutely as their fixed monthly costs rise, which do not depend on how much they earned that month. Some of them will likely seek to respond by raising the prices of their own services.
The increase in the director’s salary follows the general rise in salaries in the country, but it still brings entrepreneurs a continuation of years of rising fixed contributions. Between 2019 and 2026, the minimum gross 2 cost for management board members increased by approximately 660 euros monthly, representing a jump of almost 78 percent.
If there are no significant deviations for the average salary paid in August, mandatory contributions for the director’s salary will increase by as much as 93 percent in just eight years compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
