Croatia

[HR] New Rules on Fee Amounts and Manners of Payment

IRIS 2013-8:1/24

Nives Zvonarić

Ministry of Culture, Zagreb, Croatia

On 10 July 2013, the Council for Electronic Media adopted new Rules on the amounts of licence fees and the manners of payment (see IRIS 2006-5/25) after concluding consultations with stakeholders and the public.

The prior obligation to pay a concession fee was based solely on the number of inhabitants living in the area of coverage, and ranged from HRK 2,600 (circa EUR 350) to HRK 150,000 (circa EUR 19,990) for radio broadcasters and from HRK 5,200 (circa EUR 700) to HRK 450,000 (circa EUR 59,960) for television broadcasters.

The new Rules envisage that the amount of an annual concession fee consists of a fixed and a variable part.

- The fixed part of the fee is to be paid in the amount of HRK 500 (circa EUR 70) per 50,000 inhabitants, whereby that amount also represents the minimum amount of an annual concession fee.

- The variable part of the fee is 0.15% of the aggregate gross annual revenue accrued in the preceding year by media service providers in the course of providing television and radio and other media services from the sums exceeding the amount of HRK 5,000,000 (EUR 667,430).

Non-profit radio and television broadcasters have to pay 50% of the fixed part as well as 50% of the variable part of the relevant stipulated concession fee.