September the 18th, 2026 – A brand new Croatian price comparison system is coming next month, with additional technical obligations awaiting traders and service providers.
As of the 1st of October 2026 in Croatia, the prices highlighted on the shelves, in the menus or on the price lists will no longer stand alone. Poslovni reports that alongside the current price an additional, so-called anchor price will also have to be stated. The new obligation applies to all retailers and registered service providers in Croatia. This means that the new rules will not cover only supermarkets, but also clothing and footwear shops, technical goods, furniture and building materials stores, as well as restaurants, cafes, hair and beauty salons, car mechanics, various service workshops and other craftsmen who offer their products or services to consumers.
The anchor price will be the regular price that applied to a particular product or service on 10 September 2026, without promotions, discounts and other special forms of sale. A hair salon will thus have to state, alongside the current price of a haircut or colouring, also the price of the same service on that date; a car mechanic will have to do the same alongside the price of a working hour or a particular service; and a restaurant alongside the prices of food and drinks in the menu or price list.
The anchor price is neither frozen nor the highest permitted price. A trader or craftsman can still change prices, but the consumer will at any moment be able to see how much the current price differs from the one that applied on the 10th of September, explain lawyers Dora Ljevar and Danijel Pribanić. The obligation also applies when advertising prices. If a trader or service provider publishes a price on a leaflet, poster, digital advertisement, outdoor advertising space or website, they will also have to highlight the anchor price alongside it. An exception applies to traders who for food, drinks, cosmetics, cleaning agents, toiletries and household products already had to highlight an additional price. For those products the relevant price remains the one that applied on the 2nd of May 2025.
Additional technical obligations await traders and service providers who already have their own website. On it they will have to publish a price list in XML or CSV format, which enables the automatic collection and comparison of data. Traders will update the price list every working day by 08:00 at the latest, and service providers after every price change, also 08:00 on the day of the change at the latest. Previously published price lists will have to remain available for 30 days. Those who do not have their own website are not obliged to set one up solely because of this obligation. Traders and craftsmen should therefore keep proof of the prices that applied on the 10th of September and, by the start of application of the new rules, adapt the price lists in business premises, advertisements and websites.
