The Personal identification number (or abridged in Croatian OIB) is an eleven – digit – numerical mark through which all taxpayers in Croatia are being identified and which is used in all official records to monitor OIB bearers.
After Croatia’s entry into the European Union, the assigned OIB shall be added with “HR” in front of the eleven numerical digits in order to make it suitable for international monitoring purposes.
The OIB was introduced as a replacement of the unique personal citizen number (JMBG) for natural persons, the subject number (MB) for legal entities, as well as system numbers assigned to foreign entities/citizens.
The difference between the JMBG and OIB is that JMBG showed details about a person’s date of birth, while the OIB is a sequence of randomly chosen numbers that has no personal connection with its bearer.
OIB bearers are all natural persons and legal entities, as well as foreigners that reside in Croatia or provoked the need to be monitored by authorised institutions with their own activities (for example, if a foreigner rents a real estate in Croatia, he is considered a taxpayer on income from properties and material rights, and thus assigning the OIB to such a foreigner is necessary).
The OIB may be assigned by the authorised Tax Administration. The authorisation of a certain branch office is determined according to a person’s place of residence, legal entity’s headquarters, or, in case of foreigners, the authorised branch office is the one where the need to monitor of a certain foreigner arouse.
The OIB certificate is a document provided to all OIB bearers and is considered a public document. It is issued by the Tax Administration without any fee. The bearer is obligated to keep the certificate, but in case it is lost, one may apply for a duplicate at the same Tax Administration.
Except for the Tax Administration, the details about the OIB may be found on the web sites www.oib.hr and www.porezna-uprava.hr
It is important to point out that as of January 1st 2010 all entities with any kind of business must have the OIB number shown on their documents, regardless if they are VAT, income or profit tax tributaries.
Since the harmonisation term for all OIB users (where users stands for different institutions) expires on December 31st 2010, it is important to mention that until that date both MB and JMBG shall still be “in use”, but after that are cancelled.
At the end – criminal provisions. All entities that not using the OIB according to the Law on OIB, as well as liable persons within OIB users not applying the OIB to associate data with official records, shall be sentenced to a fine of 1.000,00 to 10.000,00 kuna.
The legality of implementation of The Law on OIB shall be supervised by the Ministry of Finance.
Posted on April the 11th, 2011
