Croatia's plan to let drivers cruise through motorway tolls without stopping was meant to go live in March, but the project — valued at around €160 million — is now stuck in a procurement quagmire, and holidaymakers road-tripping to the coast next summer could feel the effects.
The core problem: Croatian Motorways (HAC) has yet to pick a contractor for the driver-facing part of the system — the web portal, mobile app and data integrations where motorists register their card details. Camera gantries are already going up along the motorways, but the software side remains unbuilt. That slice of work is valued at just €330,000 excluding VAT, yet it's the piece everything else depends on.
The hold-up traces back to a successful appeal by Zagreb firm Abysalto, which challenged HAC's decision in May to award the job to a consortium of Bos Projekt, Infinum and AMR CyberSecurity. In late July, the State Commission for the Control of Public Procurement Procedures partially upheld the appeal and annulled the selection, forcing HAC to re-evaluate the bids. And there's a twist: Abysalto's ownership structure includes Novčić više, a company registered in the village of Zdenci — population 1,453 — whose listed activities run to pellet production, biogas, forestry and waste transport, with no mention of IT. The same figures, including company director Stipo Matić, appear in Abysalto both directly and through that entity, and Abysalto's share capital jumped from €7,000 to €5.3 million last year.
The clock is the real issue. Building and testing the software takes six months, and the eventual contractor wants to begin testing in January. Worse, whoever loses the re-run tender can lodge another appeal, pushing the timeline out further. Transport Minister Oleg Butković insists the March deadline still stands — "we're sticking to that deadline, everything is proceeding at its own pace" — which will strike anyone who has driven through a Croatian toll plaza in August as ambitious.
For travellers, the takeaway is simple: don't count on tag-free tolling for your 2026 road trip. Croatia's coast remains a magnet for drivers from Austria, Germany, Hungary and beyond, and until the new system launches you'll still be queueing at booths or using an ENC device. Keep some cash or a working card handy, and build a bit of extra time into any drive down the A1 towards Split or Dubrovnik in peak season. If the free-flow system does land on schedule, it should eventually make the country's long, scenic motorways far smoother to drive — just not, it seems, without one more bureaucratic detour first.
