Croatia's most famous entrepreneur woke up in Singapore to find his name on the country's official list of tax debtors. Mate Rimac - founder of Rimac Automobili and head of Bugatti Rimac - appeared on the Tax Administration's 31 October 2026 list for Zagreb County, ranked 125th, with a recorded debt of 39,261.64 euros.
The twist: he didn't owe the state a cent. If anything, the state owed him. Rimac quickly posted the evidence on Facebook, including a Customs Administration decision from 24 September 2026 approving a refund of 39,262.91 euros in special tax on motor vehicles (PPMV). The refund related to a Ferrari 812 GTS, first registered in September 2020, which he had sold abroad. His mPorezna tax app showed a balance of just 4.83 euros on 3 November - not the near-40,000-euro figure published by the authorities.
His irritation wasn't only with the tax office. Rimac criticised Croatian news portals for running the story without checking or asking him for comment while he was asleep in Singapore, halfway around the world from the story they were publishing about him.
The Customs Administration has since confirmed he was right. An error in the algorithm that updates the debtor list had flipped his approved tax refund into an apparent debt. The authority stated that Rimac has no overdue PPMV debts, called his statements "completely founded", and apologised publicly - both to Rimac and to the wider public - for the mix-up.
Worth stressing: the debt was recorded against Rimac as a private individual, not against Rimac Group, Bugatti Rimac or any of his companies. His business empire's finances were never in question.
Why does this matter to anyone interested in Croatia? Rimac is arguably the country's highest-profile modern business figure, the face of its push into electric hypercars and technology. A story where the state publicly lists its flagship entrepreneur as a tax dodger - then has to walk it back within days - says plenty about the friction between Croatia's bureaucracy and the business community it wants to attract. For travellers, it's a curiosity rather than a practical concern, but a revealing one: Croatia remains a country where paperwork glitches can become national news, and where they occasionally get sorted out quickly and with a public apology. If you're visiting Zagreb, the Rimac story is part of the city's contemporary identity - a small EU capital producing cars that outpace Ferraris, run by a founder who now resides largely abroad.
The source for this story is Total Croatia.
