Croatia · Agentic software engineering

Software Development Partner for Teams in Croatia

A team in Croatia bringing in outside engineers usually has two questions: how much of the working day is shared, and what the GDPR asks for when the engineers sit outside the EU. The first has a clean answer. In winter the country runs on UTC+1 and shares 7 hours of a standard 09:00 to 18:00 day with Ankara; in summer, on UTC+2, it shares 8. The second needs a transfer mechanism, because Türkiye has no EU adequacy decision.

Curiosive is a studio in Ankara, Türkiye. We build products end to end or work alongside an existing team on monthly engagement, with AI coding agents doing the volume of the work and a senior engineer reviewing every diff before it merges. The code is yours from the first commit, and repository, database and hosting accounts are opened in your name or connected to accounts you already hold.

Start a partnership From $2,000 per month

24: published portfolio projects
5+: years building for production
12: countries the work runs in
100%: of code read by a senior engineer
1 day: to hear back, from the engineer

Working hours between Croatia and Ankara in winter and summer

Ankara runs on UTC+3 all year because Türkiye does not use daylight saving time, so the gap changes twice a year. In winter Croatia is on UTC+1 and Ankara is 2 hours ahead: the studio's 09:00 to 18:00 day runs from 07:00 to 16:00 local time, a 09:00 start in Zagreb is 11:00 in Ankara, and 7 hours of a standard day are shared. In summer, on UTC+2, the gap shrinks to 1 hour: the studio's day runs from 08:00 to 17:00 local time, a 09:00 start is 10:00 in Ankara, and 8 hours are shared. Work runs on Türkiye business hours, so anything raised after 16:00 Croatian time in winter, or after 17:00 in summer, waits for the next studio day.

As of 2 October 2026, Türkiye is not on the European Commission's list of adequacy decisions, so EU personal data made available to a studio there needs another Chapter V transfer tool. The EDPB's Guidelines 05/2021 say remote access from a third country is a transfer when the three transfer criteria are met, even if it only means displaying personal data on a screen for support or troubleshooting. The usual tool is the Standard Contractual Clauses in Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/914, which come in four modules, including controller to processor for a client that hires a studio to process its data. Under Clause 14 both parties warrant they have no reason to believe the destination country's laws stop the importer from complying. Keeping production access narrow and building against seeded test data reduces what is transferred in the first place. The contract wording is worth confirming with a lawyer.

Croatia supplements the GDPR with the Act on the Implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (Narodne novine 42/2018), in force since 25 May 2018. Its Article 4 names the Personal Data Protection Agency, AZOP (azop.hr), an independent state body seated in Zagreb, as the supervisory authority. Security duties can also come from the Cybersecurity Act (NN 14/24), in force since 15 February 2024, which transposes NIS2. NIS2 covers medium-sized and larger entities in its listed sectors, and its Article 21 makes in-scope entities address supply chain security, including relationships with direct suppliers and service providers. For cloud, data centre and B2B ICT service management providers, the competent authority is the Security and Intelligence Agency, acting through its National Cyber Security Centre. If your company is in scope, an outside engineering team is part of that supply chain, so who can reach which systems, how secrets are handled and how changes are reviewed should be written down.

Contracting and eRačun invoicing for a software project in Croatia

European clients contract with Curiosive cross-border. There is no long contract to begin, and scope and budget are agreed in writing after a discovery call. Fiskalizacija 2.0 matters on your side of the invoice. Under the Fiscalization Act (NN 89/25), the Tax Administration says VAT-registered taxpayers have had to issue and receive structured eRačuni for domestic transactions since 1 January 2026, while taxpayers outside the VAT system receive them during 2026 and start issuing them from 1 January 2027. A supplier with no seat, residence or habitual residence in the country is not an eRačun issuer, so an invoice from a studio in Ankara sits outside that domestic flow. If your own product bills Croatian businesses, the mandate becomes a feature to build rather than an accounting task.

Agentic software engineering: what changes in cost and what does not

An engineer writes each task with acceptance criteria and the boundaries the agent must not cross. A coding agent such as Claude Code or Cursor reads the existing code, plans, implements, updates tests and runs the type checker, linter and test suite before proposing a change. A senior engineer reviews every diff, agents never merge their own work, and continuous integration re-runs the checks. Agents make scaffolding, migrations and wide refactors cheaper. They do not make data models, authorization or payment paths cheaper, because those stay with people. Past work at scale includes the Zing Coach (zing.coach) rebuild from Webflow to Next.js, the revival of RateItAll (rateitall.com) with its 12M+ reviews, and the Detailed SEO Extension, used by 600,000 SEOs and maintained through its acquisition by Ahrefs.

Proof

Published project examples

design.computer

Release Coach AI

Inspire Film

Reveal Software

Poppin

Zing Coach

AI-accelerated development

from$2,000

per month

Senior engineers building your product with AI coding agents: web, mobile, SaaS or browser extension, reviewed before anything ships.

Web, mobile, SaaS and browser extensions
AI-assisted delivery under senior engineer review
Scope and capacity agreed in writing, renews monthly

AI-accelerated development, billed monthly. We confirm scope, capacity and start date in writing before checkout.

Questions

The things people ask before starting.

What is the time difference between Croatia and Ankara, Türkiye?

Ankara is 2 hours ahead of Croatia in winter and 1 hour ahead in summer, because Türkiye stays on UTC+3 all year. That leaves 7 shared hours of a standard 09:00 to 18:00 day in winter and 8 in summer, enough to hold the weekly call inside both working days.

Do we need SCCs to outsource software development from Croatia to Türkiye?

Usually, if engineers in Türkiye will see personal data. Türkiye has no EU adequacy decision as of 2 October 2026, and the EDPB treats remote access from a third country as a transfer, so another Chapter V tool is needed. Standard Contractual Clauses under Decision (EU) 2021/914 are the common choice. Work on synthetic test data alone involves no personal data.

Does a foreign software company have to issue eRačun invoices in Croatia?

No. The Tax Administration's guidance says a supplier with no seat, residence or habitual residence in Croatia is not an eRačun issuer. The domestic mandate applies to taxpayers in the country, VAT-registered ones since 1 January 2026, so it shapes how your company bills its own customers rather than invoices you receive from abroad.

Can a startup in Zagreb hire software engineers on a monthly monthly engagement?

Yes. Work runs as AI-accelerated development, starting from $2,000 per month, with scope agreed in writing. The Commission's 2026 Digital Decade report calls Zagreb the main centre of an expanding start-up ecosystem and notes that Croatia had two unicorns in 2025.

Solutions

Locations

What happens after you write to us.

01
You describe the product
One paragraph on what you are building, roughly when you need it, and who it is for. No brief, no form with fifteen fields.
02
You get a reply within a day
From the engineer who would do the work, not a sales team. If we are not the right fit we say so, and where possible we point you somewhere better.
03
You get a scoped plan
Scope, price and timeline in writing before anything is committed. You decide with the numbers in front of you.

No long contract to begin, no lock-in to our tooling, and the code is yours from the first commit.

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Contact

Looking for an engineering partner for the long haul?

A short note about the product, the timeline and who it is for is enough to start. You will hear back from the engineer who would do the work, not a sales team.

hello@curiosive.com See what we have shipped

Ankara / Türkiye · Working across European and US time zones

Software Development Partner for Teams in Croatia

Working hours between Croatia and Ankara in winter and summer

Contracting and eRačun invoicing for a software project in Croatia

Agentic software engineering: what changes in cost and what does not