The following requirements must be met in order to qualify for a disability pension:
- Partial or complete loss of working capacity
- Years of service
Partial or complete loss of work capacity can result from non-work related injury or disease, injury or accident at work, or occupational disease.
A partial loss of working capacity occurs when the insured person, due to illness, injury outside work, injury at work or occupational disease, experiences permanent changes in health status that cannot be eliminated by treatment, due to which working capacity has decreased by more than half compared to a healthy insured person of the same or similar level of education, and given the health condition, age, education and ability, vocational rehabilitation cannot enable them to work full-time in other jobs, but they can work at least 70% of the full-time working hours in adapted jobs of the same or similar level of education that correspond to their previous jobs.
Total loss of working capacity occurs when the insured person suffers a permanent loss of working capacity due to permanent changes in health, without any remaining working capacity.
Disabled worker is an insured person who has acquired the right to a disability pension or the right to occupational rehabilitation based on reduced working capacity with the remaining working ability, or a partial or complete loss of working capacity.
Requirement regarding years of service
If the reduction of working capacity with the remaining working ability is the result of an accident at work or occupational disease, the insured person has the right to disability pension regardless of the length of qualifying periods (years of service) completed.
If partial or complete loss of working capacity occurred due to a non-work related injury or disease, and before the age of 65, an insured person acquires the right to disability pension provided that his or her qualifying periods (years of service) cover at least one third of his or her working life.
The working life shall encompass the number of full years from the date when the insured person reached the age of 20 to the date of partial or complete loss of working capacity. For an insured person who has completed an undergraduate university study programme or an undergraduate professional study programme or a professional short-cycle study programme after the age of 20, the working life shall start at the age of 23, and for an insured person who has completed a graduate university study programme or a graduate professional study programme or a university integrated undergraduate and graduate study programme, it shall start at the age of 26.
The working life shall be reduced for the period that the insured person:
- spends on voluntary military training or compulsory military service,
- spends in periods in which, until the occurrence of a decrease or loss of working capacity, they are registered as unemployed with the competent employment service.
As an exception, the following insured persons shall acquire the right to a disability pension:
- An insured person who has experienced a complete loss of working capacity before reaching the age of 35, if they have completed at least two years of insurance period by the date of the occurrence of complete loss of working capacity, and if the complete loss of working capacity occurred during insurance or within one year after the termination of insurance,
- An insured person who suffered a total loss of work capacity before the age of 30, if the insurance period lasted at least one year and if the total loss of work capacity was suffered during the insurance period or within one year after the termination of the insurance.
Temporary disability pension
A temporary disability pension may be acquired by a disabled worker who was trained through occupational rehabilitation to work for other jobs, but upon completing the rehabilitation remained unemployed for an extended period, if they were not provided with an appropriate job for which they had been trained through rehabilitation. The right to this pension is exercised if the unemployment lasted at least 5 years after the completion of occupational rehabilitation and up to the age of 58.
The aforementioned right is also granted to a disabled worker who completed occupational rehabilitation and initially continued to work, but became unemployed subsequently.
A period of occasional work for a total duration of six months is not considered to be an interruption of unemployment.
Occupational rehabilitation
Occupational rehabilitation is a set of measures and activities in accordance with the regulations on occupational rehabilitation and employment of persons with disabilities, which are being carried out in order to enable the disabled person to work while preserving their remaining working capacities.
The right to occupational rehabilitation is compulsory if the insured person has a reduction of working capacity with the remaining working capacity before the age of 55, subject to the completed pensionable insurance for obtaining the right to a disability pension. Insured persons whose reduced working ability with the remaining working ability is due to an injury at work or occupational injury, are entitled to occupational rehabilitation regardless of the pensionable insurance.
The Institute for expert evaluation, occupational rehabilitation, and employment of persons with disabilities (ZOSI) must determine for the insured person the remaining working capacity for tasks other than those they have done until then.
Occupational rehabilitation of persons with disabilities is carried out by an occupational rehabilitation centre, and after the rehabilitation has been carried out, the Croatian Employment Service mediates in the employment of these persons.
Insured persons with recognised right to occupational rehabilitation are trained and employed according to the regulations governing the procedures for persons with disabilities.
The costs of occupational rehabilitation for insured persons are borne by the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (hereinafter: the Institute) or are financed from the state budget, and such costs include the costs of training or education, transportation, accommodation, meals (in certain cases) and salary compensations.
During the period of professional rehabilitation, the disabled worker is entitled to salary compensation which cannot be lower than the lowest monthly gross salary payable to the worker for full-time employment, stipulated by the minimum wage allowance in the Republic of Croatia.
Control examination
In the procedure of supervision and control, the ministry in charge of the pension system may perform an extraordinary ex officio control examination for the rights determined on the basis of a reduction in working capacity with remaining working capacity, partial or complete loss of working capacity. An extraordinary control examination shall determine whether the finding and opinion on which the final decision on the right was based was lawfully made and correct. If the beneficiary does not respond to the extraordinary inspection, without justified reasons, the payment shall be suspended from the first day of the following month after the adoption of the decision to suspend the payment.
Your right to a disability pension pursuant to international agreements on social insurance
If you were insured in one or more countries with which the Republic of Croatia applies bilateral agreements on social insurance, the procedure for obtaining the right to disability pension is initiated with the competent pension institution in the contracting state of last insurance, or the contracting state in which you have residence. An application submitted in one contracting state shall be deemed as an application submitted in all contracting states in which you have completed your insurance periods.
When you submit an application for disability pension in one contracting state, the pension insurance holder of that state will take into account the insurance periods or residence periods in other contracting states if this is necessary for the recognition of the right to a disability pension.
Each contracting state applies its national regulations when determining the degree of disability. Medical assessment for persons who reside abroad is initiated on the basis of medical documentation submitted by a foreign pension and disability insurance holder. Based on complete and high quality medical analysis of the foreign expert and confidence in his work and the submitted medical documentation, an authorized expert in the Republic of Croatia will provide a finding and opinion for the purposes of Croatian pension insurance without the immediate examination of the applicant.
In proceedings for obtaining the right to a disability pension through the application of bilateral agreements on social insurance, the finding and opinion of a foreign expert is not binding on the holder of the pension insurance of other contracting state in respect of disablement determination. Authorised experts of each pension insurance holder make an independent assessment of the disability of insured persons and apply legal and medical definition of disability in accordance with their own legislation.
Disability pension will be paid regardless of where you reside (in which Member State).
Besides the request specified above under 1.2. that can be found on the website of the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute under the forms section, certain forms must also be filled out with the requests for recognition of the right to a foreign pension (additional request form for the disability pension under 1.5.) for the following countries:
