Emergency numbers in Croatia

The number to remember anywhere in Croatia is 112. It’s free, works from any phone and connects you to police, fire or ambulance depending on what you tell the dispatcher. Croatia also runs separate direct lines for each service, which locals use out of habit more than necessity, since 112 covers all of them.

If you’re heading to Dubrovnik for a short trip, the odds you’ll ever need any of these numbers are low. But a lost passport, a minor accident or a sudden illness can happen to anyone, so it’s good to know what to do if you have to deal with any of this. Below is the full list, along with what each number is actually for and a few situations that can come up during your stay in Dubrovnik.

Croatia’s emergency numbers at a glance

Good to know

• Emergency numbers in Croatia are free to call, from any phone.
• You don’t need a Croatian SIM card to reach them.
• English-speaking operators are available on 112.
• 112 works the same way anywhere in the EU, not just in Croatia.

Does 112 work in English?

Yes. Calls to 112 in Croatia can be answered in English, German, Italian, Hungarian, Slovak and Czech, in addition to Croatian. Dispatchers are used to handling calls from tourists and the average answer time is around five seconds. Speak slowly, give your location first and describe what’s happening.

Dubrovnik receives several million visitors over the summer season, so its emergency services, hospital staff and dispatchers deal with foreign tourists on a daily basis. English is commonly spoken by the people you would actually reach in a crisis, which is one less thing to worry about if you ever need to make one of these calls.

What to say when you call 112

Dispatchers work through a fairly standard set of questions, so knowing what they will ask speeds things up considerably. Try to have this ready before you call, or say it in this order if you’re put on the spot:

• Your exact location, street name and number if you have it
• What happened
• How many people are injured
• Whether anyone is unconscious or not breathing
• A phone number the dispatcher can call you back on

Stay on the line until the dispatcher tells you it’s fine to hang up, even after you’ve given the key details. They may need to ask follow-up questions or give you instructions to follow until help arrives.

A few mistakes that make things harder than they need to be

• Hanging up before the dispatcher says to
• Calling several emergency numbers at once for the same incident, which ties up lines other callers may need
• Leaving the scene of an accident before police arrive, even for something minor
• Not asking for a written police report after a theft, especially a stolen passport, since embassies and insurers usually require one

Is there a separate number for tourist police?

No. There’s no dedicated tourist police hotline in Dubrovnik or elsewhere in Croatia; regular police handle tourist-related incidents through the same 192 or 112 lines. Officers in Dubrovnik’s Old Town and other major tourist areas are generally used to working with foreign visitors, especially during peak season.

For anything involving illness or injury rather than a police matter, our article on doctors, hospitals and pharmacies in Dubrovnik covers the General Hospital’s exact address, the current duty pharmacy schedule and what EU visitors need to know about using an EHIC card at a Croatian clinic. It’s worth a separate read if a health issue is what brought you here rather than a general emergency.

Not a 112 emergency, but still urgent

Plenty of situations feel urgent without being a genuine 112 emergency. Here’s who to actually contact for the ones that come up most often.

• For a sudden toothache or minor illness, a pharmacist is usually the fastest first stop. Croatian pharmacists can recommend over-the-counter treatment for common problems and point you toward a dentist or doctor if you need one. Dubrovnik has private dental clinics that take walk-ins or same-day appointments, and your accommodation host can usually recommend the nearest one. Outside normal hours, the city always has one duty pharmacy open, covered in more detail in our article on doctors, hospitals and pharmacies in Dubrovnik.
• For a sick or injured pet, look for a veterinary clinic (veterinarska stanica or veterinarska ambulanta) rather than calling 112, which is not set up to handle animal emergencies. Dubrovnik has a handful of veterinary practices that take emergency cases; searching for one in advance, or asking your accommodation host, is worth doing if you’re travelling with a pet.

Who pays for emergency medical care?

This depends entirely on what coverage you’re travelling with.

• EHIC holders (EU nationals) can access medically necessary treatment at Croatian public healthcare providers on the same terms as Croatian citizens, though some costs, such as prescription charges, may still apply.
• UK GHIC holders have similar coverage in Croatia under the post-Brexit reciprocal healthcare agreement, again limited to public facilities.
• Travel insurance is worth having regardless of where you’re from, since neither EHIC nor GHIC covers private treatment, medical transport home or a lengthy hospital stay.
• Private clinics almost always expect payment upfront, with a receipt you can submit to your insurer afterward, rather than billing your insurance directly.

How ambulance dispatch actually works in Croatia?

Visitors sometimes expect the same system they’d get at home, where any call for help results in an ambulance being sent. In Croatia, not every injury results in an ambulance dispatch. If your condition doesn’t sound life-threatening, the 112 or 194 dispatcher may advise you to make your own way to the nearest emergency department instead of sending a vehicle. This isn’t a brush-off, it’s simply how the triage works, and it keeps ambulances free for genuinely urgent cases.

Check out the location of General Hospital Dubrovnik on a map below:

Emergencies at sea

For any emergency on the water, in Dubrovnik’s harbour, on a boat trip, or while swimming, dial 195 for maritime search and rescue. If someone is actively drowning or the situation is immediately life-threatening, call 112 instead, since it connects faster to the full emergency response and can pull in police, ambulance and coast guard resources at the same time.

What maritime rescue actually covers

The 195 line connects to Croatia’s National Rescue Coordination Centre, which handles distress calls from boats, ferries, kayaks, jet skis and swimmers along the entire coast. If you’re on an organised excursion, boat operators are required to carry safety equipment and know how to raise the coast guard directly, but it’s still worth knowing the number yourself, particularly if you’re renting a boat, kayak or paddleboard independently rather than joining a guided trip.

Don’t assume every beach has a lifeguard

Managed, paid beaches in and around Dubrovnik generally have lifeguards during the summer season, but many of the smaller coves and rocky swimming spots that make the coastline so appealing have none at all.

If you’re swimming somewhere without visible staff, treat it the same as swimming anywhere unsupervised: know your own limits, keep an eye on children at all times and don’t count on anyone noticing quickly if something goes wrong. If you do witness someone in trouble in the water, call 112 immediately rather than waiting to see if the situation resolves itself.

Car trouble and traffic accidents

A large share of visitors to the Dubrovnik area drive a rental car at some point in their trip, whether for a day trip along the coast or a longer route into Montenegro or Bosnia. Here’s what actually happens if something goes wrong.

If you’re involved in a traffic accident

• Stop safely and move the vehicle out of traffic if it’s drivable and nobody is injured
• Call the police (192 or 112) if anyone is injured, if the other driver won’t agree on what happened or if a rental car is involved, since most rental agreements require an official report for any claim
• Contact your rental company as soon as possible; most have a 24-hour number specifically for this
• Photograph the damage, the vehicles’ positions and both drivers’ documents before anything is moved
• Call HAK on 1987 if the car can’t be driven and needs to be towed

What HAK actually does?

HAK, the Croatian Automobile Club, runs the country’s roadside assistance network. It’s available 24/7, English-speaking staff are generally available and its services cover towing, battery jump-starts, flat tyres and emergency fuel delivery. From inside Croatia, call +385 1987. If you’re calling from abroad, or a foreign SIM won’t connect to 1987, use the international number instead: +385 1 469 3700.

If your own country has a motoring club or breakdown cover, such as AA or RAC in the UK, ADAC in Germany or AAA in the US, it’s worth calling them first if your policy includes coverage abroad. Most national auto clubs have reciprocal agreements with HAK through international motoring federations, so your provider can coordinate directly with HAK on your behalf. HAK will typically assess the vehicle on-site and, if it can’t be fixed there, tow it to the nearest contracted garage. You don’t need any coverage at all to use HAK’s services, you’ll simply be charged according to their standard price list if you’re calling without a policy behind you.

Mountain and hiking rescue: HGSS

If you get into trouble while hiking, climbing or exploring anywhere off the main tourist paths, call 112 and ask for mountain rescue. HGSS, the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service, is a volunteer organisation that responds to accidents in mountains, forests, caves and other hard-to-reach terrain across the country, and it operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Dubrovnik itself is coastal rather than mountainous, but the wider region includes hiking areas in Konavle and the hills above the city, and HGSS covers day trips into more demanding terrain elsewhere in Croatia too. There’s no charge to the person being rescued. If you’re planning anything more ambitious than a paved walking trail, it’s worth telling someone your route and expected return time before you set out, since that’s often what makes the difference in how quickly a rescue team can find you if something goes wrong.

What to do if your passport is lost or stolen?

Report it to the nearest Croatian police station first, then contact your embassy or consulate, since most countries don’t keep a consulate in Dubrovnik itself. The order matters more than people expect: skipping the police report is the single most common reason an embassy appointment takes longer than it should, since most emergency travel documents require proof that a report was actually filed.

File the police report before anything else

Walk into any local police station, in Dubrovnik that’s most easily done at the main station on Ulica dr. Ante Starčevića, and report the loss or theft in person. Ask specifically for a written confirmation, referred to locally as a potvrda. This single piece of paper is what your embassy will ask to see and without it, some consulates will ask you to start the process over. The report itself takes most travelers under twenty minutes, even accounting for the fact that officers may need to write it up in Croatian.

Contact your embassy or consulate and expect Zagreb

Dubrovnik itself has few, if any, foreign consulates with full passport services, so most travelers end up dealing with an embassy in Zagreb, roughly an hour by domestic flight or closer to five hours by car or bus. Before making that trip, check your embassy’s website. Many countries, including the US and UK, let you start an emergency travel document application online, which can make the whole process a day or more faster once you arrive in person. If your trip is ending soon regardless, some travelers choose to fly home on the emergency document and finish paperwork for a full replacement passport once they’re back rather than waiting in Croatia.

List of consulates in Dubrovnik

• Albania
• Denmark
• Estonia
• France
• The Netherlands
• Russian Federation
• Spain

Keep a backup of your passport details before you ever need one

For peace of mind, store a photo of your passport’s ID page somewhere other than your phone’s camera roll. You can email it to yourself or save it in a password manager’s notes. Staff can usually process a replacement faster when you can hand over your passport number, issue date and a clear photo on the spot instead of trying to recall the details from memory.

EU citizens have a backup option non-EU travelers don’t

If your own country doesn’t have consular representation near Dubrovnik and you hold an EU passport, you’re entitled to request assistance from any other EU member state’s embassy or consulate under standard consular protection rules. In practice this rarely comes up, since most EU citizens’ consulates are reachable from Zagreb regardless, but it’s a useful fact to have if your specific country’s coverage in Croatia turns out to be thin.

Calling emergency numbers from a foreign phone

Inside Croatia, dial 112 or the other emergency numbers exactly as listed, no country code needed. If you’re calling a Croatian number from abroad, for something like reporting an item left behind, add the country code +385 and drop the leading zero from the local number.

Small things that make a real difference if something goes wrong

Save the number under a name you’ll actually look for

Under stress, most people search their contacts by what they’d naturally type, not by the country name. Save the number 112 in your phone as something like “SOS Croatia” or “Emergency” so you can find it. It sounds like a small thing until you’re actually in a position where you’re trying to find the number, especially if there’s no internet connection that would allow you to google it. And while we’re on the subject of internet connectivity…

Screenshot this before you lose signal

Old Town’s stone alleys and some stretches of coastline outside the city have patchy mobile coverage and that’s exactly when a saved screenshot of the numbers above beats an internet search that won’t load. Roaming data drops are common enough on the Dalmatian coast that relying entirely on being able to look something up in the moment is a bad bet.

Know your address in the form a dispatcher will actually ask for

A dispatcher’s first question is almost always your location and “the blue apartment near the big church” doesn’t help anyone find you quickly. Before you need it, check the exact street name and number of wherever you’re staying, in Croatian rather than however it’s listed on a booking site, since that’s what shows up on a map and what a local operator will recognize immediately.

Print it, save it, forget about it

Nobody plans to need any of these numbers, which is exactly why they’re worth having sorted before you land rather than mid-crisis. Croatian police, ambulance staff and 112 dispatchers deal with tourists every single day of the summer season and the systems here work the same way they do across most of the EU: one number covers everything, English is rarely a problem and help genuinely does arrive.

The passport situation is the one that catches people off guard, mostly because it’s the only scenario on this page that isn’t a phone call away from being resolved. If that ever happens, the police report first, embassy second order isn’t bureaucracy for its own sake, it’s what actually gets you a working travel document fastest. Everything else on this page, from a flat tyre to a sudden toothache to a swim gone wrong, is the kind of thing Croatia’s emergency and support services handle for tourists every day.

Frequently asked questions

Photography: Pexels

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