What you need to get in, how long you may stay, and what an overstay costs
With Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro the borders are external ones for Schengen and control is full. The main crossings are Slavonski Brod and Backo Novo Selo on the Serbian route, Klek and Zatocac on the Bosnian one.
With Slovenia and Hungary the borders are inside Schengen and there is no permanent control.
The Neum corridor is a special case. Bosnia has a narrow outlet to the sea that cuts through the Croatian coast, and the coastal road used to mean two borders each way. The Peljesac bridge is now open, and it lets you bypass the corridor entirely across Croatian territory.
By sea — ferries to Italy from Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik.
Entering Croatia from Bosnia or Montenegro means entering the Schengen area with all the checks that involves.
Renting a car is the practical option, including in neighbouring Montenegro or Bosnia, from where people drive into Croatia overland.
A Green Card is mandatory.
The roads are tolled, paid section by section at the toll booths.
An International Driving Permit is needed only if your licence was issued outside the EU and the EEA; a licence from an EU or EEA country is valid as it is.
The rules are the same throughout the EU.
An ISO-standard microchip is mandatory, and it is implanted BEFORE the rabies vaccination — otherwise the vaccination does not count.
Rabies vaccination — no earlier than 12 weeks of age, and 21 days must pass between the vaccination and entry.
A rabies antibody titre test is required only for pets from a country not on the EU's approved list. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK are on the list, so this does not apply to pets travelling from those countries; Russia is one of the countries it does apply to. Blood is taken no earlier than 30 days after the vaccination, after which there is a three-month wait before entry.
An EU veterinary certificate is required, issued by the state veterinary service.
No more than five animals per person without commercial paperwork.
The violation is recorded across the whole Schengen area, not against one individual country.
The main consequence is a refusal of your next visa. The record stays in the system, and getting a Schengen visa afterwards becomes considerably harder.
An entry ban for a substantial overstay applies to the entire area at once.
The days are counted across the whole of Schengen. The typical mistake is to count your stay in each country separately.
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Entry rules change faster than anything else on this site, and they change without notice. We cross-check every page against several sources and state the date it was verified, but that does not replace the main step: before you travel, check an official source — the country’s consulate, its immigration service or its e-visa portal. Especially if more than a couple of months have passed since our check.