Split Diving: The Permit Rules, the Vis Wreck Zone and the Islands a Ferry Away

Split diving has needed no diving card since August 2010

Look up diving in Croatia and you will still meet the card. One travel guide puts it plainly: you need “a Croatian diving permit in order to dive legally”, it costs €15 and dive centers sell it on sight of your passport and certification. That was true once. It has not been true for sixteen years.

The card came from article 5 of the Pravilnik o obavljanju podvodnih aktivnosti, the rulebook on underwater activities published in Narodne novine 47/1999. Croatian and foreign nationals alike could dive “only with a valid diving card”, issued by the Croatian Diving Association, valid for one year and only to someone holding an appropriate qualification. Article 8 set the fee at 100 kuna and earmarked a net 60 percent of it for diving safety, care of injured divers, underwater heritage and promotion.

On 23 July 2010 the Government of Croatia repealed article 5, paragraph 2 of article 5a and article 8 in a single decision, published in Narodne novine 96/2010 on 6 August 2010 and in force eight days later. The same decision ordered the association to pay the unspent card money into the state budget within 30 days. A card sold today is not one the law asks for.

Diving from Split without a dive center takes a €318.53 harbor master permit

What the 2010 decision left standing is the second permit, and that one matters to anyone planning to shore dive alone from a rented apartment in Split. A 2003 amendment in Narodne novine 23/2003 divided all diving into two kinds. Organized diving runs under a dive leader from a dive center or club and is entered in a dive log. Individual diving is “every dive that is not organized”.

Article 2a says individual diving happens on the basis of an Odobrenje za individualno ronjenje, an individual diving approval. Article 5a says a harbor master's office issues it and that the fee is 2,400 kuna. Both provisions survived 2010. So did article 15, which fines a natural person 2,000 to 5,000 kuna for individual diving contrary to article 2a, and article 16, which allows a 500 kuna fine on the spot.

The government portal gov.hr states the price as €318.53, valid for a year from issue, and lists the harbor master offices that grant it: Pula, Rijeka, Senj, Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Ploče and Dubrovnik, or any of their branch offices. The maritime ministry's own diving page still gives the figure as 2,400 kuna.

Here the rulebook and the portal part company on one detail. The one-year validity used to sit in paragraph 2 of article 5a, together with the requirement to hold a diving card, and the 2010 decision repealed that paragraph. The text in force no longer says how long the approval lasts. The portal still says a year. Ask the Split office which date it writes on yours.

What an organized dive out of Split must carry: concession, logbook and oxygen

For most visitors the answer to the permit question is simpler: dive with a center, and the center's paperwork covers you. The rulebook is specific about what that paperwork is. Since the 2003 amendments, an organizer must first obtain a concession approval for underwater activities, such as training divers and running dive trips, before organizing a single dive.

The dive leader has to hold at least a three-star diver qualification (R***) or an equivalent. The organizer issues a Dnevnik ronjenja, a dive logbook, for each leader, and the local harbor master's office certifies it. Each entry records the date and time, the site, the planned duration, the maximum depth, every participant's name, nationality and qualification, a dive plan with a sketch of the area, and any accident.

Article 1c then lists what must be on site. A basic first aid kit and an oxygen first aid kit. A VHF radio or a mobile phone. The displayed telephone numbers of the recompression chambers and the search and rescue service. A plan for transporting an injured diver. And the logbook itself. If a boat leaving Split cannot show you the chamber numbers, the rulebook says it should be able to.

Split's harbor, its approaches and anything below 40 meters are off limits

Split's waterfront is a working ferry port, and article 10 of the rulebook is written for exactly that. Diving is not permitted in internal waters that comprise ports, port approaches, port anchorages and areas of dense traffic. The exception needs a permit from the territorially competent harbor master, not a word from a dive guide.

The same article closes strict and special marine reserves, nature parks and other protected parts of the sea, the national parks of Brijuni, Kornati, Krka and Mljet, and the water within 100 meters of anchored warships and guarded military installations on the shore. Since 2003 it has also closed sites protected under the cultural heritage rules, which is where the Vis wrecks come in.

Two more rules apply to every dive. Article 9 sets the maximum depth for recreational diving on air at 40 meters, with a fine of 1,000 to 4,000 kuna in article 14 for going deeper. Article 4 requires the dive area to be marked, either with an orange or red buoy at least 30 centimeters across or with a diving flag or the code flag A on the boat. At night the buoy needs a flashing yellow or white light visible from at least 300 meters.

A diver working alone is responsible for marking their own dive. For an organized dive it is the leader. Anyone planning a quiet shore entry below Marjan with a good buoyancy routine and no buoy is breaking the rule before the first breath.

The Vis wrecks from Split: 15 permits, a €2,000 floor and no solo diving

The 1999 rulebook once drew a box around the whole Vis archipelago, from 42°55' to 43°08' north and 15°40' to 16°20' east, covering Vis, Biševo, Svetac and Brusnik, and required a Ministry of Culture permit to dive anywhere inside it. The 2003 amendment deleted that article. What replaced it is narrower and stricter at once.

The Ministry of Culture's rulebook on diving permits in areas with cultural goods, Narodne novine 49/2019, says in article 2 that inside a protected zone only organized diving with a permit is allowed, and individual diving is prohibited. Every five years the minister adopts a program naming the zones, the number of permits and the minimum annual fee, and the permits go to dive businesses by public tender.

The program for 2024 to 2029 lists zone 27, the islands of Vis, Biševo, Brusnik and Svetac, as fourteen sites. Among them are the American B-17G bomber, the passenger and cargo ship Brioni, the tug Ursus, the merchant ship Vassilios, the wreck of the Teti, the remains of a Greek and Roman harbor, and two B-24 Liberators, one of them named Lady Luck.

At most 15 permits may be issued for the zone, each at a minimum of €2,000 a year, the joint highest floor in the program alongside the Baron Gautsch off Rovinj. The special conditions are short: no entry into the B-17, no entry into the Vassilios T, and at every wreck no entry into any part without a source of natural light.

The general rules in article 11 apply too. No entering or touching anything inside protective nets, no tying on to a wreck, a dive leader present on every dive, and at most two registered groups on one wreck at a time. The program caps a group at 15 divers per leader. Before taking a group down, the leader submits the dive list electronically to the heritage inspectors and the regional conservation department.

So the practical question in Split is not which boat is cheapest to Vis. It is whether the center holds a zone 27 permit for the 2024 to 2029 period. Wreck divers comparing coasts can set this against our list of wreck diving destinations.

Hvar, Šćedro and Rogoznica hold the other protected wreck zones near Split

Vis is not the only county zone in the program. Split-Dalmatia County has six in total. The zone around Hvar covers eight sites, seven ancient wrecks and one early modern one, with ten permits at a minimum of €300 each. Off Sućuraj on Hvar lies a second B-24 Liberator, with six permits at €260.

The steamship Dubrovnik and an ancient wreck off the islet of Šćedro each have six permits at €260 as well. Palagruža is a zone in its own right with eight permits at €650. The same rule applies in all of them: organized diving with a permit holder, and no individual diving.

One zone across the county line matters for divers based in Split. The program lists an ancient wreck at Rogoznica, in Šibenik-Knin County, with six permits at a minimum of €300. Two of the dive centers registered around Split are filed under Rogoznica, the town the zone is named after.

Brač and Šolta are the short ferry hops from Split, 50 and 60 minutes

The islands on Split's doorstep are a different proposition. The 2024 to 2029 program lists no protected wreck zone off Brač, Šolta or Čiovo, so the ordinary rules apply there: a dive center, or a harbor master approval, a marked dive and the 40 meter limit. Nature protection rules still reach them, and so does the ban on ports and anchorages.

The state timetables published by the coastal line agency set the travel times. The car ferry on state line 631 from Split to Supetar on Brač takes 50 minutes one way. Line 636 to Rogač on Šolta takes 60 minutes. Both are run by Jadrolinija.

For Vis, state ferry line 602 leaves Split and arrives at Vis two hours and twenty minutes later on the 2026 timetable, for example 11:00 out and 13:20 in. The fast passenger line 9602, run by Kapetan Luka Krilo, links Vis, Hvar, Milna on Brač and Split. If you are choosing a base between the two coasts, our Split against Kotor comparison covers the rest of the trade-off.

Posidonia meadows around Split are strictly protected under Croatian law

The seagrass under a Split dive boat is not scenery the law ignores. The state Institute for Environment and Nature describes Posidonia oceanica as a strictly protected species under the Nature Protection Act, with protection at European level through the Habitats Directive. It is one of four seagrasses in the Adriatic and endemic to the Mediterranean.

Its depth range depends on light. In the northern Adriatic, where the water is less clear, meadows reach about 20 meters. In the central and southern Adriatic, which includes the water off Split, they extend to about fifty meters. Leaves grow up to about a meter long, and because the plant grows slowly, some individuals are over 1,000 years old.

The institute counts more than 20 percent of known Mediterranean species living in the meadows, and more than 100 fish species using them to feed, spawn or grow. It names anchoring as a direct threat: an anchor dragged through a meadow damages the network of rhizomes, which the waves then tear apart. A diver kneeling on it does the same job more slowly.

Split's sea read 23.0°C at the surface on 24 September 2026

The state meteorological service publishes the sea temperature at its coastal stations every day. On 24 September 2026, the day this guide was written, the Split station read 23.0°C and Komiža on Vis read 23.5°C. Šibenik, up the coast, read 22.0°C.

Read those figures for what they are. The service's method note says the observer lowers a shielded thermometer about 30 centimeters below the surface, at a spot at least 1.8 meters deep, holds it there for three minutes and reads it quickly. It is a surface reading. It says nothing about the water at depth, where a wreck dive off Vis spends most of its time.

The daily table is the tool to use: check it the week you travel and pack a wetsuit for the number you see, plus a margin for the thermocline.

Calling for help off Split: 195, 112 and VHF channel 16

For an accident or incident at sea, the government portal gives 195, the free number of the national maritime rescue coordination center in Rijeka, MRCC Rijeka. Help can also be requested on VHF channel 16 or through the European emergency number 112, which puts the call through to the same center.

Where the nearest recompression chamber is, and whether it can take a diver that day, is a question for the dive center before the boat leaves. The rulebook puts that duty on the organizer: the chamber numbers must be displayed at the dive site. Ask to see them, and check what your policy covers in our dive insurance guide.

Split's four SSI dive centers are filed in Omiš, Rogoznica and Bol

The Split operator list holds 4 dive centers, read on 20 September 2026, all published by SSI in its register of affiliated centers. SSI files one under Omiš, two under Rogoznica and one under Bol on Brač. None is filed under Split itself. All four publish a website in the register.

SSI rates one of the two Rogoznica centers for Extended Range, which is a statement about its listing and not evidence that a course runs this season. A listing also says nothing about the concession approval or a Ministry of Culture zone permit, which are the two documents that decide where a Split dive boat may take you. Ask for both.

Which registers can be read sets out what each source does and does not show. For life on land between dives, the Split nomad base guide covers the city, and Cable Park Split the wake park.