Croatia’s 2026 state coastal line register covers domestic services only: 68 routes between Croatian ports. Italy–Croatia crossings sit outside it entirely. What the register does settle is the part most people get wrong — which boats run onward from the port you land at, and when.
Why this page will not give you an Adriatic timetable
Agencija za obalni linijski pomorski promet registers Croatian coastal liner traffic. Every figure on this site’s ferry pages comes from it, which is why those pages can count vessels and vehicle capability rather than paraphrase a booking engine. International crossings are licensed and published elsewhere, so any Italy–Croatia schedule here would be recalled rather than sourced. It is not printed.
That is a smaller loss than it sounds. The crossing itself is one decision and the operators publish it. The part that goes wrong is the second half: people arrive at a Croatian port assuming the island network continues from there, and at two of the three plausible landing points it barely does.
| Where you land | Registered coastal routes at that gateway | Vehicles | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Istria — Pula and Brestova | 2 | One: car ferry 334, which links Cres to the mainland | A road peninsula. The onward sea network is thin because you do not need it. |
| Zadar | 15 | 5, all of them car ferries into the archipelago | The densest island network in the country, and it starts at the quay. |
| Dubrovnik | 5 | 1: line 831 to the Elafiti | Local services to the Elafiti, Mljet, Korčula and Lastovo. |
Zadar is the outlier and it is not close. Some 15 registered routes work out of the Zadar gateway into the archipelago and the Kornati, 5 of them car ferries. Istria has 2 registered routes and neither of them travels around the peninsula; Dubrovnik has a small local cluster. If the point of arriving by sea is to keep travelling by sea, the landing port decides whether that is possible.
The vehicle question compounds it. Arriving by sea usually means arriving with a car, and a car is exactly what the domestic network is least able to move: 24 of 68 routes take one, and none of the fast craft does. A crossing that saves you a long drive can therefore hand you a vehicle you then have to leave on the mainland.
Treating an international schedule as a state timetable
The 68 routes in the register carry defined obligations: state lines are contracted to sail and their fares are published in a tariff. Nothing you find for an Adriatic crossing has that status here, and the two should not be read the same way.
The practical consequence is about connections rather than the crossing itself. Do not assume a same-day link from your arrival port to an island. Check the onward line in the register first, then book the international leg around it — not the other way round.
The questions below are the ones the register can answer. The crossing itself belongs to whichever operator is running it in the year you travel.
Common questions
Can I take a car from Italy to Croatia?
The international operators answer that, not this register. What the register settles is the onward question: only 24 of 68 domestic coastal routes carry a vehicle, so a car limits which islands you can continue to.
Which Croatian port has the best onward connections?
Zadar, with 15 registered routes at the gateway, 5 of which take a vehicle. Split has more again at 23, but sits further south than most Italian crossings reach.
Do the onward boats run out of season?
State lines do; that is what a public service obligation means. The other 17 of the 68 are commercial lines and carry no obligation to sail at all.
The two crossings people search for most often are handled separately: Venice into Istria and Bari into Dubrovnik. Both pages take the same approach — what the register can prove about the far end.
What do you need to work out next?
The crossing is one decision. These are the rest.
Where to stay
Which coast should the trip be built on?
Zadar and Split gateways carry the bulk of the registered network.
Getting around
What does Venice actually connect to?
Two registered coastal routes touch the Istrian peninsula.
When to go
When does the onward network thin out?
17 of 68 routes have no obligation to run.
Planning
Would flying be simpler?
The register shows no domestic sea link between most Italian gateways.
Ferry data: Agencija za obalni linijski pomorski promet (ZOLPP), 2026 state coastal line register and per-line timetables.