Croatian nationals’ rights to live and work in the UK after joining the EU

Croatia joined the EU on 1 July 2013. Croatian nationals can now exercise ‘free movement’ rights under European law to travel to and live in the UK. However, as with the previous two rounds of EU enlargement, Croatia’s EU accession treaty permits Member States to impose transitional restrictions on Croatian workers’ free movement rights for up to seven years, in order to guard against disruption of labour markets. The UK has decided to apply transitional restrictions.