Compare countries

Two or three countries, side by side, one row per question. Pick up to 3.

Countries

BrazilChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Brazil does not force data to stay inside the country. Personal data can leave, but since August 2025 you normally need a contract written by the regulator, word for word, signed with whoever receives it. Sending data to the European Union needs nothing extra. The regulator is awake and has started switching features off large platforms.
The catch: Brazil is often listed as a data-localisation country. It is not one. The old rule that pushed federal government email and data onto Brazilian systems was scrapped in 2018, and today's federal cloud rules do not require Brazilian soil. The real constraints are different in shape: banks must keep the central bank able to reach their data wherever it sits, and since July 2026 digital platforms must have an actual office and a legal representative inside Brazil.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. Brazil's privacy law reaches a company with no office in Brazil, as long as it collects data in Brazil or offers goods or services to people here. There is no size or revenue threshold that lets you out. The privacy law itself does not make you appoint anyone local — but two newer rules do, and if you run a digital platform you now need a registered office and a legal representative in Brazil.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with paperwork. Brazil has no rule making anyone keep a copy of anything inside the country — not for banks, not for hospitals, not even for the federal government's own cloud. What it has instead is a permission slip: before personal data leaves, you need one of a short list of approved legal grounds. Industry rules add conditions on top, but none of them is a wall.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: Pick one of five routes. The easy one is the European Union: since January 2026 Brazil treats it as safe, so nothing extra is needed. For everywhere else, the normal route is a set of standard contractual clauses that the regulator itself wrote — you copy them into your contract exactly, and you may not edit them. A deadline to retrofit older contracts already passed, on 23 August 2025.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The National Data Protection Authority, and it is genuinely working. A law passed in February 2026 gave it real independence, 200 new specialist jobs and its own budget. In August 2026 it ordered Discord to switch off live video streaming in Brazil within three working days, to protect children. Banking, telecoms, insurance and securities regulators enforce their own rules in parallel and have done so for years.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Both directions, and they pull against each other. The floor: internet access providers must keep connection records for one year, websites and apps must keep access records for six months, and tax records need five years. The ceiling: the privacy law says personal data must be deleted once you have finished doing what you collected it for. Where the two clash, the legal duty to keep wins — the law lists that as an express reason to hold on.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: Count three clocks, not one. Privacy: three working days to tell the regulator AND the affected people, once you have confirmed a breach that could really hurt them. Platform content: two hours to take down intimate images shared without consent, once notified. On top of that, banks report incidents to the central bank and telecoms operators report to the telecoms regulator under their own separate timetables.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five. (1) Your European standard contract is not automatically good enough — Brazil wrote its own clauses and you must copy them exactly, unedited, and the deadline to fix old contracts passed on 23 August 2025. (2) A child in Brazil is under 12 and an adolescent is 12 to 17, but the social media rule bites at 16 — accounts for anyone up to 16 must be tied to a parent's account, and asking users to state their own age is banned. (3) Since 20 July 2026 a digital platform needs an actual registered office in Brazil, not just a lawyer on retainer. (4) The biggest fine is not in the privacy law: the internet law allows up to 10 percent of your group's Brazilian revenue. (5) The regulator can order your database blocked or your processing suspended, which usually hurts more than any cheque.High confidence
What's about to change?: One firm date: January 2027, when the regulator moves from monitoring platforms to full enforcement of the children's digital rules. Brazil's artificial intelligence bill is still only a bill — it was sitting in a committee waiting for a report as recently as June 2026, so do not plan around it. The bigger risk is not new law: it is that the regulator can add or withdraw approved destinations for data transfers by publishing a single resolution, with no consultation.High confidence
Hardest industry wall: None found.

CroatiaChecked 18 August 2026

Depends on your industryWork: HighEnforcement: Active

In one paragraph: Croatia looks like an ordinary European Union country for privacy: data may leave once you have the right paperwork. But its accounting law is stricter than most people expect. A Croatian company's books and receipts may only be kept in Croatia or another European Union country. Public bodies must keep personal-data registers in Croatian data centres. The privacy regulator fines hard.
The catch: The relaxed European headline stops being true in four places. First, accounting: the books and supporting documents of any Croatian company may be kept outside Croatia only in another European Union member state, so a United States or United Kingdom cloud archive of your ledger is not lawful, and no contract or consent fixes it. Second, the public sector: since May 2025 state registers containing personal data must sit in data centres on Croatian soil, and state bodies must use the government's own Shared Services Centre. Third, health: health data must be processed inside Croatia's national health information infrastructure and exchanged through the central health system. Fourth, aerial imagery: you need one permission to photograph Croatia from the air and a second permission to use the pictures, and the Ministry of Defence screens them first.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. Croatia's rules reach a company with no office in the country. The European Union privacy rulebook applies to anyone who offers goods or services to people in Europe, or who watches what they do online. There is no revenue or headcount threshold. Croatia does not demand its own local representative on top of the Europe-wide one, which you may place in any European country.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Mostly yes, but with one nasty exception that catches everybody. Ordinary personal data can go abroad using the standard European transfer tools. Your accounting records cannot: Croatian law allows them to be kept outside Croatia only in another European Union country. Health data, public-sector registers and aerial photographs each have their own separate walls.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: For personal data, Croatia uses the European model. Some countries are pre-approved, and everywhere else you need a standard contract or a similar tool plus a risk check. The approved list is real and populated, and includes the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland. For accounting records the model is different and much blunter: only European Union countries are allowed, and no paperwork buys you more.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The main regulator is the Personal Data Protection Agency, known as AZOP. It is fully staffed, it hires more people, and it is one of the busiest fining bodies in central Europe for its size. It issued 13 fines totalling about 6.7 million euros (roughly 7.3 million dollars) in 2025, and 38 fines the year before. The cyber regulator, the National Cyber Security Centre, is also up and running.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Croatia has strong minimum keeping periods and a few hard maximums. Ledgers and the documents behind them must be kept at least eleven years; payroll lists six years; the detailed wage and contribution records forever. Medical records run to ten years after the patient dies. Going the other way, camera footage must normally be deleted after six months.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: There are at least two clocks and they run at different speeds. A personal data breach goes to the privacy regulator within 72 hours. A significant cyber incident goes to the cyber authority within 24 hours as an early warning, with a fuller report at 72 hours and a final report within 30 days. One incident can easily trigger both, and the 24-hour clock is the one that catches people out.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in the summary. Your ledger cannot live on an American cloud. Children count as adults for online consent at 16, not 13. Using someone's personal data unlawfully is a crime, not just a fine. Genetic test results may never be used to price life insurance. And camera footage in an apartment building needs two thirds of the owners to agree.High confidence
What's about to change?: Two Croatian dates matter. Fines under the state information infrastructure law switch on 1 January 2027. Mandatory eInvoicing widens to smaller traders on the same day. Across Europe, cloud switching fees must fall to zero by 12 January 2027. The thing to watch is the challenge to the Europe-United States data deal, which is still valid but under real pressure.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall: All industries — Zakon o računovodstvu
Government — Zakon o državnoj informacijskoj infrastrukturi
Health and social care — Zakon o podacima i informacijama u zdravstvu

The eight framework questions answered for each selected country
Question	BrazilChecked 18 August 2026	CroatiaChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Active	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	Brazil does not force data to stay inside the country. Personal data can leave, but since August 2025 you normally need a contract written by the regulator, word for word, signed with whoever receives it. Sending data to the European Union needs nothing extra. The regulator is awake and has started switching features off large platforms.	Croatia looks like an ordinary European Union country for privacy: data may leave once you have the right paperwork. But its accounting law is stricter than most people expect. A Croatian company's books and receipts may only be kept in Croatia or another European Union country. Public bodies must keep personal-data registers in Croatian data centres. The privacy regulator fines hard.
The catch	Brazil is often listed as a data-localisation country. It is not one. The old rule that pushed federal government email and data onto Brazilian systems was scrapped in 2018, and today's federal cloud rules do not require Brazilian soil. The real constraints are different in shape: banks must keep the central bank able to reach their data wherever it sits, and since July 2026 digital platforms must have an actual office and a legal representative inside Brazil.	The relaxed European headline stops being true in four places. First, accounting: the books and supporting documents of any Croatian company may be kept outside Croatia only in another European Union member state, so a United States or United Kingdom cloud archive of your ledger is not lawful, and no contract or consent fixes it. Second, the public sector: since May 2025 state registers containing personal data must sit in data centres on Croatian soil, and state bodies must use the government's own Shared Services Centre. Third, health: health data must be processed inside Croatia's national health information infrastructure and exchanged through the central health system. Fourth, aerial imagery: you need one permission to photograph Croatia from the air and a second permission to use the pictures, and the Ministry of Defence screens them first.
Does this apply to me?	Yes. Brazil's privacy law reaches a company with no office in Brazil, as long as it collects data in Brazil or offers goods or services to people here. There is no size or revenue threshold that lets you out. The privacy law itself does not make you appoint anyone local — but two newer rules do, and if you run a digital platform you now need a registered office and a legal representative in Brazil.High confidence	Yes. Croatia's rules reach a company with no office in the country. The European Union privacy rulebook applies to anyone who offers goods or services to people in Europe, or who watches what they do online. There is no revenue or headcount threshold. Croatia does not demand its own local representative on top of the Europe-wide one, which you may place in any European country.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?	Yes, with paperwork. Brazil has no rule making anyone keep a copy of anything inside the country — not for banks, not for hospitals, not even for the federal government's own cloud. What it has instead is a permission slip: before personal data leaves, you need one of a short list of approved legal grounds. Industry rules add conditions on top, but none of them is a wall.High confidence	Mostly yes, but with one nasty exception that catches everybody. Ordinary personal data can go abroad using the standard European transfer tools. Your accounting records cannot: Croatian law allows them to be kept outside Croatia only in another European Union country. Health data, public-sector registers and aerial photographs each have their own separate walls.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?	Pick one of five routes. The easy one is the European Union: since January 2026 Brazil treats it as safe, so nothing extra is needed. For everywhere else, the normal route is a set of standard contractual clauses that the regulator itself wrote — you copy them into your contract exactly, and you may not edit them. A deadline to retrofit older contracts already passed, on 23 August 2025.High confidence	For personal data, Croatia uses the European model. Some countries are pre-approved, and everywhere else you need a standard contract or a similar tool plus a risk check. The approved list is real and populated, and includes the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland. For accounting records the model is different and much blunter: only European Union countries are allowed, and no paperwork buys you more.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?	The National Data Protection Authority, and it is genuinely working. A law passed in February 2026 gave it real independence, 200 new specialist jobs and its own budget. In August 2026 it ordered Discord to switch off live video streaming in Brazil within three working days, to protect children. Banking, telecoms, insurance and securities regulators enforce their own rules in parallel and have done so for years.High confidence	The main regulator is the Personal Data Protection Agency, known as AZOP. It is fully staffed, it hires more people, and it is one of the busiest fining bodies in central Europe for its size. It issued 13 fines totalling about 6.7 million euros (roughly 7.3 million dollars) in 2025, and 38 fines the year before. The cyber regulator, the National Cyber Security Centre, is also up and running.High confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?	Both directions, and they pull against each other. The floor: internet access providers must keep connection records for one year, websites and apps must keep access records for six months, and tax records need five years. The ceiling: the privacy law says personal data must be deleted once you have finished doing what you collected it for. Where the two clash, the legal duty to keep wins — the law lists that as an express reason to hold on.High confidence	Croatia has strong minimum keeping periods and a few hard maximums. Ledgers and the documents behind them must be kept at least eleven years; payroll lists six years; the detailed wage and contribution records forever. Medical records run to ten years after the patient dies. Going the other way, camera footage must normally be deleted after six months.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?	Count three clocks, not one. Privacy: three working days to tell the regulator AND the affected people, once you have confirmed a breach that could really hurt them. Platform content: two hours to take down intimate images shared without consent, once notified. On top of that, banks report incidents to the central bank and telecoms operators report to the telecoms regulator under their own separate timetables.High confidence	There are at least two clocks and they run at different speeds. A personal data breach goes to the privacy regulator within 72 hours. A significant cyber incident goes to the cyber authority within 24 hours as an early warning, with a fuller report at 72 hours and a final report within 30 days. One incident can easily trigger both, and the 24-hour clock is the one that catches people out.High confidence
What's the trap?	Five. (1) Your European standard contract is not automatically good enough — Brazil wrote its own clauses and you must copy them exactly, unedited, and the deadline to fix old contracts passed on 23 August 2025. (2) A child in Brazil is under 12 and an adolescent is 12 to 17, but the social media rule bites at 16 — accounts for anyone up to 16 must be tied to a parent's account, and asking users to state their own age is banned. (3) Since 20 July 2026 a digital platform needs an actual registered office in Brazil, not just a lawyer on retainer. (4) The biggest fine is not in the privacy law: the internet law allows up to 10 percent of your group's Brazilian revenue. (5) The regulator can order your database blocked or your processing suspended, which usually hurts more than any cheque.High confidence	Five things that are not in the summary. Your ledger cannot live on an American cloud. Children count as adults for online consent at 16, not 13. Using someone's personal data unlawfully is a crime, not just a fine. Genetic test results may never be used to price life insurance. And camera footage in an apartment building needs two thirds of the owners to agree.High confidence
What's about to change?	One firm date: January 2027, when the regulator moves from monitoring platforms to full enforcement of the children's digital rules. Brazil's artificial intelligence bill is still only a bill — it was sitting in a committee waiting for a report as recently as June 2026, so do not plan around it. The bigger risk is not new law: it is that the regulator can add or withdraw approved destinations for data transfers by publishing a single resolution, with no consultation.High confidence	Two Croatian dates matter. Fines under the state information infrastructure law switch on 1 January 2027. Mandatory eInvoicing widens to smaller traders on the same day. Across Europe, cloud switching fees must fall to zero by 12 January 2027. The thing to watch is the challenge to the Europe-United States data deal, which is still valid but under real pressure.Medium confidence
Hardest industry wall	None found.	All industries — Zakon o računovodstvu Government — Zakon o državnoj informacijskoj infrastrukturi Health and social care — Zakon o podacima i informacijama u zdravstvu