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

Countries

Saudi ArabiaChecked 18 August 2026

Yes, with paperworkWork: HighEnforcement: Waking up

In one paragraph: Data can leave Saudi Arabia, but never for free. You need a purpose the law allows, a written safeguard such as the government's own standard contract, and a written risk assessment that asks whether the transfer could harm the Kingdom itself. Banks need the central bank's written permission before anything goes abroad. The privacy regulator is fully set up but publishes no fines.
The catch: The 'paperwork and you can send it' answer is true for an ordinary business. It is false for banks and finance companies, where the central bank must give written no-objection first and cloud is expected to sit inside the country. It is also unsettled for government bodies and critical national infrastructure: the old rule forcing them to host inside Saudi Arabia was deleted in 2024 and replaced by a duty to ask a government office for a decision, and that office has published no replacement rule.
Does this apply to me?: Yes. The law reaches a company anywhere in the world with no office in Saudi Arabia, as long as it handles the data of people living in the Kingdom. There is no size, revenue or headcount threshold to fall below. There is no general duty to appoint a local representative, but many organisations must register on the government's data platform and some must name a data protection officer.High confidence
Can the data leave the country?: Yes, with real paperwork. First the reason for sending it has to be on the government's short list of allowed purposes. Then you need a safeguard: the government's own standard contract, approved group-wide rules, or a certificate from a licensed body. Then you must write a risk assessment that includes whether the transfer could damage the Kingdom's vital interests. Two industries are much harder. Banks and finance companies must get the central bank's written no-objection before any data goes to an overseas supplier, and the central bank's rules say cloud services should sit inside Saudi Arabia unless it approves otherwise. For government bodies and critical national infrastructure the picture changed in 2024 and is now genuinely unclear.High confidence
What do I have to do to send it abroad?: The model is an approved-destination list, and the list is empty. The law says data may go to a country the regulator has judged good enough, but no such list has been published, so in practice nobody uses that route. Instead almost everyone relies on the escape hatches: sign the government's word-for-word standard contract, or get approved group-wide rules for a multinational, or send to a body holding a certificate from a licensed Saudi accreditation body. On top of that you must run a written risk assessment before the data moves.High confidence
Who enforces this — and are they actually working?: The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority is the privacy regulator, and it is genuinely up and running. Its National Data Governance Platform is live and takes registrations, self-assessments, breach reports and complaints, and it has published the rulebook for the panels that hear violations and issue fines. What we could not find is a single published fine or named decision, so how hard it bites is still unknown. The financial regulator and the cybersecurity authority, by contrast, have supervised their sectors for years.Medium confidence
How long must I keep it, and when must I delete it?: Both directions apply, and the floor wins when they clash. The ceiling: you must destroy personal data without undue delay once the reason you collected it has gone, and also when someone asks, when they withdraw the only consent you relied on, or when you learn you processed it unlawfully. Destruction must reach backups too. The floor: your written record of processing activities must be kept for five years after the activity ends. If another law sets a keeping period, the law says keep the data until whichever is longer.High confidence
What happens when something goes wrong?: The main clock is 72 hours. If personal data is breached, lost or accessed unlawfully and that could harm the people involved, you must tell the privacy regulator within 72 hours of finding out, through the government's data platform — and you have to be registered on that platform before you can use the service. You must also tell the affected people without undue delay, in plain language. A second, separate clock runs for government bodies and critical national infrastructure, which owe cyber incident reports to the national cybersecurity authority under its own rules. Suppliers owe you notice without undue delay so you can meet your own deadline.High confidence
What's the trap?: Five things that are not in the summary. One: sending data abroad is not only about protecting the individual — you must also assess whether the transfer could harm the Kingdom's own vital interests, and there is a government guide telling you how. Two: the standard contract must be copied word for word, and changing it is itself a breach of the law, while the overseas recipient has to accept Saudi courts. Three: leaking or publishing sensitive data to hurt someone or to profit can put a person in prison for up to two years — this is a criminal charge, not a fine. Four: your supplier contract must go beyond a normal data processing agreement and say whether the supplier is subject to foreign laws and how that affects its compliance. Five: the widely quoted rule that all government and critical infrastructure data must be hosted inside Saudi Arabia was deleted in 2024, and quoting it today is wrong.High confidence
What's about to change?: Nothing is scheduled to commence on a fixed date in the next twelve months — the law and all its main regulations are already fully in force. The risk is the opposite kind: several switches the government already holds and can flip with no consultation. The biggest is the approved-country list, which the regulator is legally required to publish and has not; the day it appears, every transfer plan in the country needs rechecking. The second biggest is the missing localisation rule for government and critical infrastructure, which one office was handed in 2024 and has not yet written.Medium 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	Saudi ArabiaChecked 18 August 2026	CroatiaChecked 18 August 2026
The three ratings	Yes, with paperwork Work: High Enforcement: Waking up	Depends on your industry Work: High Enforcement: Active
In one paragraph	Data can leave Saudi Arabia, but never for free. You need a purpose the law allows, a written safeguard such as the government's own standard contract, and a written risk assessment that asks whether the transfer could harm the Kingdom itself. Banks need the central bank's written permission before anything goes abroad. The privacy regulator is fully set up but publishes no fines.	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 'paperwork and you can send it' answer is true for an ordinary business. It is false for banks and finance companies, where the central bank must give written no-objection first and cloud is expected to sit inside the country. It is also unsettled for government bodies and critical national infrastructure: the old rule forcing them to host inside Saudi Arabia was deleted in 2024 and replaced by a duty to ask a government office for a decision, and that office has published no replacement rule.	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. The law reaches a company anywhere in the world with no office in Saudi Arabia, as long as it handles the data of people living in the Kingdom. There is no size, revenue or headcount threshold to fall below. There is no general duty to appoint a local representative, but many organisations must register on the government's data platform and some must name a data protection officer.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 real paperwork. First the reason for sending it has to be on the government's short list of allowed purposes. Then you need a safeguard: the government's own standard contract, approved group-wide rules, or a certificate from a licensed body. Then you must write a risk assessment that includes whether the transfer could damage the Kingdom's vital interests. Two industries are much harder. Banks and finance companies must get the central bank's written no-objection before any data goes to an overseas supplier, and the central bank's rules say cloud services should sit inside Saudi Arabia unless it approves otherwise. For government bodies and critical national infrastructure the picture changed in 2024 and is now genuinely unclear.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?	The model is an approved-destination list, and the list is empty. The law says data may go to a country the regulator has judged good enough, but no such list has been published, so in practice nobody uses that route. Instead almost everyone relies on the escape hatches: sign the government's word-for-word standard contract, or get approved group-wide rules for a multinational, or send to a body holding a certificate from a licensed Saudi accreditation body. On top of that you must run a written risk assessment before the data moves.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 Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority is the privacy regulator, and it is genuinely up and running. Its National Data Governance Platform is live and takes registrations, self-assessments, breach reports and complaints, and it has published the rulebook for the panels that hear violations and issue fines. What we could not find is a single published fine or named decision, so how hard it bites is still unknown. The financial regulator and the cybersecurity authority, by contrast, have supervised their sectors for years.Medium 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 apply, and the floor wins when they clash. The ceiling: you must destroy personal data without undue delay once the reason you collected it has gone, and also when someone asks, when they withdraw the only consent you relied on, or when you learn you processed it unlawfully. Destruction must reach backups too. The floor: your written record of processing activities must be kept for five years after the activity ends. If another law sets a keeping period, the law says keep the data until whichever is longer.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?	The main clock is 72 hours. If personal data is breached, lost or accessed unlawfully and that could harm the people involved, you must tell the privacy regulator within 72 hours of finding out, through the government's data platform — and you have to be registered on that platform before you can use the service. You must also tell the affected people without undue delay, in plain language. A second, separate clock runs for government bodies and critical national infrastructure, which owe cyber incident reports to the national cybersecurity authority under its own rules. Suppliers owe you notice without undue delay so you can meet your own deadline.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 things that are not in the summary. One: sending data abroad is not only about protecting the individual — you must also assess whether the transfer could harm the Kingdom's own vital interests, and there is a government guide telling you how. Two: the standard contract must be copied word for word, and changing it is itself a breach of the law, while the overseas recipient has to accept Saudi courts. Three: leaking or publishing sensitive data to hurt someone or to profit can put a person in prison for up to two years — this is a criminal charge, not a fine. Four: your supplier contract must go beyond a normal data processing agreement and say whether the supplier is subject to foreign laws and how that affects its compliance. Five: the widely quoted rule that all government and critical infrastructure data must be hosted inside Saudi Arabia was deleted in 2024, and quoting it today is wrong.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?	Nothing is scheduled to commence on a fixed date in the next twelve months — the law and all its main regulations are already fully in force. The risk is the opposite kind: several switches the government already holds and can flip with no consultation. The biggest is the approved-country list, which the regulator is legally required to publish and has not; the day it appears, every transfer plan in the country needs rechecking. The second biggest is the missing localisation rule for government and critical infrastructure, which one office was handed in 2024 and has not yet written.Medium 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