Dubrovnik's audio device rule for tour groups over 20 in the Old Town (2026)

In Dubrovnik's historic core, a guide leading more than 20 people must use audio devices, and the organiser of the tour must provide them to every participant. The city council adopted the rule in June 2023, gave organisers time to adjust, and its municipal wardens have fined offenders since 1 April 2024. The rule applies to every guided group of that size, cruise shore excursions included, and the text does not say which devices count.

Tourist guides who lead a group of more than 20 people in the historic core must use audio devices, and the tour organiser must make the devices available to every member of the group. Both obligations sit in article 44.a, which the city added to its communal order decision in June 2023.

"turistički vodiči koji u Povijesnoj jezgri Grada obavljaju stručno vođenje turističke grupe više od 20 osoba obvezni su koristiti audio-uređaje. Organizator turističkog vođenja dužan je osigurati svim korisnicima iz stavka 1. ovog članka usluge korištenja audio-uređaja."

In English: "Tourist guides who professionally guide a tourist group of more than 20 people in the historic core of the city are obliged to use audio devices. The organiser of the guided tour must provide all users referred to in paragraph 1 of this article with the use of audio devices."

The same amendment added article 95.a, which bans setting up electro-acoustic equipment such as loudspeakers, amplifiers and microphones on public spaces in the historic core, unless the mayor approves it for an event. A portable speaker is not an alternative to the devices.

The tour organiser. Failing to provide audio devices to every group member is an offence under article 223 of the decision, and the city's announcement of 20 March 2024 states that responsibility lies with the organiser, who must obtain the devices for its group.

The decision entered into force eight days after its publication on 14 June 2023. After a long adjustment period, the city told guide associations and agencies on 20 March 2024 that wardens, who were already checking groups and giving verbal warnings, would start fining offenders from 1 April 2024.

To cut noise and crowding in a small walled town. The rule is part of Respect the City (Poštujmo Grad), the programme under which the city has taken measures since summer 2017 to manage visitor pressure on the historic core, including better scheduling of cruise ship arrivals and of passenger embarkation and disembarkation times.

Guides were involved early. In July 2019 the mayor asked guide associations to keep the entrances and the Stradun flowing: groups were not to stop on the Pile and Ploče bridges or in Široka ulica, and to stop as little as possible on the Stradun. The city's announcement also said that from 2021 headphones would become compulsory for groups over 15, with microphones on loudspeakers banned outright. The rule finally adopted in 2023 set the line at more than 20.

In March 2024 the deputy mayor said the city expected the rule to make guiding easier and to reduce noise in the historic core, which she described as pronounced even in daytime.

The decision does not say. It requires "audio-uređaji", audio devices, and obliges the organiser to provide their use to every group member, without naming a type, brand, frequency or supplier. Nothing in the text excludes a system in which guests listen on their own phones, but nothing confirms it either.

With Your Next Tours, the guide speaks into a phone and guests listen in their own phone's browser through their own earphones after scanning a QR code. The audio runs over a pocket WiFi router with no internet connection, so a crowded street's mobile network does not matter. Before relying on it, ask the city's communal affairs department, which runs the municipal wardens, to confirm in writing that this meets article 44.a.

Because the obligation is the organiser's, plan for guests without a smartphone or earphones as well: carry spare wired earphones, and keep another way to give those guests audio. The same rule appears among others on our tour group headset rules page.

Your group already carries the receivers. Install the guide app, create a tour and share its QR code at the meeting point outside the walls: guests listen on their own phones and earphones, and you speak at conversation level on the Stradun. See how it works, or compare it with the cost of renting a system.

Translations of the Croatian texts are ours; the Croatian originals are authoritative.