Freight forwarding Rijeka – transport to and from the Czech Republic

From Hungary's sea gate to Croatia's main cargo port

Rijeka, known in Italian as Fiume, had about 108,000 inhabitants at the 2021 census. Under Habsburg rule for more than four centuries, it was developed with Hungarian capital into the kingdom's principal seaport, and by 1913 it ranked among Europe's ten busiest ports. The city's industrial record is unusual: the world's first torpedo factory opened here in 1866, and an industrial-scale oil refinery followed in 1882. Today Rijeka is Croatia's largest cargo port. Since Croatia joined Schengen and the eurozone in 2023, trucks run between Rijeka and the Czech Republic without border checks.

A port spread across the bay

When booking a collection, the exact terminal matters more than the city name:

• Brajdica, close to the city centre, handles containers; trucks reach it through urban streets and need a time slot.
• Zagreb pier in the eastern harbour hosts the new deep-sea container terminal, operating since September 2025. In its first year it handled more than 370,000 TEU and receives services from Asia.
• Bakar Bay, east of the city, takes bulk cargo such as coal and ore, which mostly moves by rail.
• Škrljevo is a storage and processing site with motorway and rail access, convenient for dock loading.
• Omišalj on the island of Krk is the oil terminal.

The port also runs a grain silo and a timber terminal through which sawn wood from inland Europe is shipped to the Mediterranean.

What travels from Rijeka to Central Europe

For Czech consignees, the main flow is containerised goods from overseas: electronics, textiles, furniture, tools and industrial components, cleared on entry to the EU or moved under transit. Rijeka's shipyards still produce steel structures and ship sections, sometimes as heavy or out-of-gauge pieces. Fuels from the nearby refinery move only in ADR tankers through specialised carriers. Sawn timber comes from the forests of Gorski Kotar, and Kvarner and Istria supply olive oil, wine and chilled fish. In the opposite direction, Czech exporters send machinery, glass, paper, plastics and timber for loading into sea containers; a truck can collect an empty box in Rijeka, have it stuffed in the Czech Republic and return it to the terminal.

Bora wind, mountain passes and the route north

Rijeka sits at the foot of the mountains, and the winter bora can blow hard enough to close the Krk bridge and motorway sections to high-sided or lightly loaded vehicles, with empty curtainsiders the first to be stopped. The A6 towards Zagreb also climbs through Gorski Kotar, where snow is far more common than on the coast.

Trucks usually head north on the A7 to the Rupa/Jelšane crossing, then via Postojna onto the Slovenian A1 past Ljubljana and Maribor into Austria. The alternative, the A6 via Zagreb and Macelj, suits trucks with a second pick-up inland (see Zagreb). From Austria, the route continues via Graz and Vienna to Brno, roughly 660 km in total, or over the Pyhrn and Linz into Bohemia, with Prague around 800 km away. A single driver normally delivers to Moravia on the morning of the second working day and to Bohemia later that day. Croatia charges tolls by vehicle class, Slovenia and Austria by distance electronically, and all three restrict heavy trucks at weekends and on holidays, with tighter summer rules in Croatia.

Checklist for Rijeka container moves

• Send the container number, terminal name and release date.
• Decide in advance whether customs clearance happens in Croatia or after transit in the Czech Republic.
• Check the gross weight: heavy 20-foot boxes need a suitable chassis to stay within axle limits.
• For a few pallets from a stripped container, use pallet groupage; for a whole box, a direct truck.

Get an indicative figure for your Rijeka shipment in our freight calculator.