Economic growth eases in Q3 2025

Q3 sees weakest GDP growth in years: Croatia's GDP expanded 2.3% in annual terms in Q3, following 3.6% growth in the prior quarter. Q3's reading was the weakest since Q4 2020. On a seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter basis, the economy expanded 0.3% in Q3, following 0.9% growth in the prior quarter.

Private spending and exports weigh on the economy: Compared with the prior period's data, figures in Q3 softened for private consumption (+1.9% in annual terms vs +4.0% in Q2) and exports of goods and services (-1.1% vs +0.7% in Q2). In contrast, readings strengthened for government consumption (+3.8% vs +3.3% in Q2), fixed investment (+7.5% vs +4.9% in Q2) and imports of goods and services (+2.4% vs +0.1% in Q2). U.S. protectionism and trade uncertainty seemingly weighed on EU demand, hurting exports; while Croatia exports little directly to the U.S., its economy is very open and integrated into euro area supply chains. On the flipside, EU funds likely supported the improvements in government spending and fixed investment growth in the quarter, as Croatia has now received a total of EUR 5.3 billion of NextGenerationEU funds—including a disbursement of EUR 835.6 million in September.

GDP growth to remain healthy: Our panelists expect year-on-year economic growth to accelerate from Q3 in Q4, before broadly stabilizing through end-2026. Looking further ahead, GDP growth should stabilize slightly below 3% and stay above the euro area average through 2030, supported by EU funds, tourism and resilient domestic demand.

How should you choose a forecaster if some are too optimistic while others are too pessimistic? FocusEconomics collects Croatian GDP projections for the next ten years from a panel of 29 analysts at the leading national, regional and global forecast institutions. These projections are then validated by our in-house team of economists and data analysts and averaged to provide one Consensus Forecast you can rely on for each indicator. By averaging all forecasts, upside and downside forecasting errors tend to cancel each other out, leading to the most reliable GDP forecast available for Croatian GDP.

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