Summary

• The current and capital account balance stood at EUR 4.39bn in the third quarter of 2025, down from EUR 5.0bn in the same quarter of the year before.
• The financial account of the balance of payments recorded a balance of EUR 4.31bn in the third quarter of 2025, relative to EUR 4.79bn in the same quarter of the year before.
• The net international investment position stood at EUR –25.1bn at the end of the third quarter of 2025. The negative balance went up by EUR 4.39bn from the end of the third quarter of 2024, while its share in GDP decreased from –24.8% to –27.8%.
• Gross external debt stood at EUR 60.4bn or 66.7% of GDP at the end of the third quarter of 2025.

The current and capital account of the balance of payments (Figure 1) ran a surplus of EUR 4.39bn in the third quarter of 2025, which is a deterioration in the balance of EUR 615m from the same quarter of the previous year. The decrease was mostly due to the primary income sub-account, the negative balance of which increased by EUR 422.7m from the same quarter in 2024. The negative goods balance increased by EUR 301.8m, while the positive balance on the services sub-account decreased by EUR 135.9m. The positive balances of the secondary income and capital accounts increased slightly by EUR 143.5m and EUR 101.9m, respectively.^[1]

Figure 1 Balance of payments – current and capital account

^a Sum of the last four quarters.
Source: CNB.

The balance in the financial account of the balance of payments (the difference between total assets acquired and total liabilities assumed) stood at EUR 4.31bn in the third quarter of 2025 (Figure 2). This was largely the result of net positive transactions of EUR 5.17bn recorded in other investment. Transactions in the portfolio investment sub-account were also net positive, amounting to EUR 1.04bn, while net transactions in the direct investment sub-account and financial derivatives were negative, standing at EUR –1.78bn and –EUR 195m, respectively. Net transactions in international reserves were positive in the third quarter of 2025, amounting to EUR 70m.

Figure 2 Balance of payments – financial account

^a Sum of the last four quarters.
Source: CNB.

At the level of the last four quarters (Table 1), the cumulative deficit in the current and capital account stood at EUR 1.93bn or 2.1% of GDP, relative to the deficit of EUR 650m or 0.7% of GDP in 2024. In the last four quarters, the financial account recorded a cumulative deficit of EUR 2.39bn or 2.6% of GDP, in contrast with a deficit of EUR 0.2bn or 0.2% of GDP recorded in 2024.

Table 1 Balance of payments (b.o.p.)

^a Sum of the last four quarters.

Notes: Positive net values for individual financial account components in Table 1 and Figure 2 indicate that transactions by which foreign assets are acquired are larger than the transactions by which foreign liabilities are assumed for a given financial account component over a given period or denote net capital outflow abroad. Negative values indicate that the transactions by which foreign assets are acquired are smaller than the transactions by which foreign liabilities are assumed for a given financial account component over a given period or denote net capital inflow from abroad.
Source: CNB.

Net international investment position (Figure 3) was EUR –25.1bn at the end of the third quarter of 2025, with the share in GDP standing at –27.8%. The negative balance went up by EUR 4.39bn from the end of the third quarter of 2024, while its share in GDP increased from –24.8% to –27.8%.

Figure 3 International investment position

Notes: The net international investment position equals the difference between domestic sectors' foreign assets and liabilities at the end of a period. The negative value of the net international investment position indicates that foreign liabilities of Croatian residents are greater than their foreign assets. Included are assets and liabilities based on debt instruments, equity investments, financial derivatives, and other instruments.
Source: CNB.

The share of net debt investment in GDP (Figure 4) went up from 3.4% in the second quarter of 2025 to 8.9% at the end of the third quarter of 2025, while the share of net equity investment in GDP increased from –38.3% to –36.6%. For the sake of comparison, the share of net debt investment and net equity investment in GDP at the end of the third quarter of 2024 stood at 10.7% and –35.5%, respectively.

Figure 4 Share of international investment position in GDP by type of investment

At the end of the third quarter of 2025, gross external debt (Figure 5) stood at EUR 60.4bn or 66.7% of GDP, down by EUR 1.9bn or 3.6 percentage points of GDP from the end of the second quarter of 2025. Gross external debt excluding CNB (87.6% of the total gross external debt) increased by EUR 0.7bn from the second quarter of 2025 and decreased by 0.5 percentage points if the share of debt in GDP is observed.

Figure 5 Stock of gross external debt^{[2] [3]}

Detailed balance of payments data
Detailed gross external debt data
Detailed data on the international investment position

1. Primary income consists of employee compensations and investment income (retained earnings, dividends, interest). Secondary income refers to current transfers (workers’ remittances, pensions, gifts and grants, taxes and contributions, flows of funds as part of international cooperation). ↑

2. After the Republic of Croatia joined the euro area, gross external debt increased by the amount of liabilities associated with the allocation of the euro banknotes within the Eurosystem. This amount is the difference between the amount of banknotes in circulation, the allocation to which the CNB is entitled according to the ECB’s key, and actually issued banknotes in circulation. In addition, this amount of liabilities is reduced by the estimated amount of euro banknotes in circulation in the Republic of Croatia that are issued under the ECB’s key of other euro area countries. Only the amount of the difference between the amount of banknotes in circulation, the allocation to which the CNB is entitled according to the ECB’s key, and the actually issued banknotes in circulation is recorded on the foreign claims side, so that the effect on the balance of net external debt is favourable since the balance of assets is larger than the balance of liabilities. ↑

3. In the fourth quarter of 2024, gross external debt saw a significant one-off decrease as the Croatian National Bank stopped conducting repo transactions abroad in December 2024. ↑