Summary

• The current and capital account balance stood at EUR –3.65bn in the first quarter of 2025, relative to EUR –2.78bn in the same quarter of the year before.
• The financial account of the balance of payments recorded a balance of EUR –4.09bn in the first quarter of 2025, relative to EUR–2.62bn in the same quarter of the year before.
• The net international investment position stood at EUR –27.1bn at the end of the first quarter of 2025. The negative balance went up by EUR 2.83m from the end of the first quarter of 2024, while its share in GDP increased from –30.4% to –31.2%.
• Gross external debt stood at EUR 57.8bn or 66.7% of GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2025.

The current and capital account of the balance of payments (Figure 1) ran a deficit of EUR 3.65bn in the first quarter of 2025, which is a deterioration in the balance of EUR 0.87bn from the same quarter of the previous year. The decrease was mostly due to the goods sub-account, the negative balance of which increased by EUR 511m. Relative to the same quarter of the previous year, the positive balance in the services and primary income sub-accounts decreased by EUR 209.4m and EUR 177.9m, respectively. The positive balance in the secondary income sub-account increased by EUR 12.1m.^[1] The positive balance in capital transactions improved by EUR 10.3m from the same quarter of the previous year.

Figure 1 Balance of payments – current and capital account

¹ 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 –4.09bn in the first quarter of 2025, relative to EUR –2.62bn in the same quarter of the previous year (Figure 2). This was largely the result of the increase in new net liabilities arising from other investment by EUR 2.59bn, while new net liabilities arising from direct investment went up by EUR 299.1m. New net assets from portfolio investments remained in the positive territory and increased by EUR 549.6m, while new net liabilities from financial derivatives decreased from EUR –469m to EUR –116m. International reserves increased by EUR 338m in the first quarter of 2025, relative to the decrease by EUR 187m in the same quarter of the year before.

Figure 2 Balance of payments – financial account

¹ 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 705m or 0.8% of GDP, relative to the surplus of EUR 172m or 0.2% of GDP in 2024. In the last four quarters, the financial account recorded a cumulative deficit of EUR 684m or 0.8% of GDP, in contrast with a surplus of EUR 776m or 0.9% of GDP recorded in 2024.

Table 1 Balance of payments

^* 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 –27.1bn at the end of the first quarter of 2025, with the share in GDP standing at –31.2%. The negative balance went up by EUR 2.83m or by 0.8 percentage points of GDP from the end of the first quarter of 2024.

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 went down from 10.6% at the end of 2024 to 5.5% at the end of the first quarter of 2025, while the share of net equity investment in GDP changed from –37.9% to –36.8%. For the sake of comparison, the share of net debt investment and net equity investment in GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2024 stood at 3.8% and –34.3%, respectively.

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

At the end of the first quarter of 2025, gross external debt (Figure 5) stood at EUR 57.8bn or 66.7% of GDP, up by EUR 1.6bn or 1 percentage point of GDP from the end of 2024. Gross external debt excluding CNB (87.7% of the total gross external debt) increased by EUR 1.8bn from the end of 2024 or by 1.3 percentage points if the share of debt in GDP is observed.

Figure 5 Stock of gross external debt^[2]

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. ↑