September the 18th, 2024 – The sum of companies from abroad in Croatia remains relatively small, but regardless of that, foreign companies invest in Croatia – and quite generously.
As Josipa Ban/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, five percent of the total number of currently active companies in Croatia are foreign-owned, according to data from the State Statistical Office on the operations of companies under foreign control (iFATS) for the year 2022.
In terms of numbers, that would be exactly 11,438 companies out of a total of 227,408 companies that were active in the Republic of Croatia in 2022. During that year, foreign-owned companies achieved 38.2 percent of the total turnover of the business economy, which translates to an impressive 54.9 billion euros. These foreign companies also invest in Croatia fairly heavily given the small number of them registered here.
Statistics also show that foreign-owned companies headquartered here in Croatia generated 35.8 percent, or 12.9 billion euros, of added value. They also employed slightly more than 272,000 people.
The majority of foreign business owners working in Croatia (67 percent) come from elsewhere across the EU. An overview of statistics according to the headquarters of the ultimate controlling institutional unit, that is, from which country the owner comes, shows that foreign owners of companies in Croatia most often come from neighbouring Slovenia (1,568 companies), Germany (1,510) and Austria (1,254).
Here’s where we get to how much foreign companies invest in Croatia, and the figures might surprise you. When we look at long-term tangible assets of companies under foreign control in 2022, they account for as much as 45 percent of the investments of all companies headquartered in Croatia. More specifically speaking, that means a sum of 2.8 billion euros, while companies under domestic control invested 3.3 billion euros in total.
Five years ago, in 2019, the share of foreign-owned companies in Croatia stood at 3.7%. In a mere three years (from 2019 to 2022), their number increased by 4,666. That is a significant increase which bodes well for not only the economy but for the overall picture of Croatian investment.
