March the 27th, 2025 – Are Croats returning home? Are they heading elsewhere again? There are now 10,500 fewer Croatian citizens living in Germany compared to two years ago.
As Dijana Jurasic/VL/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, in just a couple of years, the number of Croatian citizens in Germany has decreased by 10,500, according to the first data on foreigners from Destatis, the German Federal Statistical Office.
Back at the tail end of last year, 425,810 of Croatian citizens were registered as living in Germany, while at the end of 2022, there were 436,325 of them. At the end of 2023, that figure stood at 434,045. Although the largest number of Croatian citizens is still registered as living in Germany, out of a total of 600,000 Croatian citizens living in other EU countries, Croats remain the fifth largest immigrant nation to Germany from elsewhere in the EU after the Romanians, Poles, Italians and Bulgarians.
are croatian citizens returning to croatia from germany or going elsewhere?
However, only when the age structure of Croatian returnees from Germany is known, as well as the data on how many have actually returned to Croatia and not gone elsewhere, will we know whether the country has any reason at all for optimism.
If young Croatian emigrants from the last wave are the ones returning to Croatia with their families, then that is a positive development, even if there were only a few thousand returnees among them. Demographer Dražen Živić, who is also an adviser to the Minister of Demography and Immigration Ivan Šipić, pointed out that the data on the decrease in Croatian citizens living Germany is an indication of a slowdown in negative demographic trends and migration.
Such notions should still be taken with a strong dose of caution however, because we don’t know how many Croatian citizens among those returnees have returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and how many have actually returned to Croatia.
has the german dream died?
“The global context of all this is fraught with challenges, including security. Germany is also currently experiencing certain economic difficulties, which is why the perspective of returning to Croatia is opening up to some people. After these current modest figures, the situation could go in a more significant direction if the return of Croatian citizens from Germany is accompanied by certain attractive factors in Croatia itself, which are still not strong enough to attract a statistically relevant number of people.
However, we definitely need to look at why people are returning and what they’re actually returning for. In that context, the state should carefully listen to specific things related to the economy, easier investment, lower taxes etc, especially in deserted areas like Slavonia. That should be encouraged. Then, we could expect a more noticeable return of younger emigrants from the last wave, as well as of older ones,” Živić believes.
He added that today, fewer people are emigrating from Croatia, and although the numbers of returnees are still small, he’s happy that the steep decline is slowing.
why did they leave croatia in the first place?
“If, over time, the number of immigrants who are Croatian citizens increases and the number of immigrants who are foreigners decreases, this will be a positive trend from the perspective of long-term demographic revitalisation.
When emigration stops and the immigrants are dominated by returnees to Croatia who return to a familiar environment and integrate easily, the need for importing foreign labour coming from a different culture and whose integration costs are incomparably higher will decrease.
In addition to that, foreign workers generally don’t bring their families here and would have difficulty providing them with a roof over their heads, which is why their arrival doesn’t affect the demographic picture of the country in the long term. There is a risk however of their ghettoisation. We can’t avoid importing foreign labour, but we should primarily focus on Croatian citizens, who, for example, left for Germany or Ireland five or ten years ago.
The state needs to provide affordable housing for young people, tax breaks and subsidies for those who want to invest here, which goes beyond the classic demographic story. Things have started to move, however. The worst thing would be to stop all this now and let employers continue to run the immigration policy,” warned Živić.
The goal is not to have 10,000 Croatian citizens return and become an issue for social services or the welfare system here, or regret having returned if the socio-economic causes that led them to leave initially are not eliminated.
