Croatian Cars Market in 2025 keeps expanding. Full-year sales grew by 6.9%, recovering from stagnation during Q1. Among best sellers, Opel show the largest gains, up 64% into 3rd. EVs keep lagging behind, down by 14.8%.
Economic Environment
Croatia’s economy is forecast to grow by 3.2% in 2025 and by 2.9% in 2026, following 3.9% growth in 2024. Solid private consumption, supported by real wage and employment gains, will be the main growth driver. Investment will continue to expand, helped by strong absorption of EU funds, though at a slower pace. The labour market will remain tight, with unemployment projected to fall to 4.6% in 2025 and 4.5% in 2026. Wage growth is expected to moderate, easing inflationary pressures. Headline inflation is set to decline from 4% in 2024 to 3.4% in 2025 and reach 2% by 2026. Despite resilient GDP growth, the general government deficit is expected to widen to 2.7% of GDP in 2025 due to higher pensions and investment spending. Croatia’s debt-to-GDP ratio should continue to decline to 56.3% in 2025, helped by solid nominal GDP growth.
Automotive Industry Trend and Outlook
The Croatian car market started the year off with a contraction. Q2 figures however indicate a recovery trend, which continued throughout Q3 and Q4. Full-year sales for 2025 gained 6.9% and reached 68,110 units.
Brand-wise, Skoda was still leader with a share of 13.9% (+11.7%), followed by Volkswagen in 2nd (+13.2%) and Opel -up 4 spots- in 3rd (+64%).
In fourth place ranked Renault which also lost 1 spot (+14.8%), while Suzuki followed in 5th (+5.2%) and Toyota -down 2 spots- in 6th (-2.1%).
Dacia –down 1 spot- ranked 7th (+5.3%) followed by Hyundai in 8th (-8.5%), Kia in 9th (-19.7%) and in 10th place Audi (+1.7%).
The best-selling car was the Skoda Octavia despite losing 6%, followed closely by the Volkswagen T-Cross (+42%) and by the Opel Corsa (+51.2%).
EV Market Trend and Outlook
Croatia’s EV segment keeps shrinking, down by 14.8% in 2025 and struggling to follow EV trends. Still, the market could potentially expand in the future as consumer demand becomes less and less reliant on subsidies.
Mercedes became the segment leader and climbed 2 spots despite losing 2.9% while replacing Tesla which fell into 2nd (-39.7%). Skoda ranked 3rd gaining 38.2%.
Medium-Term Market Trend
Between 2014 and 2024, Croatia’s car market nearly doubled, expanding from 33,953 to 62,931 units as strong household consumption and stable GDP growth supported demand. The pandemic caused a sharp 42.8% drop in 2020, but sales rebounded rapidly in 2021 and maintained positive momentum through 2024 despite a brief 2022 contraction.
However, EV adoption remained sluggish due to infrastructure gaps and slow implementation, with meaningful uptake only beginning in 2023 and still making up a negligible share of overall car sales. Looking ahead, stronger policy incentives, EU funds, and robust charging infrastructure investment should help the EV segment gain traction, although growth will likely remain gradual until consumer confidence rises further and cost barriers ease.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
