At the end of 2025, Croatia’s healthcare system employed 80,806 healthcare workers, up 2,327 from a year earlier.

The country had 2,025 providers of healthcare services at the end of 2025, 110 more than a year earlier, according to the Croatian Health Statistics Yearbook 2025 published by HZJZ.

Only three palliative care institutions

The strongest growth was recorded in the private sector, where the number of healthcare providers owned by companies rose by 95, from 968 in 2024 to 1,063 in 2025. A decade ago, there were 438 such providers.

By contrast, the number of primary healthcare centres fell by 11 to 24 following a reorganisation and merger process.

Croatia gained one additional palliative care institution in 2025, bringing the total to three hospices, located in Rijeka, Pula and Split.

Healthcare services were provided through a network of five clinical hospital centres, 22 general hospitals, 37 specialised hospitals and seven health resorts.

Croatia’s healthcare workforce continued to expand in 2025, with the number of healthcare professionals exceeding 80,000 for the first time.

The sector employed 80,806 healthcare workers, up 2,327 from a year earlier, reducing the population-to-healthcare-worker ratio to 48:1 from 64:1 a decade ago.

The number of physicians rose by 424 year on year to almost 17,000, an increase of nearly 2,500 compared with ten years earlier.

At the end of 2025, Croatia had 11,080 medical specialists.

The largest groups were family medicine specialists (1,085), followed by anaesthesiologists (814), paediatricians (792), obstetricians and gynaecologists (731), and clinical radiologists (667). The country also had 438 cardiologists.

More and more nurses and technicians with higher education, a decline in staff with secondary education

While the number of physicians increased last year compared with 2024, the number of nurses and medical technicians fell by 1,026. However, the share of highly educated nursing staff continued to rise.

In 2025, Croatia’s healthcare system employed 33,942 nurses and medical technicians, including 1,032 with university-level qualifications, 10,901 with higher professional qualifications and 22,009 with secondary-level qualifications.

A year earlier, there were 34,968 nurses and technicians, of whom 828 had university qualifications, 10,627 had higher professional qualifications and 23,513 had secondary-level qualifications.

The figures show a continued increase in the number of nurses and technicians with higher education, alongside a decline in staff with secondary-level qualifications.

General practice

A total of 1,406 doctors worked in general practice in 2025, including 1,085 GPs with specialist qualifications and 321 doctors in specialist training, representing a slight increase compared with the previous year.

GPs provided care to 3,579,126 insured persons in 2025, with 3,273,575 people using primary healthcare services. Patients visited their GPs 49,006,108 times during the year, resulting in more than 10.5 million consultations and 4,695,876 referrals for specialist appointments.

The most common reasons for visiting a GP were external causes, including traffic accidents, falls, injuries, poisoning and other incidents. These were followed by respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and endocrine and metabolic disorders.