WFY’26: Croatia’s factoring market jumps 25% to €1.9bn as reverse factoring surges

Croatia’s factoring market recorded its strongest growth in five years in 2025, with total turnover rising by around 25% to €1.9bn as reverse factoring and non-bank providers expanded rapidly. In this country report, Nives Rudež, Director of Factoring at OTP banka, examines how tighter corporate liquidity, longer payment cycles and changing competitive dynamics are shaping the country’s receivables finance market.

The article included in the World Factoring Yearbook 2026 (WFY’26) explores a market still overwhelmingly dominated by banks, but where independent factoring companies grew significantly faster in 2025. It also examines the rise of reverse factoring, Croatia’s reliance on bank working-capital facilities, growing fintech competition and plans for a new Factoring Act that could reshape the regulatory framework.

Below is an excerpt from her article.

The factoring industry experienced a year of robust expansion in 2025, with total turnover rising by an impressive 25 per cent compared to the previous year. Growth was broad-based across all types of service providers, but particularly pronounced among independent non-bank firms, whose turnover surged by 53 per cent, increasing their share of the overall market by nearly two percentage points.

Despite this dynamic shift, banks continued to dominate the sector, accounting over 90% of total factoring turnover and recording solid growth of 18 per cent. By product type, reverse factoring led the way with the strongest increase of 35.6 per cent, followed by traditional domestic factoring at 23 per cent. International factoring also expanded, albeit at a more moderate pace of 8 per cent, resulting in a decline in its share of total volume from 12 per cent to 10 per cent.

In 2025, factoring in Croatia experienced its highest growth in five years, increasing by 24.6 per cent. This growth was largely driven by the surge in reverse factoring, which rose by 36 per cent and increased its share of total factoring volume to 28 per cent, up from 26 per cent in 2024. Reverse factoring is expanding more rapidly than other factoring products, narrowing the gap with domestic factoring, which has seen a moderate but steady decline over recent years (61.8 per cent in 2025 vs. 62.4 per cent in 2024 and 66 per cent in 2023). International factoring remains relatively stable at around 10-12 per cent of the total volume.

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To read the whole article and 50 other specialist articles and country market reviews, order World Factoring Yearbook 2026 here.