At the same time, around 11,000 people moved to Croatia.
On the occasion of International Migrants Day, the Central Bureau of Statistics released the data on migration in 2015, reports RTL on December 19, 2016.
Last year, slightly less than 30,000 people emigrated from Croatia and moved abroad, while just over 11,000 people move to Croatia. Therefore, net migration with foreign countries was negative and amounted to –17.945. The last time that net migration was in the positive territory was in 2008, when 7,053 more people moved to Croatia than moved abroad. The largest change in net migration was recorded in 2014, when the difference between the number of immigrants and the number of emigrants more than doubled from the year before.
Among those who leave to move abroad, 95.3 percent are Croatian nationals, while only 4.6 percent are foreigners formerly living in Croatia. If we analyze the number of emigrants from Croatia in 2015 by county, the first place belongs to Zagreb, with 17.0 percent of the total number of emigrants, followed by Primorje-Gorski Kotar County with 8.6 percent, and Zagreb County with 7.7 percent.
In 2015, the largest number of people emigrated to Germany, 41.6 percent of the total. The country was a popular destination in 2014 as well, when 38.2 percent of all emigrants went there. Germany replaced Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia which were primary destinations in previous years.
With regard to gender, although the share of men is larger (53.7 percent), the difference between them and women (46.3 percent) is not large. The largest share in the age structure of emigrants are men in their thirties, as well as women in their late twenties and thirties.
Of the total of 11,706 people who immigrated to Croatia from abroad, 55.4 percent were Croatian nationals while 44.5 percent were foreigners. Most of them, 32.5 percent, moved to Croatia from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Of the total number of immigrants, most of them settled in the City of Zagreb (23.6 percent), followed by Split-Dalmatia County (15.6 percent), and Istria County (9.2 percent).
In 2015, place of residence within Croatia was changed by the total of 75,927 people. Most of them (44.0 percent) moved between counties, while 37.2 percent moved between towns and municipalities within the same county. The largest share of people changing their addresses were men and women between the ages of 20 and 39 (47.4 percent).
Zagreb continues the trend from previous years and has a positive net inter-county migration (4,420 persons). On the other hand, Vukovar-Srijem County has the largest negative net migration (–1,179 people).
