Although wages in Croatia rose exceptionally strongly in 2025, the earnings structure still shows that the “typical” employee remains clearly below the average. Data from the MojaPlaća salary service (Alma Career Croatia, part of the MojPosao platform) indicate that the average monthly net salary in 2025 (including bonuses) reached €1,538, a 14% increase compared with the previous year. At the same time, the median salary stood at €1,430, meaning that more than half of employees earned less than the national average, despite a 15% year-on-year rise in the median.
The end of the year brought another uptick. In the final quarter of 2025, the average rose to €1,578 and the median to €1,483. Importantly, the gap between the average and the median was the smallest in five years, which the report interprets as a sign that wages at the lower end of the labour market have been growing faster recently.
Despite the improvement, earnings are still heavily concentrated around the €1,000–€1,500 range. Some 38% of employees fell into that bracket (down from 44% a year earlier), while the shares in higher brackets clearly expanded: 22% now earn €1,500–€2,000, and 15% exceed €2,000 per month (up from 10% in 2024). The share of workers earning under €1,000 dropped to 12%, almost halving.
The biggest attention naturally goes to the very top-paid jobs. In MojaPlaća’s ranking, anaesthesiologists lead with an average of €3,657 per month, followed by pilots (€3,246) and IT architects (€2,823). Doctors also feature prominently, with average earnings of around €2,729. At the other end of the scale are service and manual occupations: seamstresses (about €864), hairdressers (about €962), cleaners (about €963), and tailors (about €984). The difference between an anaesthesiologist and a seamstress is more than fourfold, which illustrates the degree of labour-market polarisation.
By industry, IT remains the leader, with an average salary reported at €1,789, around 16% above the national average. Above-average pay is also reported in finance and insurance, energy and utilities, construction, and real estate. Education and science continue to lag behind, at around 8% below average. The dynamics are also noteworthy: the strongest wage growth occurred in public and local government (+20%) and in state-owned companies (+18%), although the highest absolute salary levels are said to be offered by private firms with predominantly foreign ownership.
The pay map remains uneven as well. Eastern Croatia continues to lag behind, with several counties reporting average wages below €1,300, while Zagreb is the top-paid region, with an average net salary of €1,662.
The report also highlights persistent social disparities: men earn on average 15% more than women, workers under 24 earn 21% less than the national average, and education remains a powerful wage lever—employees with postgraduate degrees are reported to earn up to 55% more than the average.
It is worth noting that MojaPlaća is based on data from a salary survey/service rather than administrative statistics. Even so, the broader upward trend is also reflected in figures from Croatia’s statistical office (DZS): for example, the average net wage in November 2025 was €1,498, with the highest sectoral pay recorded in air transport and the lowest in garment manufacturing.
