Croatian Tourism to Require 5,000 More Seasonal Workers in 2026

February 6, 2026

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Croatian Tourism to Require 5,000 More Seasonal Workers in 2026

February the 7th, 2026 – The Croatian tourism sector will need 5,000 more seasonal workers in summer 2026 than it did last year, and as if that wasn’t already enough of an obstacle, there’s another big problem…

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, hotel owners across the country are currently estimating that they will need 6%, or about 5,000 more seasonal workers this year than last year. About 60% of the companies surveyed expect to need more employees, and about 40% expect that they won’t need to increase the number of employees this season compared to last year, according to an internal survey by the Croatian Employers’ Association.

“These results indicate a continuation of the general trend of labour shortages on the domestic labour market. While maintaining the existing number of foreign workers we already have, employers plan to compensate for the shortage by hiring workers from across the more immediate region, and their numbers are expected to increase by 1%. Looking at workers from distant countries, the number of workers from the Philippines could see a 4% increase, with a decrease in the employment of people of India and Nepal.

In the structure of occupational shortages, cooks/chefs, waiters, confectioners, bartenders and valets were the most difficult to find last year. However, according to feedback from HUP members, many already have established recruitment processes and honed alluring financial and non-financial employment offers which manage to meet most needs, explained Natali Komen-Bujas, director of the Association of Hospitality and Tourism at the Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP).

croatian tourism will need 5,000 more seasonal workers in 2026, but the requirements are more stringent

Last year, Croatia issued around 170,000 residence and work permits to foreign workers, which is approximately 36,000 or 17% fewer than in 2024. This was the first time in the last 5 or so years that this number has decreased, the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) showed.

The state has significantly tightened the conditions for the employment of foreigners, especially from so-called third countries. This was to bring more order back to the labour market, given the flood of agencies that mediated in the import of foreign labour and the often lack of all legally guaranteed rights that these workers had with their employers.

However, as far as Croatian tourism and hospitality are concerned, not much has changed and more seasonal workers will be needed in 2026 come hell or high water. Last year, around 53,000 work permits were issued in the tourism and hospitality industry, or around 3,000 (6%) less than the year before.

What is new, however, is the fact that tourism has returned to first place in terms of issued work permits for foreigners. This is because construction fell from as many as 75,000 work permits in 2024, to slightly less than 53,000, this is just a bit less than the number of work permits issued for tourism activities.

When viewed by countries from which foreign workers come to Croatia, neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina still holds the top spot, with 6,000 fewer work permits were issued, reaching a total of around 32,000.

Nepal is still in second place, although the number of work permits was also reduced by some 4,000, to a total of 32,000. Serbia came in third place with around 24,000 work permits issued, which is also about 4,000 fewer permits.

Permits issued to workers from the Philippines moved up to fourth place, with nearly 18,000 work permits issued to its citizens, marking a 20% increase. India fell from fourth to fifth place, with around 15,400 (a very significant 25%) fewer permits issued to its citizens.

A similar shift also occurred in that the number of permits issued to new workers in general fell drastically, by as much as 50,000. At the same time, the number of extensions of existing permits increased by 13,000, and the number of permits for seasonal workers also increased, from 17,000 in 2024 to around 20,000 in 2025.

more alluring employment offers come with tighter regulations

When asked how tourism companies coped with the stricter employment requirements, the Association of Hospitality and Tourism at the Croatian Employers’ Association indicated that last year’s tourism year brought a certain stabilisation. That’s partly the result of last year’s amendments to the Foreigners Act, and partly as a result of market circumstances.

Natali Komen-Bujas explained that in 2025, in terms of the structure of employees in a sample of large hotel companies that employ around 40% of all employees in the category of accommodation service providers in Croatia, the majority (around 67%) were local workers. In addition, 21% were employees from neighbouring countries, while workers from the Philippines made up around 3.9% of the workforce, which is even slightly higher than the year before.

Next are India and Nepal, which together made up 3.4%. Their share has now markedly decreased, and then came workers from other EU countries and Ukraine, and their numbers made up a meagre 1.6% only.

In terms of how employers (particularly those in Croatian tourism for whom more seasonal workers will be needed in 2026) are coping with the new requirements of the Foreigners Act, Komen-Bujas indicated that things have levelled out. For example, the extension of the validity of work permits and the tightening of the employment process with extended deadlines for issuing new permits have encouraged employers to turn to the demand for domestic labour even more. This is in tandem with working to retain their existing employees and permanent seasonal workers, wherever they’re from.

In more recent years, the Croatian tourism sector has also recorded a trend of continuous wage increases. Over the last two years alone, the largest tourism companies have increased their wages by 25%, with labour costs in 2025 increasing by 11% compared to 2024. In addition, operating income has increased by 7.8%.

In addition to higher wages, employers provide additional benefits. In many cases, accommodation and food are provided, with the Croatian tourism sector becoming an increasingly alluring employer in terms of working conditions.