The Slovak Republic’s economic growth remained close to 2% in 2024. SMEs dominate the Slovak economy, accounting for 99.6% of the business population with at least one employee. The number of SMEs did not change significantly compared to 2023. The majority of SMEs (90.6%) were micro-enterprises in 2024, employing up to nine people.
Outstanding business loans to SMEs grew annually from 2013 to 2023, but in 2024 they declined by 3.9% year-on-year, from EUR 20 358 million to EUR 19 573 million. Long-term loans accounted for 60.6% of total outstanding SME loans, while short-term loans made up the remaining 39.4%.
New business loans to SMEs also recorded a decline, falling by 3.0% year-on-year, from EUR 6 299 million in 2023 to EUR 6 111 million in 2024. This development is consistent with the overall drop in outstanding business loans, mainly driven by lower demand from businesses, high interest rates, and an uncertain economic outlook in the domestic economy and among the Slovak Republic's main trading partners.
The share of non-performing SME loans remained higher (3.7%) than the overall share of non-performing loans (2.92%), but decreased by 0.6 percentage points year-on-year, indicating a positive trend.
Following the ECB’s rate hikes, SME loan rates rose from 2.9% in 2022 to 5.8% in 2024. Interest rates remain significantly higher than they were before the period of key interest rate increases, which continues to have a substantial impact on businesses' appetite for bank financing. This upward trend in interest rates was reflected in a slight decline in the volume of the new business SME loans.
The average business-to-business (B2B) payment delay in the Slovak Republic reached 13 days, representing an improvement of 2 days compared to the previous year. This is among the lowest levels in the long-term series, reflecting an improvement in overall payment discipline.
The volume of SME government loan guarantees fell sharply from EUR 182 million in 2023 to EUR 21 million in 2024, mainly due to the closure of previous programmes at the end of the structural funds programming period. The total volume of SME government direct loans provided by the state banks and the Slovak Business Agency remained unchanged year-on-year, at EUR 182 million.