Language

Official language
Slovak

T-index
0.13%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Other languages
Hungarian, Rusyn, Czech

English
High proficiency (EF) – 15 of 112 countries/regions in the world- 13/35 position in Europe.

Demography

Capital: Bratislava
Currency: Euro
Population: 5.45 m (2022)
Population density: 114/km2

Economy

GDP: 116.53 billion USD (2020)
GDP per capita: 21,391.9 USD ‎(2020) ‎
Exports: $86.4 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 90% penetration, 4.91 million
Unemployment rate: 6.9% (2020)
Urbanisation: 88.116% (2020)
Literacy: 99.6%

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator, space as thousands separator

Date format: yyyy-mm-dd / dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 00421

Economy

Imports
$77.8 billion (2020).  Motor vehicles; parts and accessories (8701 to 8705) ($8.58B), Cars ($2.73B), Broadcasting Equipment ($2.12B), Crude Petroleum ($1.64B), and Insulated Wire ($1.53B), importing mostly from Germany ($14.7B), Czechia ($14.2B), Poland ($6.39B), Hungary ($5.42B), and China ($4.32B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 84% have an account with a financial institution
• 22% have a credit card
• 57% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 75.6 out of 100) ranked 28th out of 44 OECD and high-income countries ranked 45th out of 190 countries worldwide (2022, World Bank).

Exports
$86.4 billion (2020). Cars ($24.8B), Motor vehicles; parts and accessories (8701 to 8705) ($4.98B), Video Displays ($4B), Broadcasting Equipment ($2.72B), and Rubber Tires ($1.55B), exporting mostly to Germany ($19.2B), Czechia ($8.74B), France ($6.18B), Poland ($5.85B), and Hungary ($5.37B).

Main local online stores
heureka.sk, azla.sk and aliexpress.com. Other top retail sites include bazar.sk and skgeodesy.sk.

Economic freedom
‘Moderately free’ (rated 69 out of 100) ranked 20th out of 45 European countries ranked 33rd out of 186 countries worldwide (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 29th out of 39 European countries, and 46th out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Media

Media language:
Slovak, English

Information channels

Established private TV stations Markiza and Joj are the market leaders. Radio and TV Slovakia (RTVS) is the public broadcaster. The media are generally “free and independent, despite substantial pressure on journalists exerted by both from the government and from outlets’ owners”, says Freedom House in its 2017 country report. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says that the 2018 murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak from the Aktuality news website “triggered an unprecedented political earthquake”. “In the absence of strong institutions that should protect them, Slovakia’s journalists are increasingly exposed to all kinds of harassment, intimidation, and abuse”, the organization says. Many outlets are directly or indirectly owned by Slovak financial groups Penta and J&T. All the major newspapers are privately-owned. The best-selling daily is the tabloid Novy Cas. There are 4.6 million internet users (InternetWorldStats.com, December 2017).
Azet.sk is the leading online portal.

The press

Dennik N – daily
Pravda – daily
Sme – daily
Novy Cas – daily, tabloid
Plus 7 dni – leading weekly
The Slovak Spectator – English-language weekly

Television

Slovak TV – public, operates two networks
TV Markiza – commercial
TA3 – commercial, news
TV Joj – commercial

Radio

Slovak Radio – public, operates nine networks
Radio Expres – national, commercial
Radio Jemne – national, commercial
Europa 2 – national, commercial
Fun Radio – national, commercial

News agency

TASR – partly state-funded news agency
SITA – private news agency
Azet – popular portal, operates news site Aktuality

Internet Data

Internet users
90% penetration, 4.91 million

Share of web traffic by device
47.23% mobile phones, 51.23% computers (laptops and desktops), 1.47% tablet devices, others 0.07%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
32.79 Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
47.43 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 136.3%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 82.7%

Most popular web search engines
Google (96.73%), Bing (2.64%), DuckduckGo (0.22%), Yahoo (0.14%), Yandex (0.14%), Ecosia (0.12%), Seznam (0.06%)

Most used social media
Facebook (92.14%), Pinterest (3.22%), Twitter (1.78%), Instagram (1.73%), YouTube (0.67%), Reddit (0.22%)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
77 yrs (2020)

Average age of the population
41.2 yrs (2020)

Healthcare expenditure
6.96% of GDP

Glass Ceiling Index
64.7 out 100, ranked 12th out of 29 countries.

The glass-ceiling index measures the environment for working women combining data on higher education, labor-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity and paternity rights, business-school applications, and representation in senior jobs.

Gender
Coming from a long tradition of women playing a rather submissive role in society, the business community is still in the process of integrating women as managers with equal responsibility. However, the Slovak environment has been rapidly changing and frequently resembles the situation in Western firms.

Ethnicity
Slovakia still remains a considerably homogenous country. The two major minorities are the Romas (gypsies) and Hungarians. Due to a low level of awareness and appreciation of diversity and different skin colors and ethnicities, some Slovaks, especially Skinheads, display considerable prejudice and intolerance toward minorities, most notably the Roma.

Graduates (tertiary education)
While the Slovak Republic’s share of tertiary graduates has been steadily increasing over the past decade, the share remains lower than the OECD average. A majority of those who pursue tertiary education receive master’s degrees.

A smaller share of the population has attained tertiary education in the Slovak Republic than in other OECD countries. Only 37% of young adults (aged 25–34) have completed tertiary education, compared to 47% on average across OECD countries. The tertiary enrolment rate in 2017 was also lower than the OECD average across all age groups from 19 to 28.

Religion
The major religion in Slovakia is Catholicism. With overall modernization and westernization, religion is gradually losing its strong position in society. This is particularly vivid among the younger generation and in the bigger cities.

Class
Class plays an important role in society. The fall of communism gave rise to all the classes known in capitalist societies: the elite, upper classes, upper-middle class, and lower classes.