He was the grandson of one of the greatest Croatian Ban, Nikola IV Zrinski, who died in the tragic and heroic Siege of Szigetvár (Croatian: Sigetska bitka), at a town in the western Hungary where the Ottoman invasion to Vienna had been stopped.

Educated in Protestantism, he later turned to Catholicism and "purified" his estates from Lutheranism.

His wife Magdalena née Széchy bore him two children: Nikola Zrinski and Petar Zrinski,[1] who both later became distinguished Croatian bans and died a violent death.

Juraj Zrinski died in a military camp near Pressburg, during the Thirty Years' War.

At age 27 the ban was buried in Pauline monastery of Sveta Jelena (St. Helen in English) near Čakovec, next to the graves of his ancestors.