Household Goods Come In Duty-Free Only After Citizenship, Asylum or Permanent Settlement - and Never the Car
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Malta on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
195 exceptions recorded across 74 countries · none match Malta to Serbia · Bringing your belongings
The relief for a move is in the Regulation on customs privileges rather than in the Customs Act, and it is narrower than a reader expects. Article 4 gives relief from import duties on household goods to foreign nationals who have obtained Serbian citizenship and to foreign nationals who have been granted asylum or permanent settlement in Serbia - and to nobody else. A foreigner arriving on a single permit or on any temporary residence is outside it. Motor vehicles are excluded in terms. To use the relief the beneficiary files a written application with a confirmation from the interior authority of admission to citizenship, or of asylum or permanent settlement, together with a list of the household goods naming their kind and quantity; the customs authority certifies the list and notes the certification in the beneficiary's travel document. Article 5 covers the other direction - Serbian nationals returning from work abroad - with its own thresholds: at least two and at most ten years abroad gives relief up to EUR 20,000 on goods imported within a year of return, and ten years or more gives relief with no ceiling stated.
At a glance
- Who gets relief on household goods
- Foreign nationals who have obtained Serbian citizenship, and foreign nationals granted asylum or permanent settlement in Serbia
Article 4 of the Uredba o carinskim povlasticama, made under article 245, point 3), of the Carinski zakon.
- What is excluded
- Motor vehicles
Article 4 of the Uredba o carinskim povlasticama states the exclusion in terms.
- What a temporary resident gets
- Nothing under article 4, which names only citizenship, asylum and permanent settlement
Permanent settlement normally takes three years of continuous temporary residence under article 67(2) of the Zakon o strancima, so a new arrival's furniture is dutiable.
- Returning Serbian nationals, two to ten years abroad
- Relief up to EUR 20,000, in dinar equivalent, on household goods imported within one year of returning, regardless of transport costs
Article 5 of the Uredba o carinskim povlasticama.
- Returning Serbian nationals, ten years or more abroad
- Relief on household goods imported within one year of returning, with no ceiling stated
Article 5 of the Uredba o carinskim povlasticama.
- Paperwork
- A written application, a confirmation of citizenship, asylum or permanent settlement, and a list of goods with kind and quantity, certified by the customs authority and noted in the travel document
Article 4 of the Uredba o carinskim povlasticama.
Requirements
- For a foreigner: Serbian citizenship, asylum, or permanent settlement in Serbia - a temporary residence permit or a single permit is not enough
- A written application for relief from import duties, filed with the customs authority
- A confirmation from the competent interior affairs authority of admission to citizenship, or of the grant of asylum or permanent settlement
- A list of the household goods being brought in, naming the kind and quantity of each item, for certification by the customs authority
In detail
The relief arrives three years after the move
This is the sharpest practical consequence in the Serbian record. A person who takes a job in Belgrade and ships a household arrives on a single permit, which article 4 of the regulation does not mention; the relief is for citizenship, asylum and permanent settlement. Permanent settlement follows three years of continuous temporary residence. So the duty-free move is available to the person who has already been living in Serbia for three years, which is to say after the move it would have paid for.
Country-level policy
Every citation on these pages goes to the Pravno-informacioni sistem Republike Srbije, and Serbian law says exactly what that is. The Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata establishes the system in article 28 as a collection of data in electronic form containing the electronic form of the Official Gazette, the archive of gazettes, the register and texts of the regulations in force, case law and a link to EU legal acts, published on the internet pages of the public enterprise. Article 26 settles what is authoritative and what is not: the basic and special editions of the Gazette are issued in printed form and in electronic form in PDF and HTML, and it is the printed form and the electronic form in PDF that are the official editions. HTML is produced and is not named among them. Article 29 then describes what the system gives away free to every internet user, and the first item on the list is 'незванично пречишћени текстови прописа' - unofficially consolidated texts of regulations - alongside the original gazettes in PDF carrying the base texts and the gazettes carrying their amendments; for everything else the enterprise charges a price the Government approves. The pages themselves are headed 'Редакцијски пречишћен текст', an editorially consolidated text: a third phrase for the same status. So the consolidated text this corpus quotes is free, current, produced by the state's own publisher, and not the official edition of anything.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Malta
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«Страни држављани који су добили држављанство и страни држављани који су добили азил, односно одобрење за стално настањење у Републици Србији, у складу са чланом 245\. тачка 3) Царинског закона, ослобођени су од плаћања увозних дажбина на предмете за своје домаћинство, осим на моторна возила. Ради коришћења повластице из става 1\. овог члана, корисник повластице, уз писмени захтев за ослобођење од плаћања увозних дажбина, царинском органу подноси: 1) потврду надлежног органа унутрашњих послова о пријему у држављанство Републике Србије, односно потврду да је добио азил или одобрење за стално настањење у Републици Србији; 2) списак предмета за домаћинство које уноси, односно увози, са назначењем врсте и количине предмета.»Our translation - not official
Foreign nationals who have obtained citizenship and foreign nationals who have been granted asylum, or a permit for permanent settlement in the Republic of Serbia, in accordance with article 245, point 3), of the Customs Act, are relieved from the payment of import duties on goods for their household, except on motor vehicles. In order to use the privilege under paragraph 1 of this article, the beneficiary of the privilege submits to the customs authority, together with a written application for relief from the payment of import duties: 1) a confirmation from the competent interior affairs authority of admission to citizenship of the Republic of Serbia, or a confirmation that he has been granted asylum or a permit for permanent settlement in the Republic of Serbia; 2) a list of the household goods he is bringing in or importing, with an indication of the kind and quantity of the items.
About this source
The legal information system of the Republic of Serbia, established by article 28 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata and run by the state publishing enterprise JP Službeni glasnik, which also prints the gazette itself. It carries the electronic Official Gazette, the archive of gazettes, the register and texts of regulations in force, case law, and a link to EU legal acts. Article 29 makes three things free to every internet user: the consolidated texts of regulations, the original gazettes in PDF in which the base texts were published, and the gazettes in which their amendments were published; everything else is charged for at a price the enterprise sets with the Government's consent. Addresses follow ELI: https://www.pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs/SlGlasnikPortal/eli/rep/sgrs/{body}/{type}/{year}/{issue}/{item} where {body} is skupstina, vlada or ministarstva, {type} is zakon, uredba, odluka or pravilnik, {issue} is the gazette number and {item} is the instrument's position among that body's instruments of that type in that issue - not its page and not its article. An amending act's own ELI resolves to the consolidated text of the act it amended. The end of every consolidated text carries a register block - Основ доношења прописа, Акт којима је пропис основ доношења, Повезани пропис - listing every subordinate instrument by gazette number and page, which is the cheapest index to Serbian secondary legislation we have found.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Its consolidated texts are not official and the governing Act says so.** Article 26 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata provides that the printed gazette and the electronic gazette in PDF are the official editions; the HTML edition is produced but is not named among them. Article 29 describes what the system offers free as 'незванично пречишћени текстови прописа' - unofficially consolidated texts. The pages themselves are headed 'Редакцијски пречишћен текст', an editorially consolidated text, which is a third form of words for the same thing. Cite it for what the law now says and say what it is; for the text as enacted, go to the gazette PDF the page links. **Its consolidations carry no sweep date.** The masthead lists every gazette number incorporated and nothing else, so there is a last amendment incorporated but no statement of a date up to which the text was checked. Do not record a consolidation cut-off from it. **It is unreliable to render and fails silently in two distinguishable ways.** A 73-character reply beginning 'Ne postoji akt sa URI-jem' is the publisher saying the address does not exist. A reply of roughly 1,225, 6,691 or 8,000 characters that begins with the Glasnik contact line or with the gazette navigation is the PIS home page served because the single-page application did not render the document - a failure of our extraction, never an absence of the instrument. Where /reg returns one of those, dropping /reg often renders the same instrument: the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana at .../zakon/2001/24/1/reg returned the home page on four attempts and .../zakon/2001/24/1 returned 266,652 characters of it. The dated form .../reg/YYYY-MM-DD renders a different and shorter version of the same instrument, so quotations must not be mixed between the two addresses. **Its texts mix scripts.** The statutes are published in Cyrillic, but article 40 of the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana carries Latin e, o and a glyphs inside Cyrillic words, and article 26 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona prints 'РDF' with a Cyrillic Р while article 29 prints 'PDF' with a Latin one. Both are the publisher's own encoding and quotations must reproduce them. **It interleaves furniture with the statute**: 'Мишљења, модели и литература' and 'Судска пракса' are inserted after article headings, so a quotation taken across an article boundary will contain words the legislator never wrote. **Its English service cannot be cited.** propisi.pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs advertises 'More than 200 basic and refined texts of regulations of the Republic of Serbia translated into English' under ISSN 1452-6662, but it is a subscription product and a single-page application: both / and /index returned the same 1,499-character shell, so no English text of any Serbian instrument was readable here.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Домаћи држављани – чланови посада домаћих бродова и домаћи држављани, који су, по било ком основу били на раду у иностранству непрекидно најмање две године, у складу са чланом 245\. тачка 4) Царинског закона, ослобођени су од плаћања увозних дажбина на предмете домаћинства, осим на моторна возила. Лица из става 1\. овог члана која су била на раду у иностранству непрекидно најмање две године, а највише непрекидно до десет година, ослобођена су од плаћања увозних дажбина, на предмете домаћинства које увозе из иностранства у року од једне године од дана повратка са рада у иностранству, до укупне вредности од 20.000 евра, у динарској противвредности, независно од трошкова превоза.»Our translation - not official
Domestic nationals who are members of the crews of domestic ships and domestic nationals who, on any ground, have been working abroad continuously for at least two years are, in accordance with article 245, point 4), of the Customs Act, relieved from the payment of import duties on household goods, except on motor vehicles. Persons under paragraph 1 of this article who have been working abroad continuously for at least two years and at most continuously up to ten years are relieved from the payment of import duties on household goods which they import from abroad within one year of the day of their return from work abroad, up to a total value of EUR 20,000, in dinar equivalent, regardless of transport costs.
About this source
The legal information system of the Republic of Serbia, established by article 28 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata and run by the state publishing enterprise JP Službeni glasnik, which also prints the gazette itself. It carries the electronic Official Gazette, the archive of gazettes, the register and texts of regulations in force, case law, and a link to EU legal acts. Article 29 makes three things free to every internet user: the consolidated texts of regulations, the original gazettes in PDF in which the base texts were published, and the gazettes in which their amendments were published; everything else is charged for at a price the enterprise sets with the Government's consent. Addresses follow ELI: https://www.pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs/SlGlasnikPortal/eli/rep/sgrs/{body}/{type}/{year}/{issue}/{item} where {body} is skupstina, vlada or ministarstva, {type} is zakon, uredba, odluka or pravilnik, {issue} is the gazette number and {item} is the instrument's position among that body's instruments of that type in that issue - not its page and not its article. An amending act's own ELI resolves to the consolidated text of the act it amended. The end of every consolidated text carries a register block - Основ доношења прописа, Акт којима је пропис основ доношења, Повезани пропис - listing every subordinate instrument by gazette number and page, which is the cheapest index to Serbian secondary legislation we have found.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Its consolidated texts are not official and the governing Act says so.** Article 26 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata provides that the printed gazette and the electronic gazette in PDF are the official editions; the HTML edition is produced but is not named among them. Article 29 describes what the system offers free as 'незванично пречишћени текстови прописа' - unofficially consolidated texts. The pages themselves are headed 'Редакцијски пречишћен текст', an editorially consolidated text, which is a third form of words for the same thing. Cite it for what the law now says and say what it is; for the text as enacted, go to the gazette PDF the page links. **Its consolidations carry no sweep date.** The masthead lists every gazette number incorporated and nothing else, so there is a last amendment incorporated but no statement of a date up to which the text was checked. Do not record a consolidation cut-off from it. **It is unreliable to render and fails silently in two distinguishable ways.** A 73-character reply beginning 'Ne postoji akt sa URI-jem' is the publisher saying the address does not exist. A reply of roughly 1,225, 6,691 or 8,000 characters that begins with the Glasnik contact line or with the gazette navigation is the PIS home page served because the single-page application did not render the document - a failure of our extraction, never an absence of the instrument. Where /reg returns one of those, dropping /reg often renders the same instrument: the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana at .../zakon/2001/24/1/reg returned the home page on four attempts and .../zakon/2001/24/1 returned 266,652 characters of it. The dated form .../reg/YYYY-MM-DD renders a different and shorter version of the same instrument, so quotations must not be mixed between the two addresses. **Its texts mix scripts.** The statutes are published in Cyrillic, but article 40 of the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana carries Latin e, o and a glyphs inside Cyrillic words, and article 26 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona prints 'РDF' with a Cyrillic Р while article 29 prints 'PDF' with a Latin one. Both are the publisher's own encoding and quotations must reproduce them. **It interleaves furniture with the statute**: 'Мишљења, модели и литература' and 'Судска пракса' are inserted after article headings, so a quotation taken across an article boundary will contain words the legislator never wrote. **Its English service cannot be cited.** propisi.pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs advertises 'More than 200 basic and refined texts of regulations of the Republic of Serbia translated into English' under ISSN 1452-6662, but it is a subscription product and a single-page application: both / and /index returned the same 1,499-character shell, so no English text of any Serbian instrument was readable here.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Motor vehicles are excluded from both article 4 and article 5, so a car is a separate question under the ordinary import rules, which this record does not cover.
The EUR 20,000 figure is a ceiling on value and the regulation says it is calculated regardless of transport costs.
This record rests on the Uredba o carinskim povlasticama and on the structure of the Carinski zakon, whose own relief chapter deals with returned goods and products of the sea rather than with removals. We did not read the Uredba o carinskim postupcima i carinskim formalnostima.
- consolidatesУредба о царинским повластицама, редакцијски пречишћен текст („Службени гласник РС”, бр. 38/2019, 86/2019, 103/2025)
Правно-информациони систем Републике Србије (ЈП „Службени гласник”)
About this source
The legal information system of the Republic of Serbia, established by article 28 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata and run by the state publishing enterprise JP Službeni glasnik, which also prints the gazette itself. It carries the electronic Official Gazette, the archive of gazettes, the register and texts of regulations in force, case law, and a link to EU legal acts. Article 29 makes three things free to every internet user: the consolidated texts of regulations, the original gazettes in PDF in which the base texts were published, and the gazettes in which their amendments were published; everything else is charged for at a price the enterprise sets with the Government's consent. Addresses follow ELI: https://www.pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs/SlGlasnikPortal/eli/rep/sgrs/{body}/{type}/{year}/{issue}/{item} where {body} is skupstina, vlada or ministarstva, {type} is zakon, uredba, odluka or pravilnik, {issue} is the gazette number and {item} is the instrument's position among that body's instruments of that type in that issue - not its page and not its article. An amending act's own ELI resolves to the consolidated text of the act it amended. The end of every consolidated text carries a register block - Основ доношења прописа, Акт којима је пропис основ доношења, Повезани пропис - listing every subordinate instrument by gazette number and page, which is the cheapest index to Serbian secondary legislation we have found.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Its consolidated texts are not official and the governing Act says so.** Article 26 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata provides that the printed gazette and the electronic gazette in PDF are the official editions; the HTML edition is produced but is not named among them. Article 29 describes what the system offers free as 'незванично пречишћени текстови прописа' - unofficially consolidated texts. The pages themselves are headed 'Редакцијски пречишћен текст', an editorially consolidated text, which is a third form of words for the same thing. Cite it for what the law now says and say what it is; for the text as enacted, go to the gazette PDF the page links. **Its consolidations carry no sweep date.** The masthead lists every gazette number incorporated and nothing else, so there is a last amendment incorporated but no statement of a date up to which the text was checked. Do not record a consolidation cut-off from it. **It is unreliable to render and fails silently in two distinguishable ways.** A 73-character reply beginning 'Ne postoji akt sa URI-jem' is the publisher saying the address does not exist. A reply of roughly 1,225, 6,691 or 8,000 characters that begins with the Glasnik contact line or with the gazette navigation is the PIS home page served because the single-page application did not render the document - a failure of our extraction, never an absence of the instrument. Where /reg returns one of those, dropping /reg often renders the same instrument: the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana at .../zakon/2001/24/1/reg returned the home page on four attempts and .../zakon/2001/24/1 returned 266,652 characters of it. The dated form .../reg/YYYY-MM-DD renders a different and shorter version of the same instrument, so quotations must not be mixed between the two addresses. **Its texts mix scripts.** The statutes are published in Cyrillic, but article 40 of the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana carries Latin e, o and a glyphs inside Cyrillic words, and article 26 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona prints 'РDF' with a Cyrillic Р while article 29 prints 'PDF' with a Latin one. Both are the publisher's own encoding and quotations must reproduce them. **It interleaves furniture with the statute**: 'Мишљења, модели и литература' and 'Судска пракса' are inserted after article headings, so a quotation taken across an article boundary will contain words the legislator never wrote. **Its English service cannot be cited.** propisi.pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs advertises 'More than 200 basic and refined texts of regulations of the Republic of Serbia translated into English' under ISSN 1452-6662, but it is a subscription product and a single-page application: both / and /index returned the same 1,499-character shell, so no English text of any Serbian instrument was readable here.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- consolidatesЗакон о странцима, редакцијски пречишћен текст („Службени гласник РС”, бр. 24/2018, 31/2019, 62/2023)
Правно-информациони систем Републике Србије (ЈП „Службени гласник”)
About this source
The legal information system of the Republic of Serbia, established by article 28 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata and run by the state publishing enterprise JP Službeni glasnik, which also prints the gazette itself. It carries the electronic Official Gazette, the archive of gazettes, the register and texts of regulations in force, case law, and a link to EU legal acts. Article 29 makes three things free to every internet user: the consolidated texts of regulations, the original gazettes in PDF in which the base texts were published, and the gazettes in which their amendments were published; everything else is charged for at a price the enterprise sets with the Government's consent. Addresses follow ELI: https://www.pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs/SlGlasnikPortal/eli/rep/sgrs/{body}/{type}/{year}/{issue}/{item} where {body} is skupstina, vlada or ministarstva, {type} is zakon, uredba, odluka or pravilnik, {issue} is the gazette number and {item} is the instrument's position among that body's instruments of that type in that issue - not its page and not its article. An amending act's own ELI resolves to the consolidated text of the act it amended. The end of every consolidated text carries a register block - Основ доношења прописа, Акт којима је пропис основ доношења, Повезани пропис - listing every subordinate instrument by gazette number and page, which is the cheapest index to Serbian secondary legislation we have found.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **Its consolidated texts are not official and the governing Act says so.** Article 26 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona i drugih propisa i akata provides that the printed gazette and the electronic gazette in PDF are the official editions; the HTML edition is produced but is not named among them. Article 29 describes what the system offers free as 'незванично пречишћени текстови прописа' - unofficially consolidated texts. The pages themselves are headed 'Редакцијски пречишћен текст', an editorially consolidated text, which is a third form of words for the same thing. Cite it for what the law now says and say what it is; for the text as enacted, go to the gazette PDF the page links. **Its consolidations carry no sweep date.** The masthead lists every gazette number incorporated and nothing else, so there is a last amendment incorporated but no statement of a date up to which the text was checked. Do not record a consolidation cut-off from it. **It is unreliable to render and fails silently in two distinguishable ways.** A 73-character reply beginning 'Ne postoji akt sa URI-jem' is the publisher saying the address does not exist. A reply of roughly 1,225, 6,691 or 8,000 characters that begins with the Glasnik contact line or with the gazette navigation is the PIS home page served because the single-page application did not render the document - a failure of our extraction, never an absence of the instrument. Where /reg returns one of those, dropping /reg often renders the same instrument: the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana at .../zakon/2001/24/1/reg returned the home page on four attempts and .../zakon/2001/24/1 returned 266,652 characters of it. The dated form .../reg/YYYY-MM-DD renders a different and shorter version of the same instrument, so quotations must not be mixed between the two addresses. **Its texts mix scripts.** The statutes are published in Cyrillic, but article 40 of the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana carries Latin e, o and a glyphs inside Cyrillic words, and article 26 of the Zakon o objavljivanju zakona prints 'РDF' with a Cyrillic Р while article 29 prints 'PDF' with a Latin one. Both are the publisher's own encoding and quotations must reproduce them. **It interleaves furniture with the statute**: 'Мишљења, модели и литература' and 'Судска пракса' are inserted after article headings, so a quotation taken across an article boundary will contain words the legislator never wrote. **Its English service cannot be cited.** propisi.pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs advertises 'More than 200 basic and refined texts of regulations of the Republic of Serbia translated into English' under ISSN 1452-6662, but it is a subscription product and a single-page application: both / and /index returned the same 1,499-character shell, so no English text of any Serbian instrument was readable here.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source