Country-wide policy
Six Documents, a Security Assessment, and Two Deadlines
Whatever the ground, a temporary residence application in Serbia carries the same six items under article 43(1) of the Law on Foreigners: a valid passport (or an identity card where that nationality may enter on one), evidence of means of subsistence for the planned stay, a registration of the place of stay or of the address of residence, evidence of health insurance for the planned stay, evidence that the application is justified on the ground relied on, and proof of the administrative fee. The passport must be valid at least three months longer than the residence sought. Two groups are relieved of the means and insurance documents by article 43a: the immediate family of a Serbian citizen, and a foreigner being employed together with that person's immediate family. Behind every decision sits an assessment by the security service of whether the foreigner's presence is an unacceptable security risk, which article 9 defines and which the Act requires on entry, on temporary residence, on the single permit and on permanent settlement. The deadlines differ by route: thirty days for ordinary temporary residence with twenty-five for the assessment, fifteen days for the single permit with ten for its two assessments, and sixty days for permanent settlement with fifty-five for the assessment.
Topics it changes
- Residency through work
- Residency as a student
- Residency through marriage
- Residency through investment
- Residency through ancestry
- Residency on passive income
- Residency as a retiree
- Access to healthcare
What it requires
- A valid personal or official passport, or a valid identity card of a state whose nationals may enter Serbia with one
- Evidence of means of subsistence during the planned stay - no amount is fixed in the Act
- A registration of the place of stay, or of the address of residence, in Serbia
- Evidence of health insurance during the planned stay
- Evidence that the application is justified on one of the grounds in article 40
- Proof of payment of the prescribed administrative fee
- A travel document valid at least three months longer than the period of residence sought
At a glance
- Passport validity margin
- At least three months longer than the period of residence sought
Article 43(2) of the Zakon o strancima; article 46v(2) repeats it for the single permit.
- Means of subsistence
- Required, with no amount stated anywhere in the Act
Article 43(1)(2) of the Zakon o strancima. Article 43(3) leaves the closer conditions to the Minister of the Interior.
- Who is excused the means and insurance documents
- The immediate family of a Serbian citizen, a foreigner being employed, and the immediate family of a foreigner being employed
Article 43a of the Zakon o strancima.
- Decision deadline, ordinary temporary residence
- 30 days, with 25 days for the security assessment
Article 42(1) and (3) of the Zakon o strancima.
- Decision deadline, single permit
- 15 days, with 10 days for the security and employment assessments
Article 46g(1) and (3) of the Zakon o strancima.
- Decision deadline, permanent settlement
- 60 days, with 55 days for the security assessment
Article 69(2) and (4) of the Zakon o strancima.
- What an unacceptable security risk is
- Where the available data indicate that the foreigner advocates, incites, assists, prepares or undertakes activities threatening the constitutional order and security of Serbia, goods protected by international law, or national, regional and global security of importance to Serbia and its legal order
Article 9(3) of the Zakon o strancima.
What the law says
«Уз захтев за одобрење, односно продужење привременог боравка странац прилаже: 1) важећи лични или службени пасош; 1а) важећу личну карту државе чији је држављанин, ако у складу са важећим прописима, може да улази у Републику Србију са личном картом; 2) доказ o средствима за издржавање током планираног боравка; 3) пријаву боравишта или адресе становања у Републици Србији; 4) доказ о здравственом осигурању током планираног боравка; 5) доказе о оправданости захтева за одобрење привременог боравка у складу са основама прописаним чланом 40. овог закона, као и друга документа на захтев надлежног органа; 6) доказ о уплати прописане административне таксе. (2) Лични документ који се прилаже уз захтев мора важити најмање три месеца дуже од периода на који се тражи одобрење привременог боравка.»Our translation - not official
With an application for the approval or extension of temporary residence a foreigner encloses: 1) a valid personal or official passport; 1a) a valid identity card of the state of which he is a national, if under the regulations in force he may enter the Republic of Serbia with an identity card; 2) evidence of means of subsistence during the planned stay; 3) a registration of the place of stay or of the address of residence in the Republic of Serbia; 4) evidence of health insurance during the planned stay; 5) evidence that the application for approval of temporary residence is justified in accordance with the grounds prescribed by article 40 of this Act, as well as other documents at the request of the competent authority; 6) evidence of payment of the prescribed administrative fee. (2) The personal document enclosed with the application must be valid at least three months longer than the period for which the approval of temporary residence is sought.
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
«Доказе из члана 43\. став (1) тач. 2) и 4) овог закона не прилаже странац који је члан уже породице држављанина Републике Србије и странац који се запошљава, као и чланови уже породице странца који се запошљава.»Our translation - not official
The evidence under article 43(1), points 2) and 4), of this Act is not enclosed by a foreigner who is a member of the immediate family of a national of the Republic of Serbia, nor by a foreigner who is being employed, nor by the members of the immediate family of a foreigner who is being employed.
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
«Неприхватљив безбедносни ризик постоји уколико расположиви подаци и сазнања указују да странац заговара, подстиче, помаже, припрема или предузима активности којима угрожава уставно уређење и безбедност Републике Србије, добра заштићена међународним правом и националну, регионалну и глобалну безбедност од значаја за Републику Србију и правни поредак.»Our translation - not official
An unacceptable security risk exists if the available data and findings indicate that the foreigner advocates, incites, assists, prepares or undertakes activities which threaten the constitutional order and security of the Republic of Serbia, goods protected by international law, and national, regional and global security of importance to the Republic of Serbia and its legal order.
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
«О захтеву за стално настањење странца у Републици Србији одлучује Министарство унутрашњих послова у року од 60 дана од дана подношења захтева. (3) Приликом решавања по поднетом захтеву за одобрење сталног настањења, поред процене да ли су испуњени услови из чл. 67, 68, 68а и 70\. овог закона, Министарство унутрашњих послова прибавља процену државног органа надлежног за заштиту безбедности Републике Србије да ли стални боравак странца на територији Републике Србије представља неприхватљив безбедносни ризик. (4) Рок за доставу процене је 55 дана од дана достављања захтева на разматрање.»Our translation - not official
An application for the permanent settlement of a foreigner in the Republic of Serbia is decided by the Ministry of the Interior within 60 days of the day the application is submitted. (3) When deciding on a submitted application for the approval of permanent settlement, besides assessing whether the conditions under articles 67, 68, 68a and 70 of this Act are met, the Ministry of the Interior obtains an assessment by the state body competent for the protection of the security of the Republic of Serbia as to whether the foreigner's permanent stay on the territory of the Republic of Serbia constitutes an unacceptable security risk. (4) The deadline for delivering the assessment is 55 days from the day the application is sent for consideration.
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
No sum of money appears anywhere in the Act for the means-of-subsistence condition, so the figure a reader is quoted comes from practice or from a ministerial act rather than from the statute.
The security assessment is not an appeal-proof black box: article 9(9) gives the second-instance authority sight of the facts behind a negative assessment, to be handled under the secrecy legislation.
This policy rests on the Zakon o strancima alone. The ministerial rulebooks on approving temporary residence, permanent settlement and the single permit - Sl. glasnik RS 6/2024 and 118/2023 - were not read.