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Learn the real legal structure behind hiring in Serbia through an Employer of Record, including the contracts required, the 2026 payroll costs, and the agency-employment risk most providers avoid discussing. See what it actually costs to employ someone in Serbia, and when an EOR stops being the right answer.
EMPLOYER OF RECORD / SERBIA
The legal basis, what it costs in 2026, and the one question most EOR providers avoid answering.
Yes, and you do not need to register anything in Serbia to do it. The structure is three parties and two contracts: a services agreement between your company and the provider, and a Serbian employment contract (ugovor o radu) between the provider and the employee. There is no third contract between you and the employee. If one exists, you have created a problem rather than solved one.
The employer must be a real Serbian company. Search apr.gov.rs, the public register of the Business Registers Agency, and check the matični broj, PIB, registered activity and filed accounts. Ours: Ambacia Consulting d.o.o., Svetogorska 7L, Belgrade. Matični broj 22057693, PIB 114698692. Look us up, then run the same four-minute check on everyone else on your shortlist.
The contract must be a Serbian contract. Written in Serbian (a bilingual version is normal, the Serbian text governs), specifying the role, place of work, working hours, gross salary in dinars, notice period, and annual leave of at least 20 working days. Ask for a redacted template before you commit.
Registration must happen before day one. Serbian law requires the CROSO filing before the employee starts work. Not within eight days, not retroactively. Before. Your employee can verify their own registration, and a provider who resists that request is telling you something.
THE RULE FOREIGN EMPLOYERS GET CAUGHT BY
If a person starts work without a written employment contract, the Labour Act deems an indefinite-term employment relationship to have existed from that first day. You do not get to argue about it afterwards, and the fine for a legal entity runs from 800,000 to 2,000,000 dinars.
Serbia regulates the assignment of employees through the Law on Agency Employment (Sl. glasnik RS 86/2019), in application since 1 March 2020. It requires a Ministry of Labour licence and caps assigned fixed-term staff at 10 percent of the user employer headcount.
Article 2 defines that user employer as a legal entity, an entrepreneur, or a representative office or branch of a foreign company registered under Serbian law on Serbian territory. An EU client with nothing registered in Serbia does not meet that definition, which is why a remote EOR arrangement sits outside the literal scope of the statute.
Two provisions stop that being the end of the discussion, and any provider who tells you otherwise is overselling. Article 17 presumes that a person working for the needs of, or on the premises of, a user employer while contracted to a different employer is an assigned employee unless the contrary is proven. Article 37 defers the EU and EEA cross-border provisions until Serbia becomes a full member, which means the legislature saw this case coming and parked it.
Our reading, and it is a reading rather than a certainty, is that a genuine EOR arrangement with a foreign client and no Serbian workplace is not agency assignment. We structure for exactly that. If what you want is people sitting in a Serbian office under a Serbian company's daily direction, that is assignment, it needs a licensed agency, and we will tell you so rather than sell you the wrong product.
The point is unsettled in Serbian practice. We would rather say that than let you discover it during an inspection.
Serbian payroll runs on three numbers. Neto is what reaches the employee. Bruto 1 is the contractual gross. Bruto 2 is bruto 1 plus employer contributions, and it is the only figure that belongs in your budget. Budgeting from the net salary a candidate quotes you is the single most expensive mistake we see.
ONE REAL 2026 CALCULATION
Bruto 1: 150,000 RSD
Employee contributions 19.90 percent (pension 14, health 5.15, unemployment 0.75): 29,850. Income tax 10 percent on the amount above the 34,221 RSD non-taxable threshold: 11,578.
Net to the employee: 108,572 RSD
Employer contributions 15.15 percent (pension 10, health 5.15): 22,725.
Bruto 2, your actual cost: 172,725 RSD
The contribution base has a floor of 51,297 and a ceiling of 732,820 dinars per month. Above the ceiling contributions stop, which works in your favour on senior engineering salaries.
*Note: Mandatory local allowances (daily meal allowance and public transit reimbursement) are required under Serbian law and are added on top of Bruto 2.
These parameters move every January and the moves are not small. The 2026 minimum wage is 371 dinars net per working hour; in August 2026 the Government set 2027 at 405 dinars, a rise of 9.2 percent. Ask any prospective provider what happens to your invoice on 1 January and who absorbs the change. There is more context in our overview of the Serbian labour market in 2026.
You cannot simply pay in euros. Under the Law on Foreign Exchange Operations, payments inside Serbia are made in dinars. A currency clause lets you denominate the obligation in euros and pay in dinars, but somebody carries the exchange rate movement, and if nobody has decided who, it surfaces in month four. Providers advertising Serbian payroll "in RSD or EUR" have not read the rule they are charging you to navigate.
Fixed-term is not the low-risk option. Maximum 24 months with the same employer, with interruptions under 30 days counting towards the total. Five working days past the end and it converts to indefinite by operation of law. Termination grounds are the same as for indefinite contracts. There is no at-will employment in Serbia.
The contractor arrangement you already have is the real exposure. Most companies who contact us are not entering Serbia. They are already there, through people invoicing from a "paušal" registration. That is legitimate for genuine independent work and stops being legitimate when the person works your hours, on your systems, for your manager, with no other clients. The correction is retrospective.
GDPR coverage does not travel automatically. Serbia has no European Commission adequacy decision, so sending employee data to a Serbian provider is a third-country transfer requiring Standard Contractual Clauses and a transfer impact assessment. If your provider's contract contains no SCCs, ask why.
One more point worth twenty minutes with a tax adviser: Serbian corporate tax is 15 percent and non-residents are taxed only through a permanent establishment - but an employee concluding customer contracts from Belgrade, for example, carries a very different tax risk than a software engineer.
Somewhere between roughly fifteen and twenty-five employees, depending on salary levels, the per-employee fee starts to exceed the cost of running your own Serbian d.o.o. with a local accountant. An EOR also cannot hold sector licences, bid for public tenders, or give you Serbian-registered IP. And for a single modest hire with no growth plan, a properly documented contractor relationship may genuinely be the right answer. We will run that comparison with you, including the version where the conclusion is that you should incorporate.
HIRING IN SERBIA? TELL US THE SHAPE OF IT
We employ people in Croatia and Serbia through our own entities in both countries. When you speak to us you are speaking to the company that will appear on your employee's contract, not to a sales layer in front of subcontractors you will never meet.
Ambacia Consulting d.o.o. / Svetogorska 7L, 11000 Belgrade / info.rs@ambacia.eu / eorserbia.eu
Read next: Employer of Record vs PEO in Serbia · How companies choose the right EOR partner · EOR for startups hiring tech talent
Serbian law and payroll parameters as at 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice for a specific situation. Parameters are adjusted annually and the treatment of Employer of Record arrangements under the Law on Agency Employment is not settled in Serbian practice.
