From 1 January, all public authorities must enable electronic payment of fees and charges
From 1 January 2026, all public authorities in Serbia will be required to enable electronic payment for all fees and charges they collect, as well as to verify completed payments ex officio, thereby abolishing the obligation for citizens and businesses to submit physical proof of payment. This reform has been advocated by NALED for more than a decade.
Fees and charges are currently regulated by more than 500 regulations at the national level and over 400 regulations at the local level, which has made system oversight difficult. In practice, numerous parafiscal charges have been recorded that function as “hidden taxes,” including charging without providing a service or charging amounts higher than those that should apply under the calculation methodology.
The implementation of the reform has been enabled through amendments to the Law on Republic Administrative Fees, the Law on the Register of Administrative Procedures, the Regulation on Detailed Conditions for Establishing e-Government, and the Rulebook on the Conditions and Method of Managing Accounts for the Payment of Public Revenues.
From 1 January 2026, citizens and businesses will have access to the “Plati” (Pay) system, which allows them to electronically generate payment orders for all fees and charges via a unified electronic payment slip, while enabling the state to electronically verify completed payments.
To prepare for the application of the new obligations, NALED and the Office for Information Technologies and eGovernment organized three webinars and a series of individual meetings with public administration bodies during December. Through these educational activities, more than 500 civil servants were trained in applying the amended regulations related to electronic payments and using the developed digital tools.
The activities were carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, the Treasury Administration, and the Republic Secretariat for Public Policy, as members of the Working Group supporting the implementation of the reform.
The reform of digitalizing the payment of fees and charges represents one of the key activities within Serbia’s Reform Agenda, aimed at improving the business environment and continuing the process of negotiations on accession to the European Union.
