From 1 January 2026, all public authorities in Serbia are required to enable electronic payment for all fees and charges they collect, as well as to check completed payments ex officio, thereby abolishing the obligation for citizens and businesses to submit physical proof of payment. This is a reform that NALED has advocated for more than a decade, NALED announced.
“Fees and charges are currently regulated through 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 fees in amounts higher than those that should be applied according to the calculation methodology,” NALED stated.
The implementation of the reform has been enabled through amendments and supplements to the Law on Republic Administrative Fees, the Law on the Register of Administrative Procedures, the Decree on Detailed Conditions for the Establishment of E-Government, and the Rulebook on the Conditions and Method of Maintaining Accounts for the Payment of Public Revenues.
From 1 January 2026, citizens and businesses will have access to the Plati system, which allows them to electronically generate payment slips for all fees and charges via an electronic general payment order, while enabling the state to electronically verify completed payments.
In order to prepare for the application of the new obligations, NALED and the Office for Information Technologies and E-Government organised 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 the application of regulatory amendments related to electronic payments and the use of developed digital tools.
The activities were carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, the Treasury Administration and the Republic Secretariat for Public Policies, as members of the Working Group for supporting the implementation of the reform.
The reform of the digitalisation of fee and charge payments 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, NALED recalled.
(eKapija, 07.01.2026)