Russian gas: Serbia keeps Europe's lowest price into 2026
In 2026 Serbia is holding the most favourable price for Russian natural gas on the European continent, at 290 dollars per thousand cubic metres, according to mining and energy minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic.
Serbia is holding the most favourable price for Russian natural gas on the European continent in 2026, at around 290 dollars per thousand cubic metres, according to mining and energy minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic in a press conference at the ministry on 22 May. The price is set under a ten-year contract between Srbijagas and Gazprom Export, renewed in May 2025 for the period through to 2035. By comparison, the average gas price for importers in Hungary is 318 dollars, in Slovakia 342 dollars, while the German Trading Hub Europe (THE) spot price in May 2026 came in at 358 dollars per thousand cubic metres.
The cost of heating with natural gas for an average four-person household in Belgrade in the 2025-26 heating season is 59,500 dinars (about 507 euros), unchanged on the previous season, according to figures published in May by the Serbian Energy Agency (AERS). For comparison, electric heating in the same season is 25 per cent more expensive, while wood-pellet heating runs 11 per cent cheaper than gas.
The contract pricing mechanism and the risks
The ten-year Srbijagas-Gazprom Export contract sets a price formula that is 73 per cent tied to the seasonal Henry Hub index (the US natural gas exchange) and 27 per cent to TTF (the Title Transfer Facility, the Dutch benchmark exchange). The adjustment period runs to six months, meaning that any rise in the TTF price in May feeds into the Srbijagas contract price only in November 2026. The TTF price in May 2026 has moved between 34.2 and 41.8 euros per megawatt-hour, almost twice the level of the same period in 2025.
Vladimir Popovic, energy adviser and former chief executive of JP Srbijagas, told the portal eKapija on 23 May that “the rise in the TTF price in the summer months realistically lifts the domestic supply price for the 2026-27 heating season by between 12 and 18 per cent, unless geopolitical tensions in the Middle East cool”. The conflict between Israel and Iran, which escalated in February and March 2026, has doubled the TTF price from where it sat before the first strikes.
What this means for the average household
For a 70-square-metre flat in Belgrade on the standard Beogradske Elektrane district heating, the monthly heating bill in January 2026 came in at around 9,870 dinars (about 84 euros). If the projected 12 to 18 per cent increase materialises for the 2026-27 season, the January 2027 bill could be between 11,050 and 11,650 dinars, an additional annual burden of 8,500 to 11,000 dinars for the household. The industrial sector with annual consumption above 1 GWh, accounting for 38 per cent of gas consumption in Serbia, contracts at individual prices on the open market, where the current level is around 42 euros per MWh.
Storage and security of supply
The Banatski Dvor natural gas storage facility, with capacity of 450 million cubic metres, was 41 per cent full on 20 May, according to the operator JP Transportgas Srbija, on a par with the level of a year ago in the same period. EU Directive 2017/1938 on security of gas supply requires storage to reach 90 per cent fill by 1 November each year, an obligation that applies to Serbia as an EU candidate country. JP Srbijagas estimates the cost of filling storage over the summer of 2026 at more than 91 million euros, the company’s largest single nominal outlay since 2022.
The next rating point
The JP Srbijagas board, which is expected to issue a statement on pricing policy for the 2026-27 heating season, meets on 18 June at the company’s headquarters in Belgrade. Under its regular calendar, AERS will issue its regulatory decision on tariffs for the public gas supply in the first half of September 2026, with the new tariffs taking effect from 1 October.
