Fake QR code on a receipt: 12 months with no trading
Serbia's draft fiscalisation amendments reach for the harshest penalty on the first offence, while other breaches start at 15 days. The comment period closes today.
A one-year ban on doing business is what the first fake QR code on a fiscal receipt would cost a Serbian merchant, under draft amendments to the Fiscalisation Act prepared by the Finance Ministry. The comment period on the draft closes today, July 29, 2026, a day after the deadline for the parallel amendments to the Value Added Tax Act.
Only one article of the fiscalisation law is being touched: the one governing bans on business activity. What changes is the trigger. The toughest measure no longer sits at the end of a repeat-offender ladder, it applies at once, on the first forged two-dimensional barcode.
What counts as a fake QR code?
The draft spells out when a code printed on a receipt carries the full year:
- it was not generated through the electronic fiscalisation system of the Tax Administration
- it does not lead to the Tax Administration portal
- it leads to a different receipt, a different amount, a different date or different items
- it displays the data of another taxpayer
Every other irregularity falls onto a sliding scale measured across a two-year window: 15 days of closure for the first offence, 90 days for the second, a full year for the third. At fairs and public events the ban runs until the event ends, and participants in cultural and similar events remain exempt from using a cash register at all.
Deadlines that tighten on the state
The same package shortens the administration’s own clock. The Tax Administration must decide on a request for a tax refund, reimbursement, rebate or reallocation of funds without delay, and no later than 15 days. Such requests will be filed electronically through the Tax Administration portal, with paper filing kept as an option.
On the VAT side, the two-year obligation inside the system is now defined as the current plus the following calendar year, against a turnover threshold of 8 million dinars (about 68,000 euros). Returns are filed within 15 days of the end of the tax period, and a request for removal from the VAT register within five days of the taxpayer ceasing VAT activity.
Why the code carries this much weight
Serbia’s electronic fiscalisation system has been in full operation since May 1, 2022. Since then the QR code has been the one place where a customer can check, in seconds and without registering anywhere, whether a receipt actually reached the Tax Administration. A code that looks correct but points to someone else’s receipt, or to none at all, breaks that check, because the buyer walks away holding a confirmation the system has never seen.
That explains a penalty aimed at trading rather than at cash: for a small taxpayer, a year with the shutters down bites harder than any fine. Secondary legislation under these amendments is due by December 15, 2026, which leaves merchants the rest of the year to bring registers, software and receipt printing into line.
