Serbia's GDP Grows 3.6% in Q2, Beating Budget Plan
The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia puts second-quarter GDP growth at 3.6% year on year, faster than the first quarter and above the 3% rate the 2026 budget was built on.
Serbia’s real gross domestic product grew 3.6% year on year in the second quarter of 2026, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (RZS) reported. The figure is a flash estimate, the first and roughest calculation, done at a high level of aggregation and without a breakdown by industry.
Growth in the first quarter of this year came in at 3.2%. On this estimate the second quarter ran 0.4 percentage points faster, at a moment when analysts were looking for a slowdown to around 2.5%. The gap between the forecast and the published number is 1.1 percentage points, a wide miss for a single quarterly reading.
How far above plan is it?
The 2026 state budget assumes annual growth of 3%, and the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) projects the same. The first half of the year sits above that path. Economists expect 2.8% in each of the third and fourth quarters, so even with that slowdown the year would close above the projection the revenue side of the budget rests on.
What is driving it
Household spending remains the main engine and accounts for roughly 60% of GDP. It rose 4.8% year on year in the first quarter, backed by a credit cycle: household lending grew by more than 20% year on year over the same period.
Data from the real economy point the same way:
- vehicle sales in the first half of 2026 are up about 18%
- motor vehicle output jumped 46.8% between January and May
- exports of vehicles and trailers reached 2.3 billion euros, some 17.5% of manufacturing exports
Merchandise exports rose 7.7% in the first five months, the trade deficit narrowed by almost 23%, and export coverage of imports passed 83%.
Prices have so far kept pace with that. Inflation stood at 2.7% in June, after 3.5% in May, against an NBS target of 3% with a tolerance band of 1.5 percentage points. Rudi Lukacic, an analyst at Bloomberg Adria, argues that the question for the rest of the year is not whether domestic demand stays strong, but whether the pace of consumption and wage growth, together with the investment cycle tied to EXPO 2027, can hold without new inflationary pressure.
What is still unknown
Flash estimates are routinely revised once fuller data arrive. The calculation at lower levels of aggregation, with the contribution of individual industries, is due in a release on August 31, 2026. Only then will it be clear how much construction, manufacturing and services added, and how much of the 3.6% was private consumption rather than investment. Quarterly national accounts at RZS are handled by a unit whose contact person is Marina Pavlovic.
Until then one practical conclusion holds. Two consecutive quarters above plan also mean tax collection above plan, and that is the raw material for the autumn debate on a budget revision, and on how much of the extra growth is one-off, tied to the investment cycle, and how much of it lasts.
