Serbia sends four tax bills to parliament, tobacco included
The government filed amendments to four tax laws on the evening of August 1. Hiring incentives are being pulled into the state aid regime, and tobacco marking deadlines move back.
Serbia’s government filed four tax bills with parliament on the evening of August 1, 2026, two days after clearing them at its session on July 30. The package covers amendments to the Law on Mandatory Social Insurance Contributions, the Law on Corporate Profit Tax, the Law on Personal Income Tax and the Law on Tobacco.
All four share the same driver: alignment with European Union law. The government cites obligations under the Reform Agenda and the EU accession process. In other words, these tax rules are being reopened because of deadlines Serbia signed up for, not because of a hole in the budget.
Hiring incentives move under state aid rules
Two of the bills, the one on contributions and the one on personal income tax, touch the same instrument: tax relief for employers who hire new staff. In the Serbian system that relief works as a refund of part of the tax and contributions already paid by an employer who takes on a new worker. Both are now being aligned with state aid control rules.
Put plainly: when the state cuts one employer’s bill while everyone else pays in full, that is a selective advantage funded from the budget, and a selective advantage funded from the budget is state aid. It gets measured against EU rules, and in Serbia the Commission for State Aid Control is the body that does the measuring. Alignment means the incentive has to fit inside that frame if it is to survive in its current shape.
The corporate profit tax bill points the same way, minus the employment angle. It continues the alignment of Serbia’s tax system with EU rules on taxation.
What actually changes for tobacco?
The Law on Tobacco amendments carry three items:
- inspection powers are spelled out more precisely
- deadlines for certain tobacco product marking obligations are pushed back
- new rules govern the stocktake of existing inventory and how it is released for sale
Marking is not paperwork. The stamp on a pack is the point where excise attaches to a specific unit of goods, and the point where an inspector separates a box that went through the budget from one that did not. Pushing the deadline back buys manufacturers and traders time to adjust lines and packaging, while the stocktake rules answer the question every regime change produces: what happens to goods already sitting in a warehouse under the old marking.
Where the deadline comes from
The Reform Agenda is not a new entry in Serbia’s calendar. The country adopted it in 2024 under the EU Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, and payouts under that plan are tied to steps actually completed rather than to time passing. Tax legislation is one block inside the agenda, so an amendment that slips drags the tranche waiting behind it.
For employers, the practical message is to read the hiring incentive again, because the test is no longer only how many new workers were taken on but whether the measure fits within state aid limits. For the tobacco industry it means new deadlines and a mandatory stocktake. The bills now wait for a slot on the National Assembly agenda, and until a vote the existing rules apply.
