Serbia Orders 3,900 Stores to Post Prices Online
A rule in force today requires 35 retail chains with over 3,900 stores to publish daily online price lists. The basis is not the Trade Practices Act but a rule under the Consumer Protection Act.
More than 3,900 retail locations in Serbia must, as of today, September 1, carry a publicly accessible price list on their website, updated the same day any price changes. The obligation falls on 35 retail chains, and the legal basis is not, as widely reported this week, the Trade Practices Act, but a separate Rule on the Conditions, Content and Method of Publishing Price Lists, issued under the Consumer Protection Act.
The rule appeared in the Official Gazette on Friday, August 28, took effect on August 29, and enters into application today. Minister of Internal and Foreign Trade Jagoda Lazarevic had already signaled on August 19, at the presentation of the National Bank of Serbia’s inflation report, that there would be no postponement.
“There will be no delays,” Lazarevic said at the time.
Who Must Comply?
The obligation applies to retailers that posted sales revenue above three billion dinars (about 25.6 million euros) in the previous business year. Of the 35 chains now required to publish price lists, 26 already carried the same obligation under the earlier decree on capping retail margins, while nine are new to it. The named chains include Delez, Lidl Serbia, Merkator-S, Univereksport, Aman, Dis, Gomex, Veropoulos, Kes&Keri Plus, Trnava Promet, BB Trade, Domaca Trgovina, Europrom, Podunavlje, Sumadija Market, Luki Komerc, Morava and DM.
Each retail location gets its own price list, published in digital form suitable for automated processing, and in parallel on the National Open Data Portal, in CSV format. If a retailer applies different price lists across its locations, it must publish all of them, with each one clearly marked for the location it covers.
What Changes From the Previous Rule
The earlier decree called for weekly price list publication covering 23 product categories. The new rule raises that to 25 categories, adding alcoholic beverages and pet food, and moves updates to a daily basis: as soon as any price changes, the new list goes online the same day. If prices haven’t changed since the last publication, the retailer doesn’t have to republish the same list.
The categories include, among others, milk and dairy products, eggs, bread and bakery goods, meat, fish, frozen food, fruit and vegetables, flour, pasta, rice, sugar, honey, oils and fats, salt and spices, coffee and tea, soft drinks, household chemicals, paper goods, personal hygiene products and cosmetics, baby food and diapers.
The rule also introduces a monthly historical snapshot: the price list in effect on the first day of each calendar month is permanently archived rather than deleted, alongside the current list. That means the portal builds, for each retail chain, a record of prices over time, not just a snapshot of what’s on the till right now.
A Separate Law Takes Effect the Same Day
Today, September 1, also marks the full application of the Trade Practices Act, which the National Assembly passed on April 23 and which has been in force since May, with a transition period running into the fall. It’s a second law from the same package of trade legislation, and it covers different ground: unfair trade practices toward suppliers, a whistleblower mechanism, and a ban on commercial retaliation. The law also sets payment deadlines for suppliers, up to 30 days for perishable goods and up to 60 days for non-perishable agricultural and food products.
Lazarevic explained that price lists and supplier protection share the same underlying purpose. “Everything comes down to consumer protection in the end, because everything these rules are meant to regulate relates, in one way or another, to controlling the prices consumers pay in the end,” the minister told Tanjug.
Serbske.rs reported in late August that retailers would move to online price lists starting September 1, when the rule had just been published in the Official Gazette. As of today, that obligation is no longer an announcement but a legal reality on the ground.
The Ministry has announced tighter inspections and sanctions for retailers that fail to publish a price list or whose till prices don’t match the published figures, though it hasn’t yet disclosed specific fine amounts. Lazarevic indicated that steep fines simply would not pay off for retailers.
