Pavlovic Bridge Toll Ends After 30-Year Concession
As of September 1, 2026, crossing the Drina river bridge near Badovinci is free, after the 30-year concession held by Drina River Bridge company expired.
Crossing Pavlovic Bridge over the Drina, at the Popovi border crossing near Badovinci, has been free since September 1, 2026. The reason is the expiry of a three-decade concession contract that gave the company Drina River Bridge the right to collect a toll, along with the obligation to maintain the crossing and keep it safe for traffic.
The contract was signed in 1996 for a 30-year term with businessman Slobodan Pavlovic from the village of Popovi near Bijeljina, who financed and built the bridge himself. According to Kurir, he built it together with his wife, Mira. The bridge opened in 1992 and was fully completed and formally handed over in 1996, when an annex to the contract was signed with the Serbian government. Construction cost around 4 million dollars at the time, while the access roads were built by the Serbian state. Before the bridge went up, locals crossed the Drina at this spot by ferry.
With the concession now expired, ownership of the bridge and the right to manage it have passed to the Serbian state, and the former concessionaire no longer has any grounds to charge for crossing.
When and Where the Announcement Was Made
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced the end of the toll on August 21, 2026, during a visit to construction works on the Slepcevic-Badovinci expressway near Bogatic. He said:
“I have one piece of good news for everyone in Sabac, Loznica and everywhere else, in Macva and southern Srem: by September 1 the concession on Pavlovic Bridge, or Pavlovic’s cuprija as some call it, runs out. From then on it becomes our property, and from then on you won’t pay anything to cross it. For all citizens, crossing between Serbia and Republika Srpska is free.”
With those words, Vucic confirmed both the exact date the concession would expire and the fact that the crossing would be free for every citizen, without exception.
How Much Did It Cost Before?
Sources differ on how much passenger vehicles were charged before the toll was scrapped. Kurir reports the fee was 160 dinars, roughly three convertible marks. Other reports put it at 180 dinars, charged both when entering and when leaving Serbia. Whatever the exact figure, Pavlovic Bridge was, until now, the only international border crossing between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina where travelers paid an extra fee to cross the bridge itself, on top of the usual border formalities.
Who Uses the Bridge
More than a million people and several hundred thousand vehicles cross Pavlovic Bridge every year, according to Kurir. The bridge links Badovinci in Macva with the Semberija region of Republika Srpska and is one of the busiest routes across the Drina, used daily by residents of Macva, Srem and Semberija.
Scrapping the toll also has a direct effect on farmers around Bogatic. Landowners on the other side of the Drina, on plots that fall under the Bogatic municipality’s cadastre, farm more than 3,000 hectares and reach their land by tractor. According to Bizportal, they were already exempt from paying a tractor fee, so the change as of September 1 applies to the charges on passenger and other vehicles using the bridge for regular border traffic.
What Changes as of September 1
The change is straightforward: a concession that for 30 years generated private revenue from tolls, in exchange for that private company maintaining the bridge and keeping traffic on it safe, has ended. Managing and maintaining the crossing is now the responsibility of the Serbian state, and passage is free for every category of vehicle and passenger, with no exceptions.
We had not previously reported on this story, since until now only the August announcement was known. The removal of the toll on September 1 is the first confirmation that the concession has indeed expired and that the change has taken effect.
