Sid Border Crossing: Trucks Wait Five Hours to Leave Serbia
Trucks leaving Serbia wait about five hours at the Sid border crossing and about four at Kelebija and Batrovci. Three days ago the wait was 30 minutes to an hour.
How long are trucks waiting to leave Serbia today? The longest wait is at the Sid border crossing, about five hours. That is what the morning report from the Auto-Moto Association of Serbia (AMSS) says, dated September 29 and based on data from the Border Police Directorate.
Where the waits are longest on the way out
For freight vehicles, AMSS reports the following:
- Sid: about five hours
- Kelebija and Batrovci: about four hours
- Sremska Raca: about three hours
- Horgos: about an hour and a half
No longer delays have been reported at other border crossings. According to the public enterprise Roads of Serbia (Putevi Srbije), there are none at toll stations on domestic motorways either, so the holdup is confined to the border crossings.
How long was the wait three days ago?
For comparison, here is what the Border Police Directorate reported at 11 a.m. on September 26. Passenger vehicles at Batrovci, Sremska Raca, Horgos and Sid waited about 30 minutes. The longest delay that day was at the Batrovci freight terminal, where trucks leaving the country stood for about 60 minutes. At Sremska Raca, Horgos and Sid, freight vehicles waited roughly half an hour in both directions.
Set against today’s figures, the jump is large:
- at Sid the wait grew from about half an hour to about five hours, roughly ten times longer
- at Sremska Raca from half an hour to three hours, six times longer
- at Batrovci from an hour to four hours, four times longer
- at Horgos from half an hour to an hour and a half, three times longer
Neither source gives a reason for the sudden increase, and we won’t guess at one.
What to know before you set out
The time reported by the Serbian side does not cover the whole trip. In its September 26 report, the Border Police Directorate warned drivers that the wait at terminals in neighboring countries has to be added to the stated time. It named the Croatian crossings Bajakovo and Tovarnik, where procedures can stretch the delay to several hours.
All the crossings mentioned are open 24 hours. The figures from the morning report apply to this morning, and the gap from September 26 shows how much a border wait can change in just a few days.
For truck drivers, freight forwarders and anyone arranging deliveries across the border, the practical point is this: a delivery window that was realistic on September 26 now has to allow for a wait of several hours at the exit.
