Belgrade's overnight guest tax rose 50% today. Before you reprice anything in Serbia, work out which limb of the law your stock sits in, because only one of them moved.
The instrument is a government regulation in national gazette 90 of 18 September 2026, made under article 75(1) of the hospitality act. It sets new bands for the residence tax by tourist place category:
Category 1: 190 to 240 dinars (was 100 to 160)
Category 2: 150 to 200 (was 80 to 140)
Category 3: 110 to 170 (was 70 to 120)
Category 4: 90 to 140 (was 60 to 110)
In Categories 1 and 2 the new floor sits above the whole of the old band, so those councils have to move.
Belgrade did. City assembly, 6 October, published in city gazette 82/2026: article 2(1) of its residence tax decision has "160,00 dinars" replaced with "240,00 dinars", in force 15 October. Belgrade is Category 1, so 240 is the ceiling of its band and 190 the floor. It took every dinar going.
Now the limb that decides whether this is your problem.
Article 70 makes the residence tax a per-night charge the guest pays. You collect it with the room rate, you must show it separately on the invoice, and you remit by the 5th of the following month. Article 72: if you fail to collect it, you pay it yourself within 15 days.
Article 71 is the exception. A natural person letting through a registered private household does not collect per night at all, but pays a flat annual amount per bed. That amount lives in a separate 2019 regulation made under article 75(2). Today's instrument is made under 75(1) and does not touch it.
So the headline rise reaches hotels, companies and entrepreneurs. It does not reach the private-household segment, where the numbers have been frozen since 2019.
Two details worth more than the rate itself. Article 74 exempts anyone staying continuously longer than 30 days, exempts under-7s and halves the rate for ages 7 to 15. And article 6 of the new regulation repeals the 2013 one on the day the new bands start applying, not when it came into force, which is why the old bands were still operative yesterday.
Honest limits. Vrsac also moved, 100 to 150 dinars, but its amendment changes article 3 of its 2019 decision and I could not obtain that decision to confirm article 3 is the per-night rate rather than the annual limb. Treat it as unconfirmed. There are 21 categorised places and I have not swept them all.
If you invoice Serbian stays, today is a gazette-checking day.
