What a DOO has to file, and how often
A limited company keeps proper double-entry books from day one. That means monthly filings where VAT-registered, payroll filings for anyone employed including the director, and annual financial statements filed publicly with the Business Registers Agency.
None of this pauses while the company is dormant. A company with no revenue still files, and a company that files nothing accumulates a problem that surfaces at the worst possible moment. Usually when you need a clean tax certificate for a residence renewal.
How a lump-sum sole proprietor differs
Under the lump-sum regime there is no requirement to keep full business books, which is most of the appeal. The obligation reduces to a fixed monthly payment plus a much smaller set of filings.
Lighter is not the same as nothing. The deadlines still exist and the penalties for missing them still apply, which is why most lump-sum proprietors work with an accountant anyway. It costs a fraction of a DOO arrangement.
The director salary question
A foreign founder who is also the director cannot simply draw profit and skip payroll. Serbian rules attach obligations to the director role itself, and how this is structured has direct consequences for both your monthly cost and your residence file.
This is the single most common thing done wrong by founders who registered a company without advice, and it is far cheaper to structure correctly at the start than to unwind two years later.
Deadlines that actually carry penalties
The tax administration is systematic about deadlines. A penalty attaches to late filing independently of whether any tax was owed, so a nil return filed late is still a penalty.
The practical protection is having someone whose job is the calendar. Founders running their own filings in a second language miss deadlines not through negligence but because the notification arrived in Serbian and looked like everything else.
Why every figure below is a floor
Bookkeeping is the one service on this site that honestly cannot be quoted from a list. The price tracks transaction volume. A sole proprietor issuing two invoices a month and a company running payroll, VAT and a couple of hundred bank lines are not the same job, and anyone quoting both the same number is either overcharging one of them or planning to revise later.
So treat the figures below as floors. A quiet lump-sum sole proprietor sits at the bottom. A trading company with employees sits meaningfully above it. Get your actual number in writing before you sign, not after your first month.
What matters most is where the books meet your residence file. A tax certificate that will not issue because a return went in late is a residence problem before it is an accounting one, and that intersection is the reason to keep the filings boring.
What it costs
| Monthly accounting, lump-sum sole proprietor | from €50 / month |
|---|---|
| Monthly accounting, DOODepends on transaction volume and payroll | from €70 / month |
| Annual financial statements | from €150 |
| Payroll, per employee | from €25 / month |
| Catching up neglected booksWe take these on | from €200 |
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Filing obligations attach to the company existing, not to it trading. A dormant company files nil returns and still submits annual statements.
A lump-sum sole proprietor costs a fraction of a DOO, because there are no full books to keep. For a DOO the drivers are transaction volume and whether there is payroll.
Filings go to Serbian authorities in Serbian, through Serbian systems, under Serbian deadlines. A foreign accountant can keep your management accounts but cannot practically handle the statutory side.
It is recoverable, and it is better to address it than to keep going. Bring whatever records exist and expect penalties to be part of the cleanup.
Indirectly but genuinely. A business ground for residence is assessed on whether the business is real and compliant, and tax certificates are part of that picture at renewal.
When this is not the right route for you
- You want books prepared to show a business that is not actually operating. We will not sign that.
- You want to skip director obligations because the company has no revenue yet.
- You expect to be told there are no filings while the company is dormant.
This page is general information about Serbian procedure, not legal advice for your situation. Rules and fees change. Confirm anything time-sensitive with us or another qualified adviser before acting on it.