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Transfer tax on a used car in Serbia: 2.5%, but not on an import

You pay no transfer tax on a car you import: the 2.5% tax is due only when a car that has been registered in Serbia since its last import is sold in Serbia without VAT. When you later sell your car in Serbia, the buyer pays it, not you. The base is not the price but a dinar value the law derives from engine size, power and age: (320 × cm³ + 6,400 × kW) × an age coefficient from 100% down to 30%.

Why an import pays no transfer tax

The tax is charged on a paid transfer of a used motor vehicle, and the Property Taxes Law (Zakon o porezima na imovinu) counts a car as used only once it has been registered in Serbia at least once since it was made or last imported (articles 14 and 23). A car you buy in Germany is not yet used in this sense, so buying, importing and registering it cost you no transfer tax. The law also taxes only transfers made in Serbia (article 26).

Import VAT is not the reason. The exemption applies only when VAT is charged on the sale itself (article 24a), not when VAT was paid at customs, so a later sale of the same car between private persons is taxed.

The calculator therefore adds nothing for this tax: among the registration costs it only shows a line saying so.

When you later sell the imported car

Once you have registered the car in Serbia, it counts as used. When you later sell it in Serbia, you owe nothing as the seller: the buyer, a private person or a company, pays 2.5% of the formula value described below, whatever the price (articles 25 and 27a). Someone who buys such a car from a dealer that charges VAT on the sale pays no transfer tax.

A car sold after its import but before its first registration in Serbia, for example by an importer who cleared it and never registered it, is not yet used, so that sale is not taxed either.

When the tax is due

The tax of 2.5% (article 30) is due on a paid transfer of a used motor vehicle other than a moped, a power tiller, a tractor or a working machine (article 23). When vehicles are exchanged, it is due on each of them, and acquiring a vehicle by a court decision or another official act also counts as a transfer (articles 24 and 28).

It is not due when VAT is charged on that sale (article 24a). Whether a dealer's sale under the special VAT scheme for used goods (the margin scheme) counts was not confirmed. Other exemptions include (articles 24a and 31):

  • a vehicle replaced under warranty with no extra payment;
  • dual-control driving-school cars, taxis and hire cars sold to someone registered for that business; if the buyer of a taxi or hire car stops that business or sells the car within five years, the tax is due with interest.

There is no relief for age or engine size beyond the age coefficient, and no special rule for electric or hybrid cars.

Who pays: the buyer

For a used motor vehicle the taxpayer is the buyer, whether the seller is a private person or a company (article 25). Before 2022 it was the seller.

You can agree with the other side on who bears the cost, but a contract cannot make the seller the taxpayer. Nor does the law's guarantee rule (article 42) reach a used car: it covers only transfers in which the seller is the taxpayer.

How much: a formula, not the price

The base is neither the price nor a market value but a dinar amount set by law: (320 × engine size in cm³ + 6,400 × power in kW) × an age coefficient (articles 27 and 27a). The tax is 2.5% of it.

The coefficient is 100% until the car is 2 full years old, then 90% at 2 years, 80% at 3, 70% at 4, 60% at 5, 50% at 6, 45% at 7, 40% at 8, 35% at 9 and 30% at 10 or more.

Poreska uprava's example, for a 6-year-old car of 1,600 cm³ and 85 kW: (320 × 1,600 + 6,400 × 85) × 50% = 528,000 RSD, and the tax is 13,200 RSD. In January 2025 the Ministry of Finance confirmed that even a price reached at a public sale in enforcement proceedings does not affect the base.

No official text we found says whether the years run from manufacture or from first registration, how the formula treats an electric car, which has no engine size, or which power figure counts for a hybrid.

Paying after a sale between private persons

When neither side is a company or a VAT payer, no tax return is filed. The buyer pays the tax before asking MUP for a new registration certificate (saobraćajna dozvola), and MUP issues it only with proof of payment (articles 35a and 40).

The simplest way is Poreska uprava's service on eUprava (Plati), which needs no eUprava account: enter your JMBG, your address and three items from the saobraćajna dozvola, and it works out the tax. Pay by card, eNovac or IPS QR code, or with a slip at a bank or post office; filled-in slips are also handed out at MUP, Poreska uprava and post-office counters. A slip paid after the bank's working hours may not show until the next day, so take the receipt to MUP.

The signatures on the sale contract are certified by a notary or a court (registration rulebook, article 11). Separately, the owner must report any change to the data in the saobraćajna dozvola within 15 days (Road Traffic Safety Law, article 274).

When a company or a VAT payer is involved: form PPI-4

If the buyer or the seller is a company or a VAT payer, and no VAT is charged on the sale, the buyer files a tax return on form PPI-4 in their own name within 30 days of the contract (articles 29, 35a and 36). A company files it on Poreska uprava's ePorezi portal, with a qualified electronic certificate or at a kiosk in a branch; a private buyer may also file on paper, in person or by post, at the branch for their place of residence. Attach the certified contract, a copy or chip read-out of the saobraćajna dozvola and a copy of the owner's ID card.

How the tax is then set and by when it must be paid is not stated plainly in the law or in any current Poreska uprava instruction we found; ask the branch when you file.

Gift or inheritance

A car received as a gift or inherited is not subject to the transfer tax but to inheritance and gift tax, on the same formula value (articles 14 and 16). The donor's children and other descendants and the donor's spouse pay nothing, and neither do the deceased's descendants, spouse and parents. Those in the second order of succession, for example brothers and sisters, and parents receiving a gift pay 1.5%, and anyone else 2.5% (articles 19 and 21). The first 100,000 RSD received from the same person in a calendar year is exempt, once for gifts and once for inheritance (article 14). For a gift, the recipient files a tax return within 30 days of the contract (articles 17 and 35); Poreska uprava sets the tax by a decision, payable within 15 days of its delivery (article 40).

An imported car not yet registered in Serbia is outside this tax as well.

Common mistakes

  • "An imported car pays no transfer tax because VAT was paid at customs." Import VAT is not the reason: a later sale of the same car between private persons is taxed.
  • "Only the first owner of an imported car is spared; every later buyer pays." What counts is whether the car has been registered in Serbia since its import; a sale before that is not taxed, whoever makes it.
  • "On an import the tax is paid by the dealer or the forwarder." No one pays it on an import.
  • "The seller pays the tax, or can if the contract says so." Since 2022 the buyer is the taxpayer, whatever the contract says.
  • "The tax is 2.5% of the price, of the market value or of the AMSS catalogue value." It is 2.5% of the formula value; since 31 March 2022 Poreska uprava no longer uses the AMSS catalogue for cars.
  • "The buyer has 15 days after the contract is certified to pay the tax." The 15 days are for reporting the change to MUP, and the tax is paid before you report it.
  • "Gifts between close relatives, brothers and sisters included, are tax-free." Only the donor's descendants and spouse pay nothing; brothers, sisters and parents pay 1.5% gift tax.

This step of the import

Work out the whole cost

Sources

The official laws, decisions and pages this guide rests on, read on 23/09/2026. Rules and amounts change, so check the ones that matter to you before you buy.