It would be wrong to claim that Serbia is a flawless country. Admittedly, it can be too hot in Belgrade in the summertime and many people smoke in Serbia but these drawbacks are easily outweighed by numerous advantages that the country offers. First, Serbia is easy to enter. Second, it is easy to legalize in Serbia and stay there for as long as you wish. Third, living in Serbia is comfortable: the city infrastructure is quite advanced and there are plenty of recreational opportunities: lakes, parks, mountains, ski resorts, etc.
Visa-free entry to Serbia
Most nationalities do not need visas to enter Serbia as tourists and stay there for some time. The time of the stay is limited to 30 days for citizens of some countries and to 90 days for citizens of some other countries.
Theoretically, a foreign national could stay in Serbia for an indefinite period without a visa. How? By doing border runs. When you leave Serbia and then re-enter, the count of your days in the country is set to zero again and you can stay in Serbia for 90 (or 30) more days without worrying.
The number of border runs that you could do is not limited so you could go on forever. The border guards are not very happy with border-runners but there is no legal way they could stop you from that. If a border guard starts making it difficult for you to re-enter Serbia, just tell him you are going to call your country’s embassy in Serbia. The threat should solve the issue.
In practice, however, you are going to grow tired very soon of running back and forth across the border. If you don’t live right at the border, a border run is going to take you a few hours, maybe even two days (you may have to spend a night in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, or North Macedonia).
Besides, the Serbian authorities have to register your arrival in Serbia even though you don’t need a visa to enter the country. As a way of making a note of the fact that a foreigner has entered Serbia, the local authorities require that you register at your residential address in the country. You have only 24 hours to acquire a ‘white carton’ – that’s the Serbian name for a registration card. The sad thing is that you would have to obtain a new ‘white carton’ every time you do a border run and re-enter Serbia.
This is why we recommend that you obtain a temporary residence permit in Serbia especially with the view of the fact that it is easy to do so. You might have to do one border run because the application processing can take more than 30 days in some instances. If you can stay in Serbia for 90 days without a visa, no border run is going to be required.
Simple legalization and permanent residence after 3 years
There are multiple ways of acquiring legal residence in Serbia. Below we briefly discuss the most appealing of them and if you want more information on legalizing your stay in Serbia, please follow the link.
Purchase property in Serbia
You can stay in Serbia for as long as you wish if you simply buy a piece of real estate in the country. We have to note that few countries in Europe issue residence permits to foreigners who simply buy property on their territories. You can obtain a residence permit in Monaco but in addition to buying a place there, you’d have to put at least a million euros in a Monegasque bank. You can obtain a residence permit in exchange for buying property in Spain but the minimum amount of money that you’d have to invest in a house or an apartment is 500,000.
In Serbia, the amount of money that you’d have to spend on real property to qualify for residence is not defined. The Serbian authorities put forward a slightly different requirement. Namely, you have to live in the house/ apartment that you have purchased if you want your residence permit to remain valid.
When you buy property in Serbia and request a residence permit, the local police department will register you at your residential address and then they will pay regular visits to you to ascertain that you really live at the address. We are saying this to make you understand that you cannot buy a piece of property in Serbia, obtain a residence permit, and rent the property out. This would invalidate your permit.
Start a company in Serbia
Another popular way of obtaining a temporary residence permit in Serbia is by establishing a business company in the country. Registering an LLC would cost you only a couple hundred euros and registering as a sole proprietor is going to cost you even less. And yes, registration of a sole proprietorship will make you qualified for a residence permit.
The procedure is also not difficult at all from the bureaucratic point of view. The best part of the procedure can be completed online at the official Government website. This said, however, you will have to pay at least one personal visit to the local Business Register and at least one (maybe more than one) visit to the bank to open an account there.
Please also bear in mind that the website is in the Serbian language. The number of foreigners registering companies in Serbia must have been not enough for them to think of translating the website into other languages.
Please also be aware that yours would have to be an active business company: having a company just on paper is not enough for qualifying for a residence permit. After 3 months, they will ask you to bring some contracts, agreements, and other documents that confirm that you are actively engaged in business activities in Serbia.
Enroll in a language class in Serbia
Foreign students attending Serbian educational institutions also qualify for residence permits. Simply enroll in a Serbian language class and there you go – you’ve got a residence permit. Please note, however, that a student’s residence permit can be only temporary: it cannot turn into a permanent residence permit.
Permanent residence and citizenship of Serbia
If you keep living in your house in Serbia or if you keep doing business in the country for 3 years, you can apply for a permanent residence permit. Previously, foreign nationals had to hold permanent residence permits for two years before they could apply for citizenship of Serbia. Now you can apply for citizenship right after you’ve obtained a permanent residence permit.
We would be happy to end on a positive note and say that you can become a full-fledged citizen of Serbia within 3 years but we have to be truthful. You can apply for citizenship after three years but the application processing takes another year or so. Anyway, becoming a citizen of Serbia after 4 years does not sound too bad either, does it?
