Who has to record retail sales through an electronic fiscal device in Serbia

The question usually gets asked the wrong way round: "do I have to have a fiscal register". The Law on Fiscalization does not start from what you have but from what you do. If you make retail sales as a sole trader or a company, you are an obligor, and the exemptions are listed in one government regulation that is shorter than most people expect.

The basic rule

An obligor of fiscalization is, under article 4 of the Law, every person paying income tax on self-employment (a sole trader or anyone else paying that tax) and every company paying corporate profit tax, if it makes retail sales. As we understand article 3, a retail sale is every sale of goods and services to natural persons, and also every sale in a retail facility, whoever the buyer is. It includes advances received for future retail sales.

Three things in that rule are the ones most often missed:

• Services count exactly like goods. A hairdresser, a tradesman, an instructor and a developer charging a private individual are all in the same position as a shop.
• An advance is a sale. A payment received up front for work that will be done later is fiscalized when the money is received (for a bank transfer, at the latest on the next working day after the payment arrives), not when the work is finished. There is a separate article on the advance receipt.
• The payment method changes nothing. Bank transfer, card, voucher or cash: if the buyer is a natural person, it is a retail sale.

Who is not an obligor

As we understand article 3 paragraph 3 of the Law, a sale to a company or a sole trader is not a retail sale only when it is made outside a retail facility. Then you issue the company an invoice (and an electronic invoice where that is required), not a fiscal receipt. A sale to a company in a shop, a café or a salon, and a sale by a web shop, whose seat counts as a retail facility under article 3 paragraph 4, is a retail sale: a fiscal receipt is issued with the buyer's tax number.

The problem starts when you do both. A company that invoices ninety percent of its revenue to legal entities and takes ten percent from private individuals is an obligor of fiscalization for at least that ten percent. If it sells to companies in a shop, on its premises or through a web shop, then as we understand article 3 of the Law those sales are retail sales too. There is no threshold.

The tax regime changes nothing either. Flat-rate or bookkeeping sole trader, sole trader or limited company, the rule is the same: article 4 of the Law covers both self-employment income taxpayers and profit taxpayers, and fiscalization looks at the kind of sale, not at how it is taxed.

Exempt activities

Exemptions are set by the Regulation determining the activities for which there is no obligation to record retail sales through an electronic fiscal device („Службени гласник РС“ no. 32/2021, 117/2021, 51/2022, 141/2022, 85/2023, 99/2024 and 110/2025).

The exemption goes by the activity you actually carry on, not by the size of the company or its legal form. For several codes the regulation exempts only part of the activity, not the whole code. The exempt groups include, among others:

Also exempt are: sales of one's own agricultural produce at market stalls and similar places by a natural person who pays self-employment income tax but is not a registered sole trader; charging by a consumption bill read from meters (heating, gas, telephone, electricity, water and the like); marketing services in a retail facility to companies and sole traders; most communal utility activities, traditional and artistic crafts and home crafts (except stonemasonry), street selling of ice cream, lottery tickets, popcorn and newspapers, shoe shiners and porters. Article 4a of the regulation temporarily exempts all sales at market stalls and similar facilities, up to and including 31 December 2026.

Trap number one: 85.5

Group 85 is exempt, except 85.5, and 85.5 is "other education". That is where language schools, driving schools, sports schools, courses and workshops fall.

In other words, regular schooling and universities are exempt, and a German course in the city centre is not. The distinction is easy to miss, because "I am in education" sounds like it covers both.

Trap number two: the activity is exempt, not the company

The exemption applies to sales arising from performing that activity. If the same company does something else as well, you are not exempt for that something else.

Examples that really happen:

• A private clinic (code 86): as we understand the regulation, only health services paid from compulsory health insurance are exempt. A check-up the patient pays for, and creams and supplements sold in the waiting room, are not.
• A law office (69.10) charging a private individual for drafting a document outside legal activities in the sense of that code.
• A veterinary practice (75.00): as we understand the regulation, only the tasks it lists are exempt, for example work under the state animal health programme. A paid check-up of a pet and selling dog food are not.

Selling over the internet

An online sale to a natural person is a retail sale and is fiscalized, with no threshold below which it can be skipped. As we understand the rules, special provisions exist for an obligor selling exclusively over the internet: it issues the receipt in electronic form (article 13 paragraph 3 of the Rulebook on types of fiscal receipts) and does not need an L-PFR on its premises. Article 6 paragraph 4 of the Law gives the same L-PFR exemption to an obligor selling only its own used movable assets.

What differs is the way the receipt reaches the buyer, and the fact that payment often comes before delivery, not whether a receipt exists. That is covered in the article on fiscalizing a web shop.

What happens if sales are not fiscalized

The Law sets fines for failing to record sales through an electronic fiscal device. When an inspector finds unrecorded sales, a ban on trading in those premises is imposed as well, as a rule 15 days the first time, 90 days the second and one year the third (article 12). For a legal entity the fine starts at 300,000 dinars, with a separate fine for the responsible person, and there are fines for sole traders too (article 15).

We do not copy every amount and range here, because the Law changes. The version of the Law on Fiscalization currently in force, articles 12 and 15 onwards, is what governs.

A five minute check

1. Look up the code of every activity you actually carry on, not only the principal code in your Business Registers Agency decision.
2. Open the regulation currently in force and look for that code in article 3, and for your activity in articles 2, 4 and 4a as well.
3. If it is not there and, as a sole trader or a company, you sell to natural persons or in a retail facility, then as we understand the law you are an obligor.
4. If it is on the list, ask yourself whether all your sales to natural persons really arise from performing that activity. If not all of them do, you are an obligor for the rest.
5. If you take advances from natural persons, you are an obligor for those too, regardless of the work not being done yet.

When the answer is "yes, I am an obligor", the next step is not buying a register but registering the business premises with the Tax Administration, because a security element is only issued against a registered sales point. The register is the last step, not the first.