Serbia: Amendments to the E-Invoicing, Fiscalisation and VAT Laws

Marta Sowińska
December 22, 2022

Serbia is on the final straight to implementing its mandatory e-invoicing, which will come into effect from 1 January 2023. Legislative changes are still being proposed before that deadline to allow for a complete introduction of mandatory e-invoicing to the whole B2B sector.

On 12 December 2022, the Ministry of Finance published the following Laws on Amendments in the “Official Gazette of the RS” No. 138 among others:

1. Amendments to Serbia’s Electronic Invoicing Law

One of the changes regarding the scope of the Law on Electronic Invoicing involves natural persons who are not liable for income tax for self-employment, in the sense of the law governing personal income tax, who will be excluded from the provisions of the Law on E-Invoicing.

Regarding the type of transactions that will not be in the scope of e-invoicing, there will be no obligation to issue an electronic invoice for the sale of goods and services free of charge. Lastly, the legal entities and entrepreneurs who are not VAT payers, nor voluntary users of SEF, will not be obliged to record VAT calculation in SEF if they are tax debtors.

In case of a temporary interruption in the operation of the electronic invoice system, the system will consider an e-invoice as delivered at the time operation resumes. The act of the Ministry of Finance that regulates such procedures will be adopted on 1 April 2023 – three months from the date of entry into force of this law.

Also, the following paragraph will be added to Article 6 stating: “An electronic invoice that has been rejected can be subsequently accepted”. This provision will apply from 1 June 2023 for electronic invoices recorded in the central register of invoices, in accordance with the law regulating the deadlines for settling monetary obligations in commercial transactions.

The law will enter into force on 1 January 2023.

2. Amendments to Serbia’s VAT Law

The changes introduced to the law on VAT that impacts electronic invoicing processes stipulate that an invoice is an electronic invoice accepted by the buyer, as required by the Law on E-Invoicing.

The law ensures that the taxpayer accepting the electronic invoice within the deadline to submit the tax return may exercise the right to deduct the preliminary tax at the earliest date for the tax period where liability occurred. The taxpayer will also need to notify the tax authority about a change of data relevant to the calculation and payment of VAT contained in the registration form. The notification will be exclusively electronic and excludes notice in writing.

The law will enter into force on 1 January 2023, coinciding with the Serbian e-invoicing mandate go live date.

3. Amendments to Serbia’s Fiscalisation Law

The Law on Fiscalisation regulates, among other things, the subject of fiscalisation and the procedure conducted through an electronic fiscal device. The supply of goods and services, conducted by a fiscalization obligor to a legal entity or taxpayer of income from self-employment, outside the retail store, is not considered a retail supply. Therefore, such supply will not be subjected to fiscalization requirements and will not need to be recorded through an electronic fiscal device.

Moreover, the amendments specify that the fiscal receipt does not need to contain the value of the transaction per tax rate as a mandatory element. By scanning the QR code for verification, which has all the parts of an electronic signature when printing a fiscal invoice or a hyperlink for verification when a fiscal e-invoice is issued, it will be possible to receive additional information about the fiscal receipt.

The amendments to the Law on Fiscalisation that impact the future e-invoicing mandate cover changes related to the fiscal invoices issued to legal entities and taxpayers on income from self-employment. Transferring these fiscal invoices to the System of Electronic Invoices (SEF) will happen upon fulfilment of technical requirements. The Minister of Finance will further regulate the method and procedure of data transfer in the future.

Based on Article 7, a separate regulation will control the manner and procedure of data transfer to the SEF platform, that will be adopted within 180 days from the day when this Law enters into force. This means adoption will be in June 2023 at the earliest.

The Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Fiscalisation Act will be enforced on the 8th day following its publication, which took place on 12 December 2022.

Integration of the Fiscalisation system with SEF

The above amendments relate to the plans introduced by the MoF to integrate the Fiscalisation system with the E-Invoicing system (SEF), which will most likely start at the earliest in January 2024. As the Minister of Finance Vuk Delibašić announced on 1 December 2022: “The plan is to integrate the E-Invoicing system with the Customs Administration, e-fiscalization, as well as the creation of a semi-automatic VAT declaration, and an electronic excise tax is also being prepared.”

Need help?

Still have questions about e-invoicing in Serbia? Speak to our tax experts.

Sign up for Email Updates

Stay up to date with the latest tax and compliance updates that may impact your business.

Author

Marta Sowińska

Marta Sowińska is a Junior Regulatory Counsel at Sovos. Based in Lisbon and originally from Poland, Marta earned a Bachelor’s degree in International and European Law from the Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands and has studied at the Beijing Normal University in China.
Share this post

EMEA VAT & Fiscal Reporting
September 18, 2023
Intrastat Thresholds: Current Exemption Values

Intrastat thresholds are value thresholds which decide if companies in an EU Member State qualify to file a return to tax authorities, based on their intra-community trading. These thresholds change annually, prompting businesses to conduct an annual recalculation to know their obligations. This blog contains all the Intrastat reporting thresholds for 2023, as well as […]

EMEA VAT & Fiscal Reporting
September 18, 2023
Intrastat Guide: Reporting, Numbers, Thresholds

Intrastat is an obligation created in 1993 that applies to certain businesses that trade internationally in the European Union. Specifically, it relates to the movement of goods – arrivals and dispatches – across EU Member States. The requirements of Intrastat remain similar across the EU, though certain Member States have implemented rules differently. As a […]

EMEA VAT & Fiscal Reporting
August 22, 2023
OSS VAT Returns: Deadlines, Exclusions and Penalties

Sovos’ recent observations of audits by EU Tax Authorities are that Tax Officers are paying more attention to the contents of One Stop Shop (OSS) VAT Returns. They have challenged, and even excluded, companies from this optional scheme. OSS VAT returns must contain details of supplies made to customers in each Member State of consumption […]

E-Invoicing Compliance Latin America
August 17, 2023
Chile: Changes in the Electronic Ticket for Sales and Services

The Chilean Internal Revenue Service (SII) recently published version 4.00 of the document describing the format of electronic tickets for Sales and Services. The electronic ticket (or Boleta Electrónica) is an electronic receipt issued for the sale of goods or services to individuals, consumers or end users. The document includes basic information about the transaction, […]

E-Invoicing Compliance EMEA
August 10, 2023
France: B2B E-Invoicing Mandate Postponed

Update: 15 September 2023 In a recent meeting of the Communauté des Relais, the tax authority released additional details surrounding the previously communicated postponement of the B2B e-invoicing mandate in France. This delay is a result of the tax authority listening to feedback from French businesses who have struggled to meet the original timeline. It’s […]