Crypto tax in Serbia: what residents pay and when

Short answer: For an individual who is a Serbian tax resident, selling digital assets for money, or swapping one for another, produces a capital gain taxed at 15%. The gain is the sale price minus the purchase price. You file a tax return for it after the quarter in which the gain arose, not once a year. The weak spots are missing purchase records, mining, and how long-term holding is treated, where the tax authority has not published a clear position.

Who is taxed

A Serbian tax resident is taxed on worldwide income. A non-resident is taxed on Serbian-source income. Residency depends on tests such as where your permanent home or centre of vital interests is and how many days you spend in Serbia. See Serbian tax residency before you assume a rate. Crypto does not change the residency test, and moving to Serbia with a large unrealised gain is exactly where planning matters.

What counts as a taxable event

According to practitioner summaries of the Personal Income Tax Law, income from the sale of digital assets is a capital gain taxed at 15%. The taxable event is the disposal: selling for fiat money, and also exchanging one crypto for another. Simply holding is not taxed.

• Tax base: selling price minus purchase price. A sale at or below cost gives no tax, and a loss can be set against other capital gains.
• Foreign currency: the amounts are converted to dinars, so your records need the rates for the dates involved.

The purchase price problem

If you cannot document what you paid, there is a real risk that the tax authority treats the purchase price as zero, and then the whole sale price is the taxable gain. There is no official guidance on how much proof is enough. The practical answer is to keep exchange statements, transaction hashes, bank transfers into the exchange and a simple spreadsheet from the first purchase. If you are about to become a Serbian resident, reconstruct that file before you arrive.

Open questions

• Long holding. The Personal Income Tax Law exempts gains on certain assets held for at least ten continuous years. Practitioners expect this to apply to digital assets, but no official opinion has been issued, and the law itself is young, so nobody has held a digital asset for that long under it.
• Mining. It is not settled whether mined coins are taxed as other income on receipt or as a capital gain on sale. The purchase price is generally the documented cost of mining, such as electricity.
• Payment in crypto, wages, DeFi and staking. The law allows part of a salary to be paid in digital assets. For staking, lending and DeFi, we would not rely on any rate without checking the current position.

Reinvestment relief

Practitioner summaries describe a relief for gains reinvested in the share capital of a Serbian company: a 50% reduction if reinvested within 90 days, or a refund of 50% of the tax paid if reinvested within 12 months. The conditions are formal, so confirm them with the tax advisor before relying on this.

Filing and paying

• The application for tax on capital gains is filed within 120 days after the end of the quarter in which the gain arose.
• A loss is filed too, because it is what lets you carry it against later gains.
• After the Tax Administration issues its decision you have 15 days to pay.
• If you do not file, the authority can assess tax from the data it has, often to your disadvantage.

What this does not cover

This article is about individuals. Companies that hold or trade digital assets, licensing of service providers, and VAT on crypto transactions are separate topics. And Serbia not being part of automatic exchange of financial account information (CRS) does not change your duty to declare income where you are tax resident. See Serbia and CRS.

A simple illustration

Suppose a resident bought a coin for the equivalent of RSD 1,000,000 and sold it for RSD 1,800,000, with documents for both. The gain is RSD 800,000 and the tax at 15% is RSD 120,000. If the same person cannot document the purchase, the authority may argue for a purchase price of zero, and the tax at 15% on RSD 1,800,000 would be RSD 270,000. The numbers are only an illustration, but the gap is the reason we insist on records.

What to prepare before an accountant meeting

• An export of all trades from every exchange you used, including closed accounts.
• Proof of the money going in: bank transfers or card statements to the exchange.
• Wallet addresses you control, and a note of any transfers between them.
• The date you became a Serbian tax resident, because that is where the clock for Serbian tax starts.

Sources

• Zunić Law, Cryptocurrency and digital asset tax in Serbia in 2026 (secondary source)
• PwC Tax Summaries, Serbia, income determination
• Statt.rs, tax on crypto trade in Serbia
• Tax Administration of Serbia (Poreska uprava)

General information as of 2 November 2026, not advice on your individual case. Laws, fees and practice change, so we confirm the current position before every engagement.