How to stay over 90 days in Serbia (legally)

Stay over 90 days in Serbia (for EU citizens) demands applying for a temporary residence.
We arrived in Serbia to stay one month and it extended to 3 months.
We returned once, twice… and soon our nomad life was just a fading memory. 

As we wanted to stay here for longer than EU citizens’ allowance without a visa is, we were finally facing the fact that we’ll need to apply for a temporary residency. 

I will explain here how the process basically goes based on my own experience. 
Please note that I can not give you legal advice nor can take responsibility of constantly changing rules ande decisions over your stay.

Every single application will be monitored based on each person’s situation, so what will work for me might not work for you or what worked for you might not work for your friend.

Anyway the basic rule is that in Serbia EU citizens (like we are) are allowed to stay 90 days at the time, maximum 180 days out of 365 without applying for visa or temporary residency.

In general the rules are pretty much the same around the world, so this post might help you if you are a digital nomad considering to settle down for a bit just anywhere.

Usually the time limit is 1-3- months without applying for the residency, depending on the country you are planning to settle into and of your own country of origin and citizenship. 
Check the details for each country from their official webpages. 

What ever the allowance, when you’ve finished your time, you either leave the country or you’ll need to apply for residency.
To be exact, you will need to start the process before your time runs out. 

10 steps to get your temporary residency

If you arrive without a visa or with the tourist visa and are planning to stay legally over 90 days in Serbia start your process at least a month prior to your current visa expiration, preferably two months, but at least one month before is mandatory. 

I very strongly recommend starting as early as possible. Collecting all the needed documents might take time.
For us it took a month only to get one document sent from our country, then couple of weeks to get that piece of paper approved in Serbia. And this was only the first step even before starting the actual process.

Reason to Stay

This is the toughest part. As a digital nomad or remote entrepreneur or whatever you’re calling yourself, you basically rest your laptop to a place you fall in love with. 

They say that love conquers all and all you need is love, but guess what? They are all lying about it.
Love is not enough a reason to stay somewhere legally.
Pick something else.

Ok. Love is actually a legit reason, if you fall in love with a person and not a place.
If (s)he’ll accept officials might as well and they’ll grant you with permission to stay.

But if you are not that lucky or you are not searching for that kind of solution, another and almost as popular reason is to find work abroad
Or to study, to volunteer in some NGO. Or to do some kind of artistic project, sports or research.
You could also launch a business or buy a property. 

(And if you are lucky, one of your parents or grandparents is already citizen of Serbia. That is also a reason to stay, but in most cases then you’re already applying for citizenship for yourself and not a temporary residence, and I am not familiar with this process, so let’s leave this part out now.)

Step 1.
Official Purpose of Stay

Once you have the reason to stay, you’ll need to collect official documents about it. 
Marriage certificate, business registration, acception letter from your university, employers letter to tell they desperately need you here.
– One of those documents to have a proof of your real reason to stay in Serbia.

For us it was work related and we needed to send our documents in to the ministry of culture and information.
(This was just for our case, not for 99,9% of you others. Again, depending on your status which document you’ll need.)
That was actually very straightforward and possible to do by email.

Only problem was that when we went to collect our papers they were lost.
Not a biggie, as we live only 5 min walk away and the next day everything was ready and waiting for us. 

Note that almost all the documents has to be in three (3) originals, – yes, three originals, not copies – signed and stamped. 
Meaning this and all the other papers mentioned as you continue reading.
(You will need the original documents in many different places and they will be collected, so make sure you don’t lose your only one. This is why three pieces.)

Allrighty, now you’ve got your first document cleared, what else would you need?
Here we go. 

Step 2.
Photos

Go to get your photos taken.
You’ll need two (2) color pics. Size is 3×4 cm, but they’ll know it in any shop if you’ll tell them the purpose. 

Step 3.
Bank Account

You’ll need to deposit money to a local bank to show that you’re able to finance yourself. 
No one really knows what is the exact amount, but it isn’t too much anyway.
180 000 dinars per person made it for us for 12 months. (around 1500 €.)

We chose UniCredit, but you can pick any bank you wish. 
Thought we heard some foreigners had problems opening an account, so if you can’t work it out, try the next one.
At least for us it went smoother when we showed our papers telling our reason to stay.

Funny enough, it was yet not possible to transfer the money from the EU account to Serbian account despite the fact that UniCredit is indeed Italian (EU) bank. 
So we needed to go outside of the bank to ATM to withdraw the money and then go back inside to deposit the same money to our new accounts. 

That way we needed to pay ridiculous amount of money for withdrawing it from the foreign credit card just to take it back to the bank. Crazy, right?
But oh well, what wouldn’t you do to stay in this country you’ve already fallen in love with..?

Yet not to make it too easy, we needed to visit the bank twice. 
The first time we filled the papers, next time we went to sign them. 

To be exact, we actually visited the bank three times as we needed to collect our cards about a week later. But this has nothing to do with the residency and if you don’t need the credit card, visiting twice is enough.

Each visit was around 20 min queuing included. Not too bad. 
Remember to get an official document proving that you’ve made that deposit to secure your living expenses. 
Again, remember to get an official document stamped or signed of each of the papers needed.

Step 4.
Health Insurance

A local health insurance is mandatory, thought it’s up to you if you want to invest for a proper insurance or just to take a minimum to get your residence permit. 

Dunav Osiguranje is propably the cheapest option. 
We went to their office at Makedonska 4 (one minute from the Trg Republike) and took an annual insurance for 8000 rsd (about 70 €). 
This also took around 20 min. (No queueing, just having the documents done plus a payment.)

I already said this, but again: Have an official document signed and stamped, like elsewhere.
In Dunav we didn’t have to ask about it. We clearly weren’t the first ones to do this as they asked us if applying for the residency was our purpose and made all the documents and also told us which slipper to use where. 

Step 5.
Registration card 

Beli karton, the white card. 
This should actually be the number one, as you shouldn’t be this far without having one. 
This is that white piece of paper you get when you register in the country right after your arrival. 
That is in 24 hours of your arrival, at the local police station, with your landlord.

Yes, even if you are only visiting for a short period of time.
As a tourist, your hotel will usually do it for you, but if you’re renting an apartment via AirBnB or similar, make sure someone is registering you. 
Otherwise you might get into a trouble when leaving the country.

Officers at the border control are usually not too strict about tourists staying for only few days, but just to tell you, it’s actually by the law, that you have to register if you’re staying more than 24 hours. – Similar to many other countries too. 

Step 6.
Rental Agreement

Proof of your living space aka rental agreement. 
Beli karton is not enough, you also need a letter from your landlord to say that you are actually staying in his/her apartment/house. 

This can be an official contract or just a piece of paper from your landlord/lady telling you’re permitted to stay at his/her place. 
Our’s handwrote it on the simple piece of paper and it was totally okay. 
A signature is a must. Of course. But no stamp was asked at Savska. For this paper at least.
But yest ofc, it has to be written in Serbian.

Also, as this might sound too easy with all the handwritten documents, ofc it isn’t. 
How could they know who is this person signing these papers?
So, remember to add a copy of your landlord’s ID and a proof of him/her actually owning the place you are staying at.

Step 7.
Actual Application

Collect all the previously mentioned papers (3 original pieces and preferably copies of them)
and pay a visit to MUP at Savska 35.

Wait wait, do not rush in!
Where is your actual application? 

Right, you’ll still need to fill that too. 
Yes, that is only in Serbian, but there is an office right next to Savska MUP where they will check your documents and do the work for you. 
It costs only couple of euros well worth it.

When you’re in front of the Savska police station, just walk about 50 m back towards the city and you’ll see it.
It says something like ”Stranac” (as foreigner) on the sign.

Step 8.
Fees

Finally the police? Nope.
Now you will hit to the bank to pay for your application and temporary residency fees and taxes.
It will be around 17 000 dinars for the year. 

There are several banks around Savska. Again withdraw the money from the ATM and then go inside the bank to pay what you’re asked to pay.

Step 9.
Visit to MUP

Finally you should have all your paperwork done. 
You have all of your documents with you?
And your passport of course?
Great.

Stand on a queue in front of the Savska police station and they’ll call you in when your time has come.

Step 10.
Be patient

The first time we got at Savska it was easy and smooth. 
Police checked through our papers twice.

Then Serbia happened.
”Fali te jedan papir”,
you are missing the one paper.
But of course. 

Take all the possible documents with you, just in case.
It might still happen and usually does.

For us it was our CV’s in Serbian that were missing.
Any government website does not say that they are needed, but now they just happened to be very important. 
What ever paper it will be for you, that you are missing, you will get one more week to get that.

And it doesnt’t really matter that you are missing something, you will be given the date when you can collect your residence permit. Meaning of course that you’ll bring that missing paper in during the given one week of time.

So back home we walked (thanks god BGD home, not to our country of origin!). 
We tried to make a good job translating our CV’s and were quite proud of ourselves managing to do those without any help from our friends. 

Back to MUP we go

On the day we were about to leave to hand those missing papers over we luckily checked our emails before hitting the road.
There was a mail asking us to also bring our original accreditation letters.
The originals from the ministry of Culture and Information weren’t enough, despite the fact their documents were based on our original accreditations. But this is just normal, hold your horses, frustration and stressing out doesn’t make any good for you.

So with those two documents we walked back to Savska being happy to finalize this process. 

We waited outside as usual. After an hour it was our turn to get in. 
Few steps up and to the left. Wait on a lounge. 
No one is coming out to call us in.

Knock on the door.
Nothing happening. 
Lady coming out from the other door.
Telling that the station was closed already an hour ago.
– But but, what? We were asked to bring some documents and we came right away when we got a mail. Can we just leave these papers?
– No. Come tomorrow. We are open 8-13. 

Aha… The station was open until 18 (6pm) the last week, but well…
So the next morning we once again crawled back to the station. 

And guess what. We again didn’t get in, but this time there was a friendly policeman in a hallway collecting our papers and giving us a date when to come back. 
No need to get inside at all.

We were given a date, few weeks later, to come back to get our passports stamped. 
And that it was.

Aaaand after those thrilling weeks we returned to Savska, once more.
Handed over our passports and were told to return the same day in the afternoon.
And that we did, returned once again and there it was, a visa on our passports!

Checklist

Make sure you have all these documents (signed & stamped) with you before entering MUP

• Document of your reason to stay
• Passport photo x 2
• Bank account, a deposit and a letter from the bank proving you can provide yourself
• Health insurance
• White card (registration)
• Rental agreement, proof of ownership & copy of owner’s ID
• CV written in Serbian (doesn’t need to be authorized)
• Application form
• Receipt of payment for the applications fees
• Passport

This process being a bit slow (but actually very fast comparing to many other countries) you really should start it early, as I told. Meaning that basically for a one year temporary residency you have around eight months to relax before starting it all over again. 
But anyway, it’s worth it if you enjoy your time here as we do. 

Good luck!

And once you are here, check out our other posts about Serbia. And just in case you’ll be deported, read my posts in English to find your next destination to lay your hat at.