Serbia's 2026 Consumer Protection Law: Web Shop Checklist

Serbia's new Consumer Protection Law (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 35/2026) entered into force on 1 May 2026 and has applied since 2 August 2026. On that day the 2021 law (No. 88/21) ceased to apply. For a web shop, this means new rules for checkout, prices, withdrawal, complaints and reviews.

Two provisions have applied since 1 May already: Article 4(1), which says when a special law takes precedence, and Article 6 on price display and price lists. Everything else, including the rules for distance contracts, applies from 2 August.

The law follows EU consumer rules. It adds specific rules for digital content and digital services, explicitly bans fake reviews and spells out what a customer must see before clicking the order button. A shop whose terms of sale were written under the old law almost certainly has a few things to update.

Below is a walkthrough by part of the site: what belongs in the footer and terms of sale, what a compliant checkout looks like, who the open data price list applies to and what you can fix right away.

We write this as a Belgrade team that builds custom-coded web shops (Nuxt and Laravel). This is a practical overview, not legal advice: have a lawyer review your final terms of sale.

ServiceWeb shop development

The Three Biggest Changes: Prices, Withdrawal and Reviews

01Prices

The selling price and the unit price must be shown clearly, legibly and prominently (Art. 6). The advertised price includes taxes and all extra costs, delivery included. If costs cannot be calculated in advance, the customer must be told how they are calculated.

02Withdrawal

A customer can withdraw from a distance purchase within 14 days without giving a reason (Art. 29). For goods, the period runs from the day the parcel reaches the customer, and for services from the day the contract is concluded (Art. 30).

03Reviews

Writing fake reviews, commissioning them or claiming they come from real buyers without reasonable checks is banned (Art. 20). If you display reviews, you must state whether and how you make sure they were written by actual customers (Art. 19).

04Sales and discounts

Special sales incentives must be shown clearly, with their conditions, and you must honour them (Art. 26). A struck-through price without clear sale conditions can easily become a misleading commercial practice.

If you do not inform the customer about the right of withdrawal, the period is extended by 12 months (Art. 30). You refund the money within 14 days of receiving the withdrawal notice, using the same payment method the customer used (Art. 35).

06The simplest approach to reviews

Only customers with a confirmed order can leave one, the review carries a verified purchase label and the rule is explained on the site. Hiding every negative rating can be read as misrepresenting reviews.

Mandatory Information and Pages on a Web Shop

Before the purchase, the customer must receive clear information in Serbian about the goods, the company, price, payment, delivery, complaints and withdrawal (Art. 12 and Art. 27). In practice this means a footer with company details and a few pages that are reachable from every page of the site.

Trader details: business name, registration number, registered address, phone number and email address, plus the address where you actually operate if it differs from the registered one. These details go in the footer and in the terms of sale.

Terms of sale: payment methods, delivery method and time, legal liability for non-conforming goods, conditions and deadline for withdrawal, who pays for returning goods and the option of out-of-court dispute resolution. If you did not tell the customer in advance that they pay the return costs, you cannot charge them (Art. 36).

Withdrawal and complaints: a dedicated page with the withdrawal form and instructions on how to send it. If the customer can fill in and submit the form on the site, you must confirm receipt without delay in writing or by email (Art. 29). Information on how and where complaints are accepted must be clearly displayed on the site (Art. 63).

Delivery: goods must be delivered within 30 days of the contract unless agreed otherwise, and if delivery is not possible you must tell the customer without delay (Art. 33). Add a privacy policy as well, since processing customer data is governed by Serbia's personal data protection law.

ServiceWebsite redesign

GuideWebsite maintenance

A Compliant Checkout, Step by Step

Start of the order: at the latest when ordering begins, the customer must clearly see which payment methods you accept and whether any delivery restrictions apply, for example no shipping abroad or bulky items not sent by post (Art. 32).

Summary before confirmation: right before the order is submitted, show the main characteristics of the product, the total price with tax and delivery and, for subscriptions, the contract duration (Art. 32). The summary sits directly above the button, not only in the terms of sale.

The button: if clicking it creates an obligation to pay, the button must say so clearly, for example Order with obligation to pay. If this is not clearly indicated, the contract or order does not bind the customer (Art. 32). A neutral label such as Next does not tell the customer they are paying.

Digital content and services: for an e-book, online course or downloadable software, add a checkbox where the customer requests delivery before the 14 days run out and confirms they lose the right of withdrawal (Art. 32 and Art. 38). The same goes for a service fully performed within the withdrawal period: without the customer's prior express consent and acknowledgement, the exception does not apply.

After the order: within a reasonable time, and no later than delivery, send the customer the withdrawal form, the full pre-contract information and the contract or its confirmation on a durable medium (Art. 32). Under the law, email counts as a durable medium. When we added Raiffeisen UPC card payments to our own site and portal, refunds could only go back to the same card, which matches the rule that money is returned by the same payment method (Art. 35).

ServiceCustom software

Who Has to Publish an Open Data CSV Price List

The obligation to publish a CSV price list on the website and on the Open Data Portal, applicable from 1 September 2026, covers large retailers. Under the rulebook, these are retailers selling everyday consumer goods whose sales revenue in the last business year exceeded 3 billion dinars.

The basis is Article 6 of the law: a trader publishes a price list on its website in a digital form suitable for automated processing, separately for each store, updates it in real time and opens an account on the National Open Data Portal. The details are set by the Rulebook on the conditions, content and manner of publishing price lists (Official Gazette No. 76/2026).

The rulebook lists categories such as milk and dairy products, drinks, fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, baby food and pet food. A new price list is published with every price change, and the list valid on the first day of each month is kept as a historical snapshot.

For a typical web shop selling clothing, furniture or electronics, these technical rulebook obligations do not apply, but the first rule of Article 6 applies to everyone: the selling price and the unit price must be clearly displayed. If you sell groceries and are growing, exporting the price list from the database to CSV is a small development task on a custom-coded shop.

Quick Fixes for Checkout, Product Page and Footer

01Checkout

Rename the order button so it clearly says the customer takes on an obligation to pay, and show a summary with the total price and delivery right above it.

02Product page

The final price including VAT, the unit price where required and the delivery cost or a link to it, all visible before the customer enters the cart.

03Footer

Business name, registration number, address, phone and email, with links to the terms of sale, withdrawal and its form, complaints and out-of-court dispute resolution.

04Checkout

An automatic email after each order with the confirmation, the terms and the withdrawal form attached. This gives you proof that the customer was informed, and the burden of proof is on the trader (Art. 27).

05Product page

Reviews only from customers with a confirmed order, a verified purchase label and a short note on how you check them.

06Footer and admin panel

A complaints contact with working hours and an electronic complaint register with the dates of receipt, reply and resolution.

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Frequently Asked Questions About the Consumer Law for Web Shops

Does the law apply to flat-rate sole traders (paušalci)?

Yes. The law treats any entrepreneur acting within their business activity as a trader, regardless of how they are taxed. A flat-rate sole trader selling through a website or social media has the same obligations towards customers, and the law sets separate fines for entrepreneurs.

When does the 14-day withdrawal period start?

For goods, from the day the parcel reaches the customer or a person they designated who is not the carrier. If one order arrives in several shipments, the period runs from the last one. For services, it runs from the day the contract is concluded, and a withdrawal notice is on time if it is sent before the period expires.

What counts as a fake review?

The law bans writing fake reviews, commissioning reviews from others and misrepresenting reviews to promote products. It is also banned to claim that reviews come from real buyers if you have not checked this with reasonable measures, for example by tying each review to a confirmed order.

What are the fines for a web shop?

For misleading commercial practices, which include fake reviews, the fine for a company is 300,000 to 2,000,000 dinars and for an entrepreneur 50,000 to 500,000 dinars (Art. 209). For failures such as missing pre-contract information for distance contracts or breaking the complaint rules, the fine is 200,000 dinars for a company and 100,000 dinars for an entrepreneur (Art. 210). When an inspector finds a violation, they order it to be fixed within a period of at least 24 hours and at most two months, unless otherwise prescribed.

Do the same rules apply to selling on a marketplace and on my own shop?

If you sell as a company or entrepreneur, you have a trader's obligations towards the customer both on the platform and on your own site. The platform, as an online marketplace provider, has extra duties: explaining how it ranks offers, stating whether the seller is a trader and how obligations are split between it and the seller (Art. 28). When the seller is a private individual who is not a trader, this law does not apply.

Serbia Consumer Law 2026: Web Shop Checklist