Fiscalization for Online Stores in Serbia: What Applies and How It Connects to Your Site

If your web shop sells to private individuals in Serbia, every sale has to go through an electronic fiscal device and the buyer gets a fiscal receipt, whether they pay by card, cash on delivery or bank transfer. The Serbian Tax Administration (Poreska uprava) has said it plainly for online sales of goods: the seller issues the fiscal receipt and sends it with the product, or electronically if the buyer agrees.

Search for this topic and many of the top results come from Croatia. Croatia has its own law and its own system: a different tax authority, JIR and ZKI codes on receipts, different exemptions. None of that applies to a company or sole trader registered in Serbia.

In Serbia the rules come from the Law on Fiscalization (Službeni glasnik RS, no. 153/2020, 96/2021, 138/2022 and 80/2026), fully applied since 1 May 2022. Alongside it there are bylaws, including the Rulebook on types of fiscal receipts, transaction types and payment methods, plus the Tax Administration's published answers on purs.gov.rs.

Many articles that still rank were written in 2021 and 2022, before the December 2022 amendments and before the latest change, which applies from 8 September 2026. Below you will find the rules by payment method, ESIR and V-PFR explained, the flow from order to receipt, and the ways to connect all of it to your site.

This article explains rules and technology. It is not tax advice. For your situation (business activity, VAT status, delivery method, business buyers) decide together with your accountant, and our Belgrade team at IT Expert will turn that decision into code.

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Card, Cash on Delivery or Bank Transfer: All Three Need a Receipt

01Card

The buyer pays on your site and the fiscal receipt shows "payment card" as the payment method. You issue the receipt through your own fiscal device. The bank and the card processor do not issue it for you.

02Cash on delivery

The courier collects the money, but the seller issues the receipt, not the courier company. The Tax Administration says the seller sends the fiscal receipt with the product, so it goes in the parcel, or to the buyer electronically if they agreed. Agree with your accountant how to mark the payment method and at which moment to issue it.

03Bank transfer

When a private buyer pays with a payment slip, the payment method is "transfer to account". If the money arrives before delivery, it is an advance: the Rulebook allows the advance receipt to be issued no later than the next working day after the payment is received, showing the payment date. The delivery itself then gets a final sales receipt linked to the advance.

04Delivery cost

If delivery is included in the price, everything goes on one fiscal receipt. If the buyer pays for delivery separately, the delivery company issues its own fiscal receipt for that cost. According to the Tax Administration, the delivery cost must always be shown on the website.

05Business buyers

Since the December 2022 amendments, sales to legal entities and sole traders outside a retail outlet are not treated as retail. Those buyers get an invoice, and if you are in the VAT system, an e-invoice through SEF. When companies buy through the same cart as consumers, check with your accountant which document applies.

06Online-only sellers

A business that sells exclusively over the internet issues the fiscal receipt in electronic form, according to the Tax Administration, with a verification hyperlink that opens on any device with internet access. A printed receipt is then not required.

ESIR, V-PFR and L-PFR in Plain Words

An electronic fiscal device has two parts. ESIR is the software that creates the receipt, and the PFR, the fiscal receipt processor, processes it with a security element and sends the data to the Tax Administration. Only a receipt that passes through both is a fiscal receipt.

ESIR is the part you see: a till in a shop, a desktop application or a module connected to your web shop. Use a solution listed in the Register of approved elements of electronic fiscal devices, which the Tax Administration publishes on its website.

L-PFR is a local processor running on your premises, with a security element in the form of a smart card. It can keep issuing receipts when the internet drops and sends the data to the Tax Administration once the connection is back, within 5 days at the latest.

V-PFR is a virtual processor that runs in the Tax Administration's Fiscalization Management System (SUF). According to the Tax Administration's answers, a V-PFR on its own, without a local processor, may be used only for online sales. If you also have a shop, you need at least one L-PFR per retail outlet.

For a web shop this usually means an ESIR connected to the site plus a V-PFR, with a security element you request through the ePorezi portal. The certificate in the security element is valid for at least one and at most four years, so put the expiry date in your calendar.

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The Automatic Flow From Order to Fiscal Receipt

The most reliable setup is one where the web shop sends the data to ESIR as soon as the sale is complete and returns the receipt to the buyer itself, with no retyping. It works like this.

First, the buyer completes the order and picks a payment method. For cards the site waits for the bank to confirm the payment, for bank transfers it waits for the money to arrive, and for cash on delivery the order goes to packing.

Next, the web shop sends ESIR the items, prices, tax labels and payment method. ESIR gets a processed receipt from the V-PFR with a QR code and verification link. The site stores the receipt number with the order and emails the receipt to the buyer or prints it for the parcel.

We use the same logic for card payments on our own site and client portal: we integrated the Raiffeisen UPC e-commerce gateway with 3D Secure and card tokenization for subscription renewals. Amounts are charged in RSD and refunds go only to the same card. That way the system always knows which payment belongs to which order, and without that there is no accurate receipt.

The code also needs the parts nobody sees: a retry when ESIR does not respond, protection against fiscalizing the same order twice, and a list of orders without a receipt that someone checks every day. Tax labels per item are set by your accountant; the developer only carries them into the system.

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Fiscal Receipts by Email: When It Is Allowed and What It Must Contain

You may email the fiscal receipt when the buyer agrees to it. The Tax Administration states that electronic delivery is possible only with the buyer's consent, and businesses that sell only online issue the receipt in electronic form anyway.

The easiest place to get consent is the checkout: a clear sentence or a checkbox next to the order button, with a database record of when the buyer agreed. If anyone asks later, you have proof.

The email should contain the full fiscal receipt, with the QR code and the verification hyperlink the buyer can open on a phone or computer. That lets the buyer confirm the receipt went through the Tax Administration's system. If the buyer did not agree to electronic delivery and you do not sell exclusively online, the printed receipt goes in the parcel.

The same email is a good place for the order number, your contact details and the complaints procedure, which the Consumer Protection Law (Službeni glasnik RS, no. 88/2021) already requires you to display. The buyer then has everything needed for a return in one message.

Three Ways to Connect Fiscalization to Your Site

01Manual

Orders arrive by email and someone retypes them into an ESIR app or till. It works for a few orders a day, but every price or quantity mistake ends up on the fiscal receipt, and the receipt has to be issued on time, not whenever someone gets to it.

02Semi-automatic

A staff member sends the order to ESIR with one click in the web shop admin, or ESIR imports orders from an exported file. Less typing, but it still depends on someone clicking.

03Full integration

The site sends the order to ESIR through its API as soon as the sale is complete and returns the receipt to the buyer on its own. It makes sense for shops with steady sales and for anyone taking card payments.

04How to choose

Count your orders and look at how buyers pay. The more card payments and daily orders you have, the faster manual work turns into delays and errors.

Before picking an ESIR, ask the vendor whether it has a documented API, how refunds work through it, what happens when the Tax Administration's system does not respond, and how the subscription is priced.

06The accountant's role

Setting tax labels per item, checking whether your activity has an exemption, deciding how advances are handled and what goes through SEF. The developer then turns those decisions into rules in the code.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Web Shop Fiscalization in Serbia

Does a flat-rate sole trader (paušalac) selling online need fiscalization?

Flat-rate status on its own does not exempt you from fiscalization. The decree that lists activities without the obligation to record sales no longer splits businesses into flat-rate and other taxpayers; it looks at the activity. A web shop selling goods to private individuals is generally covered, but check your activity code and the current version of the decree with your accountant.

How do refunds and cancellations work?

A refund is recorded with a receipt of the refund type, which references the number of the original sales receipt and includes the buyer's identification. Cancellation is only for correcting a mistake on an issued receipt and does not count as a refund. For card payments, refund to the same card, and check with your accountant how the buyer is identified for remote refunds.

Does a printed receipt have to be in the parcel?

The Tax Administration says the seller sends the fiscal receipt with the product and may send it electronically if the buyer agrees. If the buyer did not agree to email, the receipt goes in the parcel. If you sell exclusively online, the receipt is issued in electronic form with a verification link.

What is the deadline for issuing a fiscal receipt?

The basic rule is that the receipt is processed at the moment of the retail sale. When a bank transfer arrives before delivery, the advance receipt is issued no later than the next working day after the payment is received. If an L-PFR works offline, the data goes to the Tax Administration once the connection is back, within 5 days at the latest.

What if the buyer is a company: fiscal receipt or SEF invoice?

Sales to legal entities and sole traders outside a retail outlet are not retail, so they get an invoice, and VAT payers have issued e-invoices to other businesses through SEF since 1 January 2023. For tax periods after 31 March 2026, an e-invoice is also required for retail sales to a corporate card holder, but it is not issued before the fiscal receipt. How to apply this to a cart used by both consumers and companies is something to settle with your accountant.

Fiscalization for Online Stores in Serbia