Data-center law in Serbia

Zakon o planiranju i izgradnji (Law on Planning and Construction), Official Gazette RS No. 72/2009 et seq., Arts. 8, 135

Applies to both

Article 8 requires the ministry responsible for construction affairs, the competent authority of an autonomous province, or the competent authority of a local self-government unit, depending on which has jurisdiction, to run a unified procedure covering the issuance of location conditions, the building permit, the use permit, and the conditions for connecting a structure to an infrastructure network, among other steps toward building and using an object.

Article 135 conditions issuance of the building permit on the investor submitting a project for the building permit prepared to the prescribed technical content, an approval of the construction and demolition waste management plan, proof of an appropriate right to the land or structure, and proof of payment of the applicable fees and charges.

Neither article names a data center or information-technology facility as a distinct category; a data-center project is permitted under the same general procedure as any other construction project of comparable scale.

Source: Full text of law

Zakon o proceni uticaja na zivotnu sredinu (Law on Environmental Impact Assessment), Official Gazette RS No. 94/2024

Applies to both

The Act regulates the environmental impact assessment procedure for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment, the content of the impact study, participation of interested authorities, organisations, and the public, transboundary consultation where another state may be affected, and oversight.

A project holder must obtain the competent authority's approval of the impact study, or its decision that no assessment is required, before the authority responsible for approving the project may issue that approval; a project holder who proceeds without that approval, or without carrying out measures the approval requires, commits a punishable misdemeanor.

The Act's own text, as reviewed, does not name a data center or information-technology facility as a project category; which specific project types require assessment is determined case by case under the screening procedure the Act sets out, rather than by a list within the Act itself.

Source: Full text of law

Zakon o energetici (Energy Law), Official Gazette RS No. 145/2014 et seq., Arts. 139, 254, 264

Applies to both

Article 139 requires the electricity distribution system's operating rules to set the technical conditions for connecting to the distribution system, alongside network development planning, conditions for safe and reliable operation, and demand management; Articles 254 and 264 impose an equivalent requirement for the natural-gas transmission and distribution systems' own operating rules.

Connection of a new large consumer, a data center included, is therefore governed by the technical conditions the relevant system operator adopts under these provisions rather than by a data-center-specific connection or priority rule; no such specific rule was located in the Act's own text.

Source: Full text of law

Zakon o ulaganjima (Law on Investments), Official Gazette RS No. 89/2015 and 95/2018

Applies to both

Article 2 sets the Act's objectives as improving the investment environment in Serbia and encouraging direct investment to strengthen economic development and employment growth.

Article 27 establishes the Development Agency of Serbia to carry out the developmental, professional, and operational work of encouraging and realising direct investment, export promotion, and competitiveness improvement, under the supervisory oversight of the ministry, and the Act separately provides for a local economic-development and investment-support unit within a local self-government to assist an investor realising a project.

The Act sets this general institutional and administrative support framework without naming information technology or data infrastructure as a distinct priority sector, and the reviewed text does not itself grant a specific tax, customs, or subsidy incentive; such an incentive, where one exists, would rest on a separate instrument not confirmed here.

Source: Full text of law