At the session held on February 11, 2021 the Government passed a Decree establishing the Program of direct benefits from the budget of the Republic of Serbia to ecomonic entities in the private sector in order to mitigate the economic consequences caused by the epidemic of COVID-19 disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus.

This Decree determines the Program of direct benefits from the budget of the Republic of Serbia to economic entities in the private sector in order to mitigate the economic consequences caused by the epidemic of Covid-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Economic entities in the private sector, under the prescribed conditions, can exercise the right to payment of direct benefits from the budget of the Republic of Serbia, in the amount of 50% of the minimum net salary for January 2021 (15,450.12) per employee. The direct benefits will be paid in three months (in April, May and June 2021). The received direct benefits can be used exclusively for the payment of salaries and salary compensations to employees, no later than July 30, 2021.

The right to direct benefits can be exercised by economic entities in the private sector:

  • who have been established and registered with the competent authority or organization by the day of entry into force of the Program, or if they have become VAT payers by the day of entry into force of the Program;
  • whose personal income tax has not been temporarily confiscated on the last day of the month preceding the month in which the direct benefits are paid.

If they fulfill the conditions provided by the Program, the right to payment of direct benefits can also be used by entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs-farmers and lump-sum entrepreneurs who have registered a temporary cessation of activities at the earliest on the day the Program enters into force.

The following large legal entities are not entitled to direct benefits:

  • banks,
  • insurance and reinsurance companies;
  • financial leasing providers,
  • as well as payment institutions and electronic money institutions.

Economic entities can accept the subject help by giving a special statement on the portal of the Tax Administration, e-Taxes. The statement in question is given for each direct benefit separately, no later than the last day of the month preceding the month in which the direct benefits are paid.

To economic entities in the private sector that don’t submit the PPP-PD Form, i.e. that don’t have employees and are not entrepreneurs, i.e. entrepreneurs-farmers that have opted for the payment of personal wages, direct benefits are paid without giving a statement of acceptance of direct benefits within the deadlines and in the manner prescribed by the Program.

For the purpose of payment of direct benefits from the previous paragraph, a special assigned account is opened to the economic entity - payment of direct benefits - COVID-19 with the bank which, at the moment of entry into force of this Decree, maintains the current account of that economic entity. If an economic entity has opened current accounts with several banks, it is obliged to submit data on the name of the bank from the previous paragraph where the COVID account will be opened to it, no later than March 25, 2021, via the electronic services of the Tax Administration.

An economic entity in the private sector loses the right to use direct benefits prescribed by the Program if in the period from the date of entry into force of the Program until the expiration of three months from the last payment of direct benefits, reduces the number of employees by more than 10%, not counting employees who have concluded a fixed-term employment contract with an entity in the private sector before the entry into force of the Program for the period ending from the date of entry into force of the Program until the expiration of three months from the last payment of direct benefits.

Economic entities in the private sector that pay dividends from the day the Program enters into force until the end of 2021, are not entitled to the payment of direct benefits, and in the case that direct payments are paid to them, the rules for loss of the right to use direct benefits apply accordingly.