Returning to Serbia after working abroad — the customs relief

Coming home is not a move in reverse

People returning to Serbia after years of work in Germany, Austria or Switzerland usually assume the journey home is the same as the journey out, only backwards. It is not. Going out is an export of personal effects; coming back is an import — and import into Serbia has its own rules, its own deadline and a relief that many people fail to use because they do not learn about it in time.

That relief is the customs exemption for returnees from work abroad, and it can be worth thousands of euros. The conditions are clear, but they hang on a deadline that starts running on the day you return.

Who qualifies, and what it is worth

It applies to people who have worked abroad continuously for at least two years. How much the relief is worth depends on how long you were away:

The relief covers household goods — furniture, appliances, clothing, tools, household effects. The things you actually used in your home out there.

The twelve-month deadline, and where it starts

The goods must be brought in within one year of the day you returned from working abroad. Not from the day you decided to come back — from the return itself.

In practice that means one thing: if you plan to come back alone first, find a flat, and only bring your things eighteen months later, the relief has expired and you will pay full import duty. If the dates do not line up, it is cheaper to have the goods arrive in time and wait in storage than to miss the deadline.

A car is not included — under any circumstances

The relief expressly does not extend to motor vehicles, however long you were abroad. A car is a separate import with its own duties and its own procedure, and it does not travel with the household load.

This catches people out more than anything else on this list, usually because the relief is described to them as covering "everything you owned out there". It does not.

Papers to arrange in advance

The key document is a certificate of the length of your employment abroad, issued by the diplomatic or consular mission of the Republic of Serbia in the country where you worked. For ship's crew it is issued by the master of the vessel.

That certificate is far easier to obtain while you are still out there than afterwards from Serbia. It is the one thing in the whole procedure we cannot do for you, and the one that can hold a move up for weeks.

With it go: your passport, the inventory you sign, and a statement of permanent relocation to Serbia. The rest — the declaration and dealing with customs — we handle, exactly as we do in the outbound direction.

Residence, health cover and the rest, after you arrive

Customs is only the first step. Once you are here you need to register your residence, sort out health insurance, and reinstate whatever you cancelled when you left.

We run the transport from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and elsewhere regularly in both directions — we are coming back on those routes anyway, so a return load often works out cheaper than the outbound one. It is worth asking about dates when we already have a run scheduled that way.

Frequently asked questions