A Non-Resident Director of a Serbian Company: What Must Be Arranged

The director of a Serbian company can live in Vienna, Moscow or New York: a non-resident can run a company in Serbia. But between can and runs without friction sit several practical questions best solved before the appointment, not when the first payment gets stuck. Here is what needs to be arranged.

Yes, a non-resident can be the director

Serbian rules do not require the company director to reside in Serbia. A company with a foreign owner and a foreign director is a fully legal setup. The practical questions are what separates a setup that works from one that constantly stalls.

What to arrange in advance

• Signing. Who signs contracts, filings and bank orders when the director is not physically present: a qualified electronic certificate, powers of attorney, or a combination, each with its own conditions.
• Bank access. Banks have their own procedures for non-residents: from identification to account signing rights. Some require personal presence at least once, so it is planned alongside incorporation.
• The tax status of the engagement. Employment contract, a director agreement without employment, or serving without remuneration: each option is taxed differently, and for non-residents it also intersects with double taxation treaties.
• Operations in absence. Who receives mail, communicates with the Tax Administration and banks, and delivers documentation to the accountant on time.

The non-resident director's fee

A non-resident director's remuneration is taxed in Serbia under specific rules, depending on the form of engagement and the double taxation treaty with the country of residence. A wrongly structured fee is one of the more common findings in tax inspections of foreign-led companies, so we set this up with documentation from day one.

How we run it

For companies with foreign directors we provide complete accounting and tax consulting, in English or Russian when that is the management language: the director's fee payroll, bank and Tax Administration communication, and clean owner reporting. More in our guide to accounting for foreign-owned companies.

Set it up properly

Appointing a foreign director, or already in a setup that creaks? Book a conversation or send us a message: we will go through signing, banking and the fee's tax treatment while it is still cheap to fix.