New Consumer Protection Act in Serbia

On 23 April 2026, the Serbian parliament adopted a new Consumer Protection Act. The law contains certain provisions taken from the three EU directives adopted in 2019: Directive 2019/770 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services; Directive 2019/771 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods, and the so-called "Omnibus" Directive 2019/2161 on the better enforcement and modernisation of Union consumer protection rules.

The Serbian government’s desire to demonstrate its commitment to EU standards in the area of ​​consumer protection is reflected in a programmatic provision added late in the legislative process, according to which the provisions of the new Consumer Protection Act do not apply if the provisions of a lex specialis also regulate the relationship between the consumer and the trader and are harmonized with the EU acquis (Art. 4.1 of the new Consumer Protection Act).

The law does not contain provisions from Directive 2024/2853 on liability for defective products.

Most of the provisions included in the final version of the law adopted at the end of April were already present in the first draft, which the government made available to the public in October 2023. Some of the important novelties relate to digital content and digital services. Relevant examples include the following:

• The definition of "goods" now includes a physical object that has digital content or a digital service embedded in it or is connected to it in such a way that the goods cannot function without that digital content or digital service (Art. 5.1, point 6).
• The law extends the application of the provisions on sales contracts for the supply of digital content or digital services, where the consumer provides or undertakes to provide personal data to the trader (Art. 4.10).
• The new law regulates in detail the subjective and objective requirements that must be met for goods to be considered in conformity with the contract (Art. 53, as well as Art. 74 for contracts on the supply of digital content and digital services). Subjective requirements are met when the goods are in accordance with what the trader and the consumer agreed upon, and objective requirements are met when the goods are fit for the purposes for which goods of the same type would normally be used.
• A trader selling goods with digital elements must inform the consumer about updates and provide updates that the consumer then installs himself (Art. 54).

The law introduces new forms of business practice in the online context, which, regardless of the circumstances of the individual case, is considered misleading:

• displaying search results in response to a consumer’s online search without a clear indication of paid advertising or a separate payment for the purpose of achieving a higher ranking of the product in those results (Art. 20.1, point 12);
• stating that product reviews have been provided by consumers who have used or purchased the product without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to verify whether those reviews have been provided by actual consumers (Art. 20.1, point 26); and
• providing false consumer reviews or recommendations or instructing another legal or natural person to provide them, or misrepresenting consumer reviews or recommendations for the purpose of promoting the product (Art. 20.1, point 27).

The new Consumer Protection Act transposes a variation of the provision from the EU Omnibus Directive (2019/2161), which prohibits the non-transparent placing of dual quality goods on the market. In the Serbian context, it is now prohibited to place goods on the Serbian market with the claim that they are identical to goods placed on the market in EU Member States although those goods differ significantly in composition or characteristics (Art. 18.2, point 3). The law lists certain "legitimate and objective reasons" for placing goods on the market that differ from those sold in the EU, provided that consumers are informed of the differences or can easily identify them. The relevant provision on these exceptions to the general ban is not clearly formulated, and implementation remains questionable.

The new law takes into account the legitimate interests and concerns of traders in some important respects. Perhaps most significantly, in relation to the conclusion of distance contracts, the draft law allows the trader to include only a minimum of information in the pre-contractual information to the consumer if the means of distance communication have limited space or display time (Art. 32.2, item 2). The minimum information includes the main characteristics of the goods or services, the identity of the trader, the total price, the duration of the contract, the existence of the right of withdrawal and, if the contract is for an indefinite period, the conditions for terminating the contract.