Misdemeanours Act (Zakon o prekršajima) in brief: penalty notice, deadlines, appeal

What the Misdemeanours Act (Zakon o prekršajima) covers and whom it applies to

Zakon o prekršajima, the Misdemeanours Act, is the general statute of Serbian misdemeanour law: it defines what a misdemeanour is, who is liable, which sanctions exist and within what limits, how proceedings before a misdemeanour court run, how a penalty notice (prekršajni nalog) is issued and challenged and how sanctions are enforced. A misdemeanour is an unlawful act that a statute or other regulation of a competent authority defines as a misdemeanour and for which a misdemeanour sanction is prescribed (Art. 2). The misdemeanours themselves are not in this Act but in special regulations: the Road Traffic Safety Act, the Public Order Act, tax, customs and municipal regulations, and decisions of municipal and city assemblies. The Misdemeanours Act provides the common rules by which all of them are established and punished.

The official citation is: Zakon o prekršajima (Sl. glasnik RS Nos. 65/2013, 13/2016, 98/2016 - Constitutional Court decision, 91/2019, 91/2019 - other act, and 112/2022 - Constitutional Court decision). The Act has applied since 1 March 2014 (Art. 343). It applies to natural persons, entrepreneurs, legal entities and responsible persons within legal entities, and to minors under special rules.

In practice a citizen meets this Act in three situations: a penalty notice handed over on the spot by the police or a municipal inspector, or sent by post; a summons from a misdemeanour court following a request to initiate proceedings; and the question of what happens when a fine goes unpaid. This page follows that order.

How the Act is structured

The Act can be read as four parts:

• Substantive provisions (Art. 1-85): the concept of a misdemeanour, liability of natural persons and legal entities, types and limits of sanctions, sentencing, limitation
• Misdemeanour proceedings (Art. 86 onwards): jurisdiction, parties and defence counsel, evidence, the request to initiate proceedings, the penalty notice (Art. 168-178), the course of proceedings, judgment, appeal (Art. 258 onwards) and extraordinary remedies
• Enforcement (Art. 307-323): when a decision becomes enforceable, replacement of an unpaid fine, collection by force
• Registers (Art. 324-336): the Register of Sanctions and the Register of Unpaid Fines and Other Monetary Amounts

The most searched provisions of the Misdemeanours Act

Types of sanctions (Art. 32-52). Misdemeanour sanctions are punishments, demerit points, a warning, protective measures and educational measures (Art. 32). Punishments are imprisonment, a fine and community service (Art. 33). Imprisonment lasts from one to 60 days (Art. 37). A fine is prescribed as a range or a fixed amount: for a natural or responsible person RSD 5,000 to 150,000, for an entrepreneur RSD 10,000 to 500,000, for a legal entity RSD 50,000 to 2,000,000; fixed amounts run from RSD 1,000 to 50,000 for a natural person, RSD 5,000 to 150,000 for an entrepreneur and RSD 10,000 to 300,000 for a legal entity (Art. 39 para. 1 and 2). Municipal and city decisions may prescribe only fixed fines (Art. 39 para. 3). Demerit points, from 1 to 25, are prescribed only for road traffic safety misdemeanours (Art. 48). A warning may be imposed instead of a fine where circumstances considerably reduce the offender's responsibility or where the offender has fulfilled the obligation or made good the damage after proceedings began (Art. 50). Protective measures include, among others, confiscation of objects, a ban on carrying out certain activities, a ban on driving a motor vehicle and removal of a foreign national (Art. 52).

Who imposes sanctions (Art. 87 and 88). A misdemeanour sanction may be imposed only by the competent court, the exception being a fine imposed by an authorised body or official through a penalty notice (Art. 87). Proceedings begin with a request from an authorised body or the injured party, or with a penalty notice (Art. 88). The party filing the request bears the burden of proving the elements of the misdemeanour and liability (Art. 89 para. 2).

Jurisdiction and defence counsel (Art. 93, 100, 102 and 118). First-instance proceedings are conducted by misdemeanour courts and second-instance proceedings by the second-instance misdemeanour court (Art. 100), which under the Courts Organisation Act is called the Misdemeanour Appellate Court (Prekršajni apelacioni sud) and decides appeals against decisions of misdemeanour courts (Art. 30 of that Act). At first instance a single judge decides, at second instance a panel of three (Art. 102). The accused may defend himself alone or through counsel of his choice (Art. 93 para. 3 and 118 para. 4), and counsel may be a lawyer or a trainee lawyer (Art. 119).

Payment deadline and instalments (Art. 40). The judgment or penalty notice sets a payment deadline that cannot exceed 15 days from the judgment becoming final, or from delivery of the second-instance judgment where there was an appeal, or eight days from delivery of a penalty notice. In justified cases the court may allow payment in instalments over at most six months, provided the costs of the proceedings have been paid; that ruling cannot be appealed.

Replacement of an unpaid fine (Art. 41). An unpaid fine of a natural person, entrepreneur or responsible person may be replaced by imprisonment at one day for every RSD 1,000 or part thereof, no less than one and no more than 60 days; together with any imprisonment imposed, no more than 90 days. Instead of imprisonment the court may order community service, with eight hours of work replacing one day of imprisonment, up to 360 hours. If the person pays after the replacement decision, the imprisonment or work is not carried out. Replacement is not available for minors or legal entities, whose fines are collected by force.

Appeal (Art. 258-263). An appeal is filed within eight days of delivery of the judgment or ruling, with the court that issued it (Art. 258). The accused, defence counsel and the party that filed the request may appeal (Art. 259). A timely appeal suspends enforcement unless the Act provides otherwise (Art. 260). The grounds are a serious breach of procedural rules, a breach of substantive law, incorrectly or incompletely established facts and the decision on the sanction (Art. 263).

Misdemeanours Act: the penalty notice (prekršajni nalog)

The penalty notice is the most common way citizens encounter this Act, because in traffic and municipal matters the fine is as a rule imposed without a court. The rules are in Art. 168-178.

A notice is issued only where the misdemeanour carries solely a fixed fine; a separate notice is issued for each offender, and none may be issued to a minor (Art. 168). The basis is direct observation by an authorised official, data from a monitoring or measuring device, or an inspection (Art. 169). The notice must identify the authority and the offender, describe the misdemeanour, state the fine and give payment instructions, and it may be issued electronically (Art. 170). It must also warn the offender what he may do and what happens if he does nothing (Art. 171). The original is handed to the offender, who signs for it; if absent, the notice is served by post or courier (Art. 172).

An eight-day period runs from receipt. Whoever pays half the fine within it is released from the other half and the matter is closed (Art. 173 para. 1). Whoever neither pays nor requests a court decision owes the full amount from the ninth day: the notice becomes final and enforceable (Art. 173 para. 2 and 3, Art. 307 para. 3) and the fine is collected by force together with enforcement costs. The full amount may still be paid voluntarily until collection by force begins.

Whoever contests the notice requests a court decision by handing the signed notice to the competent misdemeanour court, in person or by post, within eight days (Art. 174). The notice then loses effect and ordinary proceedings begin before the court, in which the issuing authority presents its evidence (Art. 177). If the court finds the accused responsible, the full fine and the costs of the proceedings are payable (Art. 174 para. 4). The request may be withdrawn until the first hearing begins, and an unexcused failure to appear counts as withdrawal (Art. 175). A late or unsigned request is dismissed by a ruling, which may be appealed within eight days, though the appeal does not suspend enforcement (Art. 176). A person without residence in Serbia pays the fine immediately; if he does not, he is treated as having requested a court decision and is brought before the court (Art. 178).

Limitation of misdemeanours

Initiating and conducting misdemeanour proceedings is time-barred once one year has passed from the day the misdemeanour was committed (Art. 84 para. 1). The period does not run while proceedings cannot lawfully be taken (para. 2), it is interrupted by every procedural act of the competent court and starts afresh after each interruption (para. 3 and 4), but limitation sets in in any case after twice the statutory period, that is after two years (para. 7). For misdemeanours in the fields of customs, public revenue, public procurement, the environment, anti-corruption and air traffic, special statutes may prescribe a longer period, but not more than five years (para. 5 and 6). The same rules apply to the issuing of a penalty notice (para. 8).

A sanction and a protective measure cannot be enforced once one year has passed from the judgment becoming final, with absolute limitation after twice that period (Art. 85). In practice: a traffic notice on which neither the court nor the authority has taken any step for more than a year is time-barred, but every act of the court in the meantime resets the period, up to the two-year ceiling.

Enforcement and registers

A decision is enforced once it becomes final; a penalty notice becomes enforceable eight days after delivery, and a judgment is enforced by force after the payment deadline expires, as a rule 15 days after finality (Art. 307). Enforcement is carried out by the misdemeanour court that imposed the fine, or the court for the area where the notice was issued (Art. 314). The court chooses between replacing the fine with imprisonment or community service and collection by force, according to expediency and efficiency (Art. 314 and 315). Collection by force is made from the debtor's bank account, from earnings or by selling movable and immovable property (Art. 318-321). An objection against the enforcement ruling may be filed within three days and does not suspend enforcement (Art. 317).

The Register of Sanctions is kept on a central electronic data carrier at the ministry responsible for justice (Art. 325); the court enters a sanction immediately after finality (Art. 328), and it is deleted if the person commits no new misdemeanour within four years, or after one year for a warning (Art. 329). The Register of Unpaid Fines and Other Monetary Amounts serves more efficient collection (Art. 331); entry follows the expiry of the voluntary payment deadline (Art. 333), and deletion follows immediately after payment, after the fine is replaced by a served sentence, or four years after finality (Art. 334). An extract may be requested from any misdemeanour court (Art. 335). Art. 336, which denied registered persons a driving licence, vehicle registration certificate, plates and registration sticker until the debt was paid, ceased to apply by a Constitutional Court decision (Sl. glasnik RS No. 98/2016).

Misdemeanours and criminal offences

The same event may give rise to both misdemeanour and criminal liability, for example a road accident, where the severity of the injury decides whether the matter is treated as a misdemeanour or a criminal offence. Criminal offences are in the Criminal Code and are tried by courts of general jurisdiction under the Criminal Procedure Code, with heavier sanctions and the involvement of a public prosecutor. The difference between the two fields and the first steps when the police call you or a complaint arrives are described on the pages Krivični zakonik, Krivično pravo and Saobraćajna nezgoda, šta da radim.

Is there a new Misdemeanours Act in 2025 or 2026

No. The 2013 Act applies, in force since 1 March 2014, with the 2016 amendments (No. 13/2016), which among other things reorganised the Register of Unpaid Fines, the 2019 additions (No. 91/2019) and two Constitutional Court decisions. The decision published in No. 98/2016 struck Art. 336 on the consequences of entry in the register. A second Constitutional Court decision was published in No. 112/2022. No new Act had been adopted by October 2026.

Where to read the official text

The official consolidated text is available in the Legal Information System of the Republic of Serbia: Zakon o prekršajima at pravno-informacioni-sistem.rs. For the courts' jurisdiction, check the Courts Organisation Act; for the specific misdemeanour and fine, check the special statute the notice or request cites, most often the Road Traffic Safety Act.

Sources

• Misdemeanours Act (Zakon o prekršajima, Sl. glasnik RS Nos. 65/2013, 13/2016, 98/2016 - Constitutional Court decision, 91/2019, 91/2019 - other act, and 112/2022 - Constitutional Court decision)
• Courts Organisation Act (Zakon o uređenju sudova, Sl. glasnik RS No. 10/2023), Art. 29 and 30
• Misdemeanour Appellate Court (Prekršajni apelacioni sud)
• Criminal Code (Krivični zakonik, Sl. glasnik RS Nos. 85/2005 ... 94/2024 and 63/2026)