Serbia's Annual Income Tax: Does Godišnji Porez Reach a Paušalac?

Last updated: August 2026. Reflects the Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana ("Sl. glasnik RS", br. 24/2001, with amendments, consolidated through br. 6/2026). The rules below are cited to ZPDG articles. The dinar amounts for income year 2025 and the form name are cross-checked against two independent professional sources rather than read directly off the gazette — they are marked as such where they appear.

In short

Does the annual tax reach a paušalac? Yes in principle, rarely in practice. The paušalno utvrđen prihod counts toward the annual tax (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 2 t. 2), but for a paušalac it sits far below the threshold, so most never file.
Neoporezivi iznos for income year 2025: 5,439,096 RSD — three times the average annual salary (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 1).
Rates: 10% on a taxable base up to 10,878,192 RSD (six times the average annual salary), 15% on the excess (ZPDG čl. 89). The boundary is measured on the osnovica, after the non-taxable amount and the lični odbici come off — not on gross income.
The figure that is widely published wrong: 9,749,016 RSD is the 2024 threshold, not the 2025 one. It still appears in 2026 articles and in AI search summaries.
Form and deadline: PP GPDG, filed electronically through ePorezi by samooporezivanje, due 15 May 2026 for income year 2025 (ZPDG čl. 92 st. 1).
It arrives pre-filled. The Poreska uprava prepares the return and posts it by 1 April (ZPDG čl. 92). Open it and check it.

Where a paušalac sits in the annual tax

A paušalac is inside the godišnji porez na dohodak građana in principle and outside it in practice. Both halves are true, and most published answers give only one of them.

The legal half: income from samostalna delatnost is one of the income types the annual tax aggregates, and for a paušalac that means the paušalno utvrđen prihod — the assessed income set out in your rešenje (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 2 t. 2, referring to čl. 33 st. 2 and čl. 41).

There is no carve-out for lump-sum taxpayers. If someone tells you paušalci are legally outside the annual tax, that is wrong.

The practical half: the annual tax only applies to income above the neoporezivi iznos, which for income year 2025 is 5,439,096 RSD. A paušalac's assessed income is not his turnover, and turnover itself is capped at 6,000,000 RSD (ZPDG čl. 40 st. 2 t. 4).

The assessed figure lands well below the threshold for the activity codes paušalci typically register under, so paušal income alone does not trigger a filing.

The two halves matter together. A paušalac who also draws a zarada from employment, or receives autorska prava, aggregates those with his assessed paušal income. That combination — not paušal income by itself — is what occasionally puts someone over the line.

The figures for income year 2025

Every amount below is anchored to the average annual salary in Serbia for 2025: 1,813,032 RSD. The law expresses the thresholds as multiples of that figure, and the Republički zavod za statistiku publishes the salary; the dinar amounts follow arithmetically.

Item	Rule	Amount for income year 2025
Prosečna godišnja zarada	Published by RZS	1,813,032 RSD
Neoporezivi iznos	3× average annual salary (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 1)	5,439,096 RSD
Top of the 10% band, on the taxable base	6× average annual salary (ZPDG čl. 89)	10,878,192 RSD
Lični odbitak — taxpayer	40% of average annual salary (ZPDG čl. 88)	725,213 RSD
Lični odbitak — per dependent	15% of average annual salary (ZPDG čl. 88)	271,955 RSD
Additional reduction, under 40	3× average annual salary (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 4–5)	5,439,096 RSD

The rules in the middle column are verified against ZPDG. The dinar amounts in the right-hand column are cross-checked against two independent professional sources (KPMG Serbia and pktatic.rs) rather than read off the Službeni glasnik text.

The rate structure itself is short, but it applies to the taxable base, not to gross income (ZPDG čl. 89):

Taxable base (osnovica)	Rate
Up to 10,878,192 RSD	10%
Above 10,878,192 RSD	10% on the first 10,878,192 RSD, then 15% on the excess

The order of operations is where most published summaries go wrong:

Dohodak — the annual sum of the income types listed in ZPDG čl. 87 st. 2, each reduced by the tax and contributions already paid on it (čl. 87 st. 3).
Dohodak za oporezivanje — dohodak minus the neoporezivi iznos of 5,439,096 RSD (čl. 87 st. 8).
Osnovica — dohodak za oporezivanje minus the lični odbici (čl. 88).
Tax — 10% on the osnovica up to 10,878,192 RSD, 15% on anything above that (čl. 89).

Read in that order, the 15% rate is further away than a flat reading of the table suggests: a base of 10,878,192 RSD already sits on top of the 5,439,096 RSD removed at step 2, plus whatever the lični odbici removed at step 3.

The 15% threshold that is widely published wrong

The 15% bracket for income year 2025 starts at a taxable base of 10,878,192 RSD. That is six times the 2025 average annual salary of 1,813,032 RSD, and ZPDG čl. 89 applies it to the osnovica — what is left after the neoporezivi iznos and the lični odbici — rather than to gross income.

The number circulating instead is 9,749,016 RSD. That figure is not invented — it is the correct threshold for income year 2024, filed in 2025, and it measures the same thing: six times that year's average annual salary, applied to the taxable base.

It has simply been carried forward. It appears in articles published in 2026, in tax summaries, and in answers generated by AI search tools, which reproduce whatever the indexed pages say.

The same drift affects the neoporezivi iznos: the 2025 figure is 5,439,096 RSD, and any 2024 number quoted alongside a 2025 filing deadline is a year out of date.

Check the year, not just the number

The annual-tax thresholds are recomputed every year from a statistic published the following February. A threshold quoted without an income year attached is unusable. Before relying on any figure, confirm it is stamped "for income year 2025, filed in 2026" — and not carried over from the previous cycle.

What counts for a paušalac: assessed income, not turnover

The figure that enters the annual tax for a paušalac is the paušalno utvrđen prihod from the rešenje, not the money that arrived in the bank account. This distinction does most of the work in answering whether a paušalac ever reaches the threshold.

Your turnover is what you record in the KPO knjiga and what the 6,000,000 RSD limit is measured against; the guide to the revenue limits explains how that limit is counted.

Your assessed income is a separate figure, derived by formula from the average salary, employment and population data for your location and your activity coefficient, then adjusted by the coefficients in the Uredba. It is set once a year by the Poreska uprava in your rešenje, and it does not move when your invoicing moves.

For how that number is actually derived, see the guide to the paušal tax base.

The 10% porez na prihode od samostalne delatnosti you pay monthly (ZPDG čl. 38) is applied to that same assessed figure. It is a different tax from the annual one, on a different schedule, and paying it does not discharge or replace the annual tax. The monthly mechanics are covered in the guide to monthly tax payments.

So the honest answer to "how much would a paušalac need to earn to owe the annual tax" is: the question is about the assessed figure in the rešenje, not about invoices. For the activity codes most paušalci register under, that figure is an order of magnitude below 5,439,096 RSD, and other income sources are what change the picture.

Lični odbici

The lični odbici are subtracted from the dohodak za oporezivanje to give the osnovica the rate is applied to (ZPDG čl. 88). They reduce the base, not the tax, and they only come into play for income that has already cleared the neoporezivi iznos — below that threshold there is no annual tax for them to reduce.

Two amounts exist for income year 2025:

Taxpayer: 725,213 RSD — 40% of the average annual salary.
Each dependent family member: 271,955 RSD — 15% of the average annual salary, per dependent.

Two limits apply. The total of all lični odbici cannot exceed 50% of the dohodak za oporezivanje. And where more than one family member is liable for the annual tax, only one of them may claim a given dependent — the same dependent cannot be counted twice across two returns.

The additional reduction for taxpayers under 40

A taxpayer who was under 40 on the last day of the tax year gets a further reduction of three average annual salaries — 5,439,096 RSD for income year 2025 (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 4–5).

This reduction is not general. It reaches only the income types in ZPDG čl. 87 st. 2 t. 1–3 and t. 6b — zarade, income from samostalna delatnost, autorska prava and seafarers' income — and čl. 87 st. 5 caps it at the total of those incomes, so it can never produce a negative figure.

It sits on top of the neoporezivi iznos rather than replacing it, which means the point at which the annual tax starts to reach those income types for an under-40 taxpayer is a further 5,439,096 RSD higher.

The age test is a single date: your age on 31 December of the tax year, not on the filing date. Someone who turned 40 in November 2025 does not qualify for income year 2025.

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The return arrives pre-filled by 1 April

The Poreska uprava prepares the annual return for you and posts it by 1 April (ZPDG čl. 92). This is the part of the procedure most people do not know about, and it changes what you should actually do in April.

The tax authority holds the data it needs — reported zarade, your paušal rešenje, and other reported income — so it assembles a draft return and places it in your ePorezi inbox. You are not waiting for a rešenje to tell you what you owe, the way you do with monthly obligations or with eko taksa.

The practical advice follows from that: open it and check it. A pre-filled return is a statement of what the authority believes your income was.

If it is empty or shows income below the threshold, you have your answer for the year and nothing further is required. If it shows income you do not recognise, or omits income you know about, that is something to resolve before 15 May, not after.

There is also a consequence to ignoring it. If a taxpayer who owes the annual tax does not file by the deadline, ZPDG čl. 92 st. 4 has the Poreska uprava file the return for him. Silence is not an exit.

Do not treat "I heard nothing" as confirmation that nothing is owed. Confirmation is what you find when you log in and look.

Filing: PP GPDG, electronically, by samooporezivanje

The form is PP GPDG, it is filed electronically through ePorezi, and the assessment is by samooporezivanje — self-assessment. There is no paper route and no waiting for the authority to issue a decision with an amount on it. You confirm or correct the return, submit it, and the liability follows from what you submitted.

The deadline for income year 2025 is 15 May 2026 — ZPDG čl. 92 st. 1 sets it as 15 May of the year following the income year. Annual deadlines like this one are listed alongside the rest of the paušal year in the paušal calendar checklist.

PPDG-2R is not the current form

Published guides — including some updated recently — still name PPDG-2R as the annual income tax return. Since the move to samooporezivanje, the annual return is PP GPDG, submitted electronically. If a source you are reading names PPDG-2R for the annual tax, treat the rest of its procedural detail as dated too.

The threshold for income year 2026 does not exist yet

There is no published 2026 threshold, and anyone quoting one is projecting. The thresholds are multiples of the average annual salary for the tax year, and the 2026 average annual salary will be published by the Republički zavod za statistiku in February 2027.

That is the honest state of the record as of August 2026. When the statistic appears, the neoporezivi iznos, the 6× threshold, and both lični odbici recompute from it, and the 2025 amounts on this page become the previous cycle's figures — exactly the way 9,749,016 RSD became a stale number.

Indexed amounts can move mid-year

ZPDG carries a periodic republication of usklađeni dinarski iznosi — indexed dinar amounts — and those take effect from the first day of the month following publication, so a figure can change in the middle of a calendar year rather than only on 1 January.

Before acting on any dinar amount in Serbian tax law, including the ones on this page, check whether a newer indexed set has been published.

Key takeaways

The paušalno utvrđen prihod does count toward the annual income tax (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 2 t. 2), so a paušalac is not legally outside the regime — but the assessed figure sits far below the threshold, so most paušalci never file.
For income year 2025 the neoporezivi iznos is 5,439,096 RSD, three times the 2025 average annual salary of 1,813,032 RSD (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 1).
The 15% band starts at a taxable base of 10,878,192 RSD for 2025; up to that the rate is 10%, and the base is what remains after the neoporezivi iznos and the lični odbici come off (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 8, čl. 88, čl. 89).
9,749,016 RSD is the 2024 threshold, and it is still being republished as if it applied to 2025 income — including in AI-generated summaries.
The lični odbici for 2025 are 725,213 RSD for the taxpayer and 271,955 RSD per dependent, capped in total at 50% of the dohodak za oporezivanje, with each dependent claimable by only one family member (ZPDG čl. 88).
A taxpayer under 40 on 31 December of the tax year gets an additional reduction of 5,439,096 RSD for 2025, reaching only zarade, samostalna delatnost, autorska prava and seafarers' income, and capped at the total of those incomes (ZPDG čl. 87 st. 4–5).
The Poreska uprava posts a pre-filled return by 1 April (ZPDG čl. 92); the form is PP GPDG, filed electronically by samooporezivanje, due 15 May 2026 for income year 2025.

Preduzmi tracks paušal obligations and deadlines. It does not calculate anyone's annual income tax liability, and where several income types aggregate in one year, that is a conversation for an accountant rather than for software.

Frequently asked questions

Does a Serbian paušalac have to pay the godišnji porez na dohodak građana?

In principle yes, in practice almost never. The paušalno utvrđen prihod assessed in a paušalac's rešenje is one of the income types that counts toward the annual income tax under ZPDG član 87 stav 2 tačka 2. But the annual tax only applies above the non-taxable threshold, which is 5,439,096 RSD for income year 2025, and a paušalac's assessed income sits far below that. Most paušalci therefore never file the annual return on the basis of their paušal income alone.

What is the non-taxable threshold for Serbia's annual income tax for income year 2025?

The neoporezivi iznos for income year 2025 is 5,439,096 RSD. The rule in ZPDG član 87 stav 1 sets it at three times the average annual salary in Serbia, and the 2025 average annual salary is 1,813,032 RSD. Income at or below that threshold is not subject to the annual income tax at all.

When does the 15 percent rate start for Serbia's annual income tax on 2025 income?

The 15 percent rate applies where the taxable base exceeds 10,878,192 RSD for income year 2025; up to that amount the rate is 10 percent. ZPDG član 89 expresses the boundary as six times the average annual salary, which for 2025 is six times 1,813,032 RSD, and it applies that boundary to the osnovica rather than to gross income. The osnovica is what remains after the non-taxable amount of 5,439,096 RSD and the lični odbici have been deducted, so in income terms the 15 percent rate starts considerably higher than 10,878,192 RSD.

Is 9,749,016 RSD still the correct 15 percent threshold for Serbia's annual income tax?

No. 9,749,016 RSD is the threshold for income year 2024, filed in 2025. For income year 2025 the correct figure is 10,878,192 RSD. Both are six times the average annual salary of their year and both are measured on the taxable base, not on gross income. The 2024 number is still being republished in articles dated 2026 and reproduced in AI search summaries, so check the income year attached to any threshold before relying on it.

What is the deadline for filing Serbia's annual income tax return for 2025?

The deadline is 15 May 2026 for income year 2025, set by ZPDG član 92 stav 1 as 15 May of the year following the income year. The return is filed electronically through the ePorezi portal by samooporezivanje, meaning the taxpayer self-assesses rather than waiting for the tax authority to issue a decision with an amount. The Poreska uprava posts a pre-filled version of the return by 1 April, and if an obligated taxpayer still does not file, član 92 stav 4 has the tax authority file it for him.

Which form does a Serbian taxpayer use for the annual income tax, PP GPDG or PPDG-2R?

The current form is PP GPDG, filed electronically through ePorezi. PPDG-2R is not the current annual income tax form since the move to samooporezivanje, although several published guides still name it. If a source names PPDG-2R for the annual tax, its other procedural details are likely to be out of date as well.

Does the Poreska uprava pre-fill the annual income tax return in Serbia?

Yes. Under ZPDG član 92 the Poreska uprava prepares the annual return using the income data it already holds and posts it to the taxpayer by 1 April. The taxpayer then checks it, corrects it if the data is wrong, and submits it by samooporezivanje. Because it arrives pre-filled, the sensible step in April is to log in to ePorezi and read it rather than assume nothing is owed.

How does the under 40 reduction work in Serbia's annual income tax?

A taxpayer who was under 40 on the last day of the tax year receives an additional reduction of three average annual salaries, which is 5,439,096 RSD for income year 2025, under ZPDG član 87 stavovi 4 and 5. It reaches only zarade, income from samostalna delatnost, autorska prava and seafarers' income, and stav 5 caps it at the total of those incomes so it cannot produce a negative figure. The age test is your age on 31 December of the tax year, not on the filing date.

Does a paušalac's turnover or assessed income count toward Serbia's annual income tax?

The assessed income counts, not the turnover. What enters the annual tax is the paušalno utvrđen prihod set in the rešenje under ZPDG članovi 33 and 41, which is derived by formula rather than from invoices. Turnover is the figure measured against the 6,000,000 RSD paušal limit and recorded in the KPO knjiga, and it is a separate number entirely.

What is the non-taxable threshold for Serbia's annual income tax for income year 2026?

It does not exist yet. The thresholds are multiples of the average annual salary for the tax year, and the 2026 average annual salary will be published by the Republički zavod za statistiku in February 2027. Any figure quoted for income year 2026 before that publication is a projection, not a published threshold.

Sources

Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana ("Sl. glasnik RS", br. 24/2001, with amendments consolidated through br. 6/2026) — čl. 33, čl. 38, čl. 40, čl. 41, čl. 87, čl. 88, čl. 89, čl. 92.
Zakon o porezu na dohodak građana — consolidated text on paragraf.rs — the text the article's citations were read against.
Poreska uprava Republike Srbije — preduzetnici paušalci — paušal status, assessed income and the rešenje.
ePorezi portal — where the pre-filled PP GPDG return is posted and filed.
Republički zavod za statistiku — publisher of the average annual salary the thresholds are derived from.

The dinar amounts for income year 2025 in this article are cross-checked against two independent professional tax sources (KPMG Serbia and pktatic.rs). The rules they implement are cited to ZPDG above.