Government expands regulation on margins – Limits for sale prices as well

The Serbian Government has adopted the fourth amendment to the Regulation on Special Conditions for Conducting Trade for Certain Types of Goods, which specifies the amount of margins by type of sale.

The list of products whose margins can be changed has also been expanded compared to the decision made on August 1 this year.

Protection from manipulation

The list of products for which, according to the expanded regulation, price adjustments are possible includes frozen fruit, honey and teas, and a new feature is the explicit definition that the margin limit of 20% must now be applied at all times, regardless of whether they are regular or sale prices (type of sale).

In practice, this means that there is no longer any possibility of manipulating the basis for calculating the margin during promotional periods, thus ensuring that the discounts are real and in accordance with the proclaimed limits.

The addition of teas, frozen fruits and honey to the list of food products that are not subject to the invoice price limit at the level of August 1, 2025, means that their prices will be set freely in the future.

The amended regulation now also allows a higher percentage of compensation for the costs of maintaining the cold chain between retailers and suppliers.

The total amount of all compensation that a retailer can invoice to a supplier who has freezers installed at the retailer cannot now exceed 18% of the total net amount on the invoices.

New clause for suppliers

For other suppliers, the general compensation limit remains at the level of 10%, but the fixed percentages for logistics rebates and discounts are abolished, and they are tied to the amounts contracted on August 1, 2025.

A new protective clause for suppliers has also been introduced to prevent unilateral termination of cooperation - deleting a product from the list of contracted products or significantly reducing ordered quantities is permitted under the new rules only with the written consent of the supplier.

“An important new feature is the obligation to publish price lists on the Open Data Portal. Retailers are obliged to publish price lists, which were previously delivered in Excel format via email, in machine-readable csv format, in accordance with a standardized structure,” according to the Nedeljnik newspaper, as reported by the Beta agency.

This data will be publicly available from December 9, 2025, and as announced by Minister of Domestic and Foreign Trade Jagoda Lazarevic, citizens will be able to choose the retail chain, product category, product, brand and price on the platform, as well as compare prices in retail chains.

Vlada Republike Srbije

Government of Serbia

Regulation on Special Conditions for Conducting Trade for Certain Types of Goods

trade margins

regulation

discounts

prices