Under the applicable laws and regulations of the Republic of Serbia, it is possible to establish a company without the founder’s physical presence, provided that a special power of attorney is duly issued in the prescribed form. This option is available to both foreign natural persons and foreign legal entities, including their legal representatives, enabling efficient remote company formation.
Special Power of Attorney for Company Establishment
A foreign natural person or a foreign legal entity may authorise an attorney-at-law or another natural person, by means of a special power of attorney, to establish a company in the Republic of Serbia on their behalf and for their account. The authorised person must possess a qualified electronic signature issued by a certification authority in the Republic of Serbia, as well as an active account within the eID system for eGovernment services.
The special power of attorney for the establishment of a company must explicitly authorise the adoption of the founding act and the submission of the registration application of establishment to the Register of Business Entities maintained by the Serbian Business Registers Agency.
Certification, Apostille, and Legalisation
Special power of attorney for the establishment of a company must be notarized (signature certification) by the competent authority in a foreign country. In addition, such special power of attorney for the establishment of a company must be legalized in accordance with the Law on Legalization of Documents in International Traffic (“Official Gazette of the SFRY”, No. 6/73 and “Official Gazette of SCG”, No. 1/03 – Constitutional Charter) (“full legalization”), unless the country in which the special power of attorney was issued or executed is a signatory to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents, signed in The Hague on 5 October 1961 (“Official Gazette of the SFRY” – Supplement: International Treaties and Other Agreements, No. 10/1962), or a signatory to a bilateral agreement with the Republic of Serbia on the mutual exemption of public documents from legalization.
If the foreign country is a signatory to the Hague Convention, the foreign public document, i.e. the special power of attorney for the establishment of a company, certified by the competent authority must contain an “Apostille”. In cases where the Republic of Serbia has a confirmed bilateral agreement with the foreign country in whose territory the special power of attorney was issued, providing for mutual recognition of public documents without legalization, neither legalization nor an Apostille stamp is required.
The Republic of Serbia has confirmed bilateral agreements on mutual recognition of public documents without legalization with the following countries: Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Greece, Iraq, Italy, Cyprus, Libya, Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, France, and Croatia.
A document drafted in a foreign language must be accompanied by a translation into Serbian prepared by a certified court interpreter.
Electronic Form of Documents
As company registration in Republic of Serbia is conducted exclusively through electronic submission, all supporting documentation must be in electronic form.
If the authorised representative is an attorney-at-law, they may digitalise the special power of attorney for the establishment of a company and other supporting documents by signing them with their qualified electronic signature. These electronically signed documents are then submitted as attachment of the registration application for establishment.
The founding act may also be prepared by an attorney-at-law in original electronic form. In such cases, the requirement for notarization of signatures, as prescribed by the Company Law (“Official Gazette of the RS”, Nos. 36/2011, 99/2011, 83/2014 – other law, 5/2015, 44/2018, 95/2018, 91/2019, 109/2021, and 19/2025), is replaced by the use of a attorney-at-law’s qualified electronic signature.
If the authorised representative is not an attorney-at-law, the founding act must be executed in written form, and the signature must be notarised by a Serbian notary public. In this case, the notary public converts both the founding act and the special power of attorney for the establishment of a company into electronic form.
Documents that may otherwise be submitted as ordinary copies (for example, a copy of a member’s passport) do not need to be signed with a qualified electronic signature and may simply be submitted in PDF format.
Read more:
Complete legal support for the registration of business entities »
e-Registration of establishment of business companies in Serbia »
Company’s Memorandum of association »
