Cost of living in Serbia

Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (RZS) — Household Budget Survey (Anketa o potrošnji domaćinstava) 2025: average monthly individual consumption of households by COICOP group (database table 01010201), converted to one consumption unit (one adult) with the survey's equivalence scale ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Dec 31, 2025

Verified

Nov 3, 2026

Method

RZS publishes no spending figure for one-person households, only household averages, so the construct used is the survey's own one-adult unit: the consumption unit. Inputs. (1) Household Budget Survey 2025, all households, average monthly individual consumption 109,787 RSD per household (RZS database table 01010201 'Personal household consumption, monthly average', Serbia total, last updated 2026-04-09, read 2026-11-03; the twelve COICOP groups add exactly to the total; the same figure is in RZS' statistical release of 9 April 2026). The 2025 survey is already in 2025 prices, so no price uplift is applied. (2) Consumption units: the 2024 final bulletin (Household Budget Survey 2024, Bulletin 724, https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/G2025/pdfE/G20255724.pdf, Table 6.1) gives 2.03 consumption units per household on the OECD scale the survey applies (head of household 1, every other member aged 14 and over 0.7, child under 14 0.5; 2.57 members per household); the 2023 bulletin has the same 2.03. The 2025 bulletin is not out, so 2.03 is applied to 2025. (3) Rent: the survey has no imputed rent (consumption means expenditure plus the value of own-produced food, drink and firewood), so only actual rent is removed. The 2024 bulletin (Table 3.1) shows 993 RSD of 'actual rentals paid by tenants' and 294 RSD of 'other actual rentals' per household a month (1,287 RSD, 1.3% of spending) inside the housing group; lifted to 2025 with the Serbian HICP for actual rentals (Eurostat prc_hicp_aind, CP041, annual averages 167.7 in 2024 and 178.4 in 2025, x1.0638) it is 1,369 RSD. Arithmetic. 109,787 - 1,369 = 108,418 RSD per household; / 2.03 = 53,408 RSD per consumption unit a month. RSD to USD = amount / 117.4018 RSD per EUR (Eurostat ert_bil_eur_m, September 2026 monthly average of the National Bank of Serbia rate) x 1.1179 USD per EUR (ECB euro reference rate of 2026-11-03): 53,408 / 117.4018 = EUR 454.91; x 1.1179 = USD 508.55, shown as $509. The 12 lines (RZS COICOP groups, housing without rent) are summed in cost-breakdown.

Notes

What the figure is. It is not a measured one-person household: it is the average private household of Serbia (permanent residents; collective households are not covered; Kosovo is not covered) divided by the survey's 2.03 consumption units, that is, what one adult would spend if the household's spending followed the OECD scale. It includes the value of own production (food, drink, firewood), so rural households weigh in, and the food share is high (36.6% of 2025 spending). It is a national average, not a budget for a foreign remote worker in Belgrade: in 2024 Belgrade-region households spent 108,400 RSD a month against 98,165 RSD nationally (+10%) with 2.42 members against 2.57 (2024 bulletin, Table 3.1). Precision. 2024: 6,227 households surveyed (70% of the 8,856 planned); the 95% interval for the 2024 household mean is 96,119 to 100,180 RSD (coefficient of variation about 1%), so sampling error is about 2%; we did not find the 2025 sample size. Why consumption units. The alternatives are per member (109,787 - 1,369 = 108,418 RSD / 2.57 members = $402), which understates one adult because it counts children and spreads shared costs over more people, or a one-person household, which RZS does not publish. A check against observed one-adult households: Eurostat's harmonised Household Budget Survey tables hold Serbian data for the reference years 2015 and 2020 by household type (hbs_exp_t134, hbs_str_t211, hbs_str_t224, hbs_car_t313; updated October 2025). One-adult households (28.8% of households in 2020, a group that includes many pensioners) spent 7,749 PPS a year per household in 2020 and 8,127 in 2015 against 14,285 and 14,355 for all households, but Eurostat's version includes imputed rent (252 per mille of one-adult spending and 161 per mille of all-household spending in 2020, which RZS' national tables do not). Without actual and imputed rent, one-adult households spent 48.2% of the all-household figure in 2020 and 51.3% in 2015, against 1/2.03 = 49.3% under the survey's scale; applied to the 108,418 RSD those shares give $497 (2020) and $529 (2015), about 2% below and 4% above the $509 shown. The ratio is SettleMetric arithmetic on Eurostat's tables, and the 2020 round is not a published RZS result (RZS says its own 2020 survey was interrupted by the pandemic). Other checks. The 2024 survey (98,165 RSD, 1,287 rent, 2.03 units, 2024 prices) gives $454; lifted to 2025 with the Serbian all-items HICP (151.1 to 157.3, x1.041; flagged by Eurostat 'definition differs') it is $473, 7% below the measured 2025 survey, because RZS' household spending rose 11.8% in nominal terms in 2025 (109,787 against 98,165), faster than prices. Removing rent by the 2024 share of the housing group (8.03%) instead of the rental index gives $508. Rent. Serbia is a country of owners (83.2% of households own their dwelling and 4.0% rent a private dwelling, 2024 bulletin, Table 7.1), so the 'excluding rent' label removes only about 1.3% of spending; there is no imputed rent to remove, unlike the German and Dutch entries, whose spending figures carry imputed rent that was removed. Comparability. The German entry is the average of real one-person households (including pensioners) and the Serbian one an equivalised average household, so the two are not like for like; the HICP of Serbia is flagged 'definition differs'. The 2025 values were published on 9 April 2026; the database table carries the status 'A' (normal) for all values and we saw no provisional marking.

National Bank of Serbia, Insurance Sector in Serbia, Second Quarter Report 2026 (voluntary health insurance market); Serbian insurers' own pages (Uniqa, DDOR, Wiener Staedtische, Triglav, Generali, Dunav); PIO Fund and Tax Administration for the public-system contribution ↗

Official source

Data as of

Nov 3, 2026

Verified

Nov 3, 2026

Notes

Honest gap on the criterion's figure, with the nearest sourced anchors below. WHY NO NUMBER. The criterion asks for the median of at least three publicly quoted annual premiums for comprehensive private cover (outpatient plus inpatient, about $100k, small deductible) for a healthy 35-year-old. Serbian insurers publish almost no tariffs for such cover. DDOR (packages Bronzani 1 and 2, Srebrni, Zlatni; modules from EUR 1,000 to EUR 100,000), Wiener Staedtische (tiers of EUR 1,000-3,000, EUR 10,000-50,000 and EUR 100,000), Triglav (outpatient EUR 1,000-5,000; outpatient plus inpatient EUR 5,000-100,000), Generali (Total Medic) and Dunav publish product descriptions without prices; Dunav says the premium 'depends on the sum insured, duration, breadth of cover, entry age and other bases'. DDOR's calculator is a form asking for name, telephone and e-mail, Triglav's calculator posts to a server behind a reCAPTCHA, and Wiener asks the visitor to 'request an offer'; none of these was used (personal data or bot checks). Only Uniqa Serbia embeds a tariff table in a public page (dzo.uniqa.rs, calculator by age group, read 2026-11-03). For ages 31-35 it shows EUR 22.56 a month for Vital Start 1,000 (outpatient, EUR 1,000 annual budget), EUR 28.81 for Vital Start 2,000 and EUR 83.43 for Vital Elegant 10,000 (outpatient plus hospital treatment, maternity and delivery, EUR 10,000 annual budget) = EUR 1,001.16 a year = $1,119 for the top package. The page says the prices are informative, apply to people without previously diagnosed chronic conditions, may change after the health questionnaire and are contracted in dinars at the middle rate of the day; its footer carries a 2019 copyright line, so the date of the tariff is unclear, but the EUR 22.56 equals the outpatient component of a Uniqa 'informative offer' dated 30.01.2025 (EUR 30.65 a month = 22.56 + 8.09 for the yearly check-up), so the tariff looks unchanged since January 2025. That is one insurer and an annual limit of EUR 10,000, not the criterion's cover of about $100k, so it cannot stand next to the German $7,335 for unlimited cover; the same reasoning kept Croatia's cheap supplementary product out of its comprehensive figure. MARKET RANGE FROM A BROKER (not an insurer, not an official body). Respect Serbia's page lists monthly premium ranges across insurers for ages 30-39: EUR 13-18 (EUR 1,000 outpatient), EUR 28-38 (EUR 3,000 outpatient) and EUR 58-68 (EUR 50,000 outpatient plus hospital, maternity, check-up, physiotherapy) = EUR 696-816 a year = $778-$912 for the EUR 50,000 package. This is indicative of the market, not a quote, and shows that cover above EUR 50,000 is not priced publicly. Generali's policy for foreigners, which Generali says is needed to regulate a stay in Serbia, has a sum insured of EUR 5,000 and covers only sudden illness and accidents; it is not comprehensive. MARKET CONTEXT. The NBS says voluntary health insurance was 12.8% of all insurance premium in the second quarter of 2026 (RSD 104.3 bn in total), up 11.5% on the same quarter of 2025, with three insurers holding 61.8% of the segment; the statistics give no premium per insured person. WHAT A RESIDENT PAYS INSIDE THE PUBLIC SYSTEM (not this value; already counted elsewhere). Public health insurance with the National Health Insurance Fund is compulsory for employees and for entrepreneurs, who pay the contribution themselves (Welcome to Serbia portal). The health contribution rate is 10.30% (Tax Administration bulletin for the self-employed, English; 5.15% each for employee and employer when wages are paid). Contributions cannot be calculated on a base below the minimum monthly base, which is RSD 51,297 for 2026 (35% of the average wage; the maximum is RSD 732,820; PIO Fund notice of 9 January 2026). A self-employed person who takes no salary therefore pays at least RSD 5,283.59 a month for health = RSD 63,403 a year = EUR 540 = $604, and at most RSD 75,480.46 a month = RSD 905,766 a year = EUR 7,715 = $8,625 at the maximum base. A self-employed person who is also employed by another employer, or retired, is not liable for health contributions when paying personal wages. This health contribution is already one component of the freelancer tax burden in the tax schemes, so it must not be added to a private premium. Private cover in Serbia is a supplement chosen for faster access to private clinics, not a substitute for the compulsory contribution. FOR FOREIGN NATIONALS. DDOR says foreign nationals with temporary residence may take out its voluntary insurance; Wiener says the insured must be a natural person with a registered address in Serbia; Generali says a Serbian-issued voluntary policy is needed for a temporary-residence application (Generali's statement; the Law on Foreigners was not checked). Conversions: RSD 117.4018 per EUR (Eurostat, September 2026 average of the NBS rate) and USD 1.1179 per EUR (ECB, 2026-11-03). NOT READ. Dunav's, Sogaz's, Grawe's and international (IPMI) insurers' prices; Wiener's, DDOR's and Triglav's tariffs behind their quote forms; any insurer price for cover near $100k. If a number is wanted later, the only defensible candidates are the Uniqa figure above (one insurer, EUR 10,000 limit) or the public-system minimum contribution ($604, a different thing).