Technical inspection of vehicles in Serbia

On 9 November 2018, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the amendments to the Law on Safety in Traffic on Public Roads, which were published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia No. 87/18 from 13 November 2018 which will come into force on 21 November 2018.

This law abolishes the obligation of technical inspection on every six months for motor vehicles older than 15 years, because such a provision would materially affect the owners of such vehicles, for which the principle assumption is that such an expenditure could significantly impair their material situation.

Also, the owners of newly manufactured vehicles are allowed to register the vehicle first time without submitting evidence of the technical validity of the vehicle, and postpone the first regular technical inspection no later than the expiration of two years from the first registration, with the obligation for importers or domestic car manufacturers in Serbia to issue a certificate of vehicle conformity to the owners and evidence containing accurate vehicle data.

The aim of these law amendments is to resolve problems set forth by the Rulebook on Vehicle Inspection (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia” No. 31/18), which caused a strong public resistance because of the costs that the introduction of two technical inspections per year would cause to the owners of vehicles older than 15 years, and the existing parameters related to the performance of such vehicles in the one-year periodical technical inspections were taken into account, and this provision has been changed.

Also, the owners of new vehicles in Serbia were cut some slack in order to reduce the administrative and financial burden of the first registration.