About Agency

Founding the Business Registers Agency

The Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA) was established by the Business Registers Agency Law to define its status, headquarters, activities, the means for the SBRA’s foundation and work as well as its organs.

The Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA) was established as the single institution in charge of coordinating business registers of importance for Serbia’s overall economy. Running the registers as public electronic databases has paved the way to greater legal protection, increased investments and the creation of a more favorable business environment in Serbia.

The SBRA was founded with the aim of reducing administrative barriers to starting a business. This goal has been achieved rather efficiently through a quick and simple registration procedure, reduced costs and shorter company registration procedures. Regulatory reforms have enabled SBRA to assist business entities in minimizing costs and administrative formalities in dissolution, liquidation or bankruptcy procedures. Beside, running business registers as public databases has created the conditions to increase business investments - through loan models such as financial leasing and pledges on movable property and rights. Banks too now enjoy far greater legal protection than they did before the reforms.

Electronic Service for Citizens

Electronic management of business registers allows prompt updating of information available on the official SBRA site – www.apr.gov.rs. In addition to updated information, the site also assists existing and future business entities in registering quickly and easily. It also offers all kinds of application forms free of charge, as well as samples of Incorporation Acts that future companies may find useful. The SBRA is fully equipped for filing online electronic registration applications, which will facilitate the entire procedure even more in the immediate future.

Filing electronic applications is an ideal service, because it is the quickest and simplest form of communication between the SBRA and its users. Aiming to be a citizen-oriented service, the SBRA encourages its clients to use modern information technologies. Educating the users and encouraging them to apply present and future electronic options is a part of its mission.

Standardized Rules for the Market Game

Running centralized registers in a single institution such as the SBRA, which has jurisdiction over the entire territory of the Republic of Serbia, provides standardized registration practices - in accordance with EU guidelines - as well as standardized conditions for all stakeholders in Serbia’s economy.

Various options for filing the application have additionally simplified the entire registration procedure, with no territorial restrictions, as in the former system. Applicants can file the registration application personally in the SBRA Belgrade head office, in one of its 13 branch offices throughout Serbia, in the offices of municipalities that have a cooperation agreement with the SBRA, online or by mail.

Single central registers also allow state authorities and institutions to access information on registered business entities, their solvency, debts of natural and legal entities related to financial leasing and pledges over movable property and rights and similar, all in one place.

In the Service of Business Entities

Founding the SBRA has brought about significant reforms in the field of business registration, as well as the harmonization of Serbia’s legislation with European standards. The first European directive instructs every member-country to form a standardized central register, a business register or a register of business entities. EU recommendations decree that the registration of business entities should become an administrative function rather than a means of taking legal control of the private sector, especially not before the start up of a business. The monitoring of activities undertaken by business entities is left to other instruments, such as regular inspections, mechanisms to enforce compliance with contracts, an efficient bankruptcy procedure, the efficient work of judicial bodies and other.

I Registered, Therefore I Exist

The SBRA runs business registers as single, centralized, public electronic databases:

The Business Register, in accordance with the Law on Business Entities Registration (operative as of 4/1/2005):

Submitting financial reports of business entities (in effect as of 1 January 2006)

The Financial Leasing Register, in accordance with the Law on Financial Leasing (operative as of on 4/1/2005)
The Register of Pledges over Movable Property and Rights, in accordance with the Law on Registered
Pledges over Movable Property (operative as of 15/8/2005).

The SBRA conducts registration activities in its Belgrade head office, as well as in its 12 branch offices throughout Serbia. It has 100 employees.

The SBRA bodies are the Board of Directors and the Director. Their authorities and competences are defined by the Law and SBRA’s Articles of Association. The registers are operated by Registrars appointed by the Board of Directors, with the consent of the Serbian Government.

Our Vision

SBRA, as a single, centralized, public, electronic database, is committed to accomplishing a specific vision:

To become the driver of Serbia’s economic development, so that Serbia can become the driver of progress for all its citizens.

We fulfill this vision by:

Creating a more favorable business environment to boost investments in Serbia
Creating new jobs and marginalizing grey economy
Through the principles of legal protection and public access to data
Improving the state administration’s work by introducing modern information technologies, having in mind one purpose only, which is the interests of the citizens.

Our Mission

The SBRA has undertaken to accomplish the following objectives:

The cost-effectiveness and accessibility of information through a single centralized database containing all the required registers
A simpler and quicker registration procedure
Improving the law regulations
Aligning with European registers (especially the EBR – the European Business Register) and harmonization with EU trends
Educating users and encouraging interactive communication.

The Business Registers Agency was established with the support of the Swedish Government (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), the World Bank, Microsoft – Serbia and Montenegro and USAID.