Position dated 5 September 2026. Status: In force. Instruments: three rulebooks of the Ministry of Finance — on controlled foreign companies (Official Gazette of Montenegro 116/2026, 5 August 2026, in force 13 August), on hybrid mismatches (same gazette and dates), and on the tax base and deferral on exit taxation (Gazette 118/2026, 7 August 2026, in force 15 August). Enabling statute: Zakon o porezu na dobit pravnih lica, as amended by Gazette 104/2026.
In July, Montenegro's corporate income tax act gained a chapter that reads like the EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive: an interest limitation, controlled foreign company rules, an exit charge and hybrid mismatch rules. The amending law's final article sets application from 1 January 2027, and that is the date most readers took away. The three implementing rulebooks published in August carry a different date, and it is the one that governs.
The clause that repeats three times
Each of the three rulebooks ends with the same sentence. The rulebook "enters into force on the eighth day after publication in the Official Gazette of Montenegro, and shall apply from the day of Montenegro's accession to the European Union". It appears in the controlled foreign company rulebook, made under Article 38f(5); in the hybrid mismatch rulebook, made under Article 38l(3); and in the exit taxation rulebook, made under Article 38g(9).
Three ministerial acts repeating one clause is a signal, not a drafting accident. The authority for it is in the statute itself.
Article 45a is where the date lives
Article 17 of the amending law rewrites Article 45a of the corporate income tax act. In its new wording, "the provisions of Chapters VIa, VIIa and Xa, and Articles 38m and 40a of this law shall apply from the day of Montenegro's accession to the European Union".
Chapter Xa is the anti-profit-shifting chapter — Articles 38d to 38l, which is to say the interest limitation, the controlled foreign company rules, the exit charge and the hybrid mismatch rules. Article 38m is the advance pricing agreement. Article 40a is the general anti-abuse rule inserted by the same law.
| Provision | Subject | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter Xa, Articles 38d–38l | Interest limitation, CFC, exit taxation, hybrids | Day of EU accession |
| Article 38m | Advance pricing agreement | Day of EU accession |
| Article 40a | General anti-abuse rule | Day of EU accession |
| Chapters VIa and VIIa | Cross-border reorganisations; interest, royalties and dividends between associated EU companies | Day of EU accession, as before |
| The rest of the amending law | Everything outside those chapters | 1 January 2027 |
The technique is not new. Before this amendment, Article 45a already deferred Chapters VIa and VIIa — the transpositions of the Merger Directive and of the interest-royalties and parent-subsidiary regimes — to accession. The 2026 law added the anti-avoidance chapter to that same list.
What this does not mean
It does not mean the chapter is a dead letter. The rules are law, the rulebooks are law, and the forms exist — the controlled foreign company rulebook even annexes a reporting form. What is suspended is application, and only until a condition is met.
It also does not mean nothing changes on 1 January 2027. The amending law made changes outside Chapter Xa, and those follow the general clause in Article 19. Reading "1 January 2027" across the whole statute is the mistake; reading "EU accession" across the whole statute would be the opposite mistake.
And it does not extend to reporting. The tax procedure act was amended in the same gazette, and its cross-border arrangement, crypto-asset and advance ruling duties carry no accession clause at all. Information starts moving before the substantive rules bite. If you are reviewing a Montenegrin holding or financing structure, our company formation page sets out how we work through the corporate side, and our note on the anti-profit-shifting chapter covers what the chapter contains.
What did not change
The corporate income tax rate structure, the tax period, the ordinary computation of the base and the existing transfer pricing articles are untouched by these three rulebooks, which are procedural: what data accompanies the return, how the deferral decision is issued, how the five instalments and interest are calculated. The base statute's gazette chain — 65/01 and 80/04, then 40/08 through 88/24 and 104/26 — is unchanged. Nothing in the rulebooks alters when the chapter starts to apply; they restate the statutory answer.
How to verify
The adopted text of the amending law, with the promulgation decree, is in the Assembly's file for EPA 1059 XXVIII: zakoni.skupstina.me/zakoni/web/app.php/akt/4231. Article 17 is short and quotes the new Article 45a in full; Article 19 is the general entry-into-force and application clause. Read them together rather than separately.
For the rulebooks, the gazette's own register carries each act with its pages: sluzbenilist.me/propisi/396833 for controlled foreign companies, 396832 for hybrid mismatches and 397028 for exit taxation. Go to the last page of each and read the final article. One caution: for the exit taxation rulebook the register's summary line gives an entry-into-force date of 15 July 2026, which cannot be right — the act's own final article says the eighth day after publication, and publication was 7 August. The text governs the summary. We follow this file under Legal Updates.