Position dated 5 September 2026. Status: In force. Instruments: Zakon o izmjeni Zakona o crnogorskom državljanstvu (law amending the Montenegrin Citizenship Act) and Zakon o izmjenama i dopuni Zakona o notarima (law amending the Notaries Act), both Official Gazette of Montenegro 119/2026, published 11 August 2026, in force 19 August 2026.
Two of the three laws in that gazette do the same thing in different places: they put registered same-sex life partnership where the statute previously said only marriage. One changes who can apply for citizenship. The other changes which notary may not act on your deed. Both took effect on the same day, and the second is the one people will meet without expecting it.
The citizenship change
Article 11 of the Citizenship Act is the marriage route to naturalisation. The amending law does two things to it. In paragraph 2 the word "druga" is replaced by "supružnika", and after paragraph 2 a new paragraph is inserted:
"The provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Article apply accordingly also to a person who has concluded a life partnership with a Montenegrin citizen, in accordance with the law governing same-sex life partnership."
The phrase to notice is "apply accordingly". This is not a parallel regime with its own thresholds. The conditions Article 11 sets for a spouse are carried across to a partner, which is also how the Government explained it: the Life Partnership Act regulates the rights and duties of partners, the Citizenship Act recognised marriage but not partnership as a basis for admission, and the amendment aligns the two so that the principles of equality, legal certainty and non-discrimination apply consistently. A person in a life partnership with a Montenegrin citizen may acquire citizenship by admission under the same conditions that apply to spouses.
A consequential change follows in paragraph 3, where the reference to "paragraph 1" becomes "paragraphs 1 and 3", and the old paragraph 3 becomes paragraph 4.
The notary change
The Notaries Act amendment is narrower but sharper in practice. It rewrites the disqualification rule in Article 28(1)(3): a notary may not act where a party, a legal representative or an attorney is a blood relative in the direct line to any degree or in the collateral line to the fourth degree, or is the notary's spouse, partner in a same-sex life partnership, or an affine to the second degree — and, in the words of the text, regardless of whether the marriage or the life partnership has ended.
Article 2 inserts the partner into Article 30a(1) alongside the household reference, and Article 3 rewrites Article 49(1)(2) with the same widening, there in the direct line to any degree and the collateral line to the second degree.
| Provision | What changed |
|---|---|
| Citizenship Act, Article 11 | New paragraph extends the marriage route to a registered life partnership |
| Notaries Act, Article 28(1)(3) | Disqualification now names the same-sex life partner; survives the end of the relationship |
| Notaries Act, Article 30a(1) | Partner added alongside the household reference |
| Notaries Act, Article 49(1)(2) | Same widening for the persons that provision covers |
What the text does not say
The citizenship amendment does not restate the conditions themselves. Residence, duration and the rest sit in Article 11(1) and (2) and in the general provisions of the Act, and we did not read those paragraphs in full in this pass. "The same conditions as a spouse" is what the Government's memorandum says and what "apply accordingly" implies; it is not a list we have verified line by line.
It is also silent on partnerships concluded abroad. The new paragraph works "in accordance with the law governing same-sex life partnership", which pushes the recognition question into that statute. Whether and how a partnership registered outside Montenegro is recognised is decided there, and we have not read it.
The notary amendment carries no transitional provision. What it means for a deed executed before 19 August 2026 by a notary who would now be disqualified is not addressed in the two articles.
Our reading
For a couple, the practical step is documentary rather than legal. The route now exists; what it will turn on is proof — the partnership certificate, its recognition under the Life Partnership Act, and the same evidence of the relationship that a spouse would file. Start from Article 11(1) and (2) and treat the new paragraph as the door rather than the checklist.
The notary point deserves separate attention because it bites in ordinary transactions. If you are buying a villa or transferring shares and the notary is your partner's relative, the disqualification is now explicit and it does not lapse when the relationship does. That is a question to ask before the appointment, not after the deed. For the status side of a move to Montenegro, our residence permit page sets out how we work through a file.
What did not change
The marriage route itself is untouched: Article 11 keeps its existing conditions and the amendment adds to them rather than relaxing them. Nothing here creates an investment route, and nothing changes the rules on dual citizenship. On the notary side, the substance of what a notary does is unchanged; only the list of relationships that disqualify one from acting has widened. The gazette chains of both statutes — 13/08 through 77/24 for citizenship, 68/05 and 49/08 through 141/25 for notaries — are otherwise as they were.
How to verify
The citizenship file is EPA 1083 XXVIII: zakoni.skupstina.me/zakoni/web/app.php/akt/4254. Open the Government's submission of 9 July 2026 — the first document — and read Article 1, then the explanatory memorandum that follows it, which states in terms that the current Act recognises marriage but not life partnership.
The notaries file is EPA 1040 XXVIII: zakoni.skupstina.me/zakoni/web/app.php/akt/4211. The last document is the promulgation decree with the adopted text, three articles long, dated 31 July 2026. Neither file contains an amendment document, so in both cases the law as passed is the text that was tabled. We follow this file under Legal Updates.
