Almost every large private investment in Montenegro that touches the coast, a river, a mountain or the ground under it runs through a concession. Marinas, small hydro, mineral extraction, spa resorts on healing springs — none of them are ordinary purchases, and none of them are ordinary permits.
Which makes it awkward that the list of what can be a concession has been amended four times in three years, and that the consolidated texts circulating online stop at 2019.
Two of those amendments moved a whole sector out of the regime. One moved a sector in and then, nineteen months later, out again.
Sources, checked on 20 September 2026: Zakon o koncesijama, "Sl. list CG" 8/2009 (4 February 2009) and 73/2019 (27 December 2019), consolidated text as published by the Government; the four later amending acts were read from the Official Gazette's own page images — 125/2023 of 31 December 2023 (registarski broj 1955, EPA 128 XXVIII), 82/2024 of 23 August 2024 (1258, EPA 273 XXVIII), 82/2025 of 30 July 2025 (1084, EPA 501 XXVIII) and 119/2026 of 11 August 2026 (2157). All are shown as in force in the Gazette's register. ⚠️ The consolidations available from the Government and from FAO NATLEX cover only 8/09 and 73/19, so any Article 6 list taken from them is four amendments out of date. This page states Montenegrin law.
The list as it stands today
Article 6(1) after all four amendments contains eight subjects:
- exploration or exploitation, or exploration and exploitation, of mineral raw materials of strategic importance;
- use of watercourses and other waters, or parts of them or a defined quantity of water, for purposes set by a special law;
- use of natural resources in the maritime domain, in order to carry on an activity of public interest;
- exploration and/or exploitation of the sub-sea area, the seabed and subsoil, and of living and non-living resources in internal sea waters, the territorial sea and the continental shelf — except the exploration and production of hydrocarbons;
- exploitation of river deposits on the public water domain;
- use of natural resources in state property for building, maintaining and using energy facilities for the production of electricity and/or heat — except the production of electricity from renewable sources;
- use of river and lake banks;
- use of natural resources in areas with natural healing properties and other natural values, for construction, maintenance, use and modernisation of existing facilities.
Article 6(2) adds a residual limb: other natural resources, goods in general use and other goods of general interest in state property may also be concession subjects, in accordance with law. Article 6(3) leaves the definition of strategic mineral raw materials to a Government regulation.
What moved, and when
| Amendment | In force | What it did to Article 6(1) |
|---|---|---|
| 125/2023 | applies from 1 Jan 2024 | added point 10, organising games of chance |
| 82/2024 | Aug 2024 | deleted point 3, use of forests; carved renewable electricity out of the energy point; renumbered 4–10 as 3–9 |
| 82/2025 | Aug 2025 | deleted point 9 — games of chance, out again |
| 119/2026 | Aug 2026 | Article 58: the fee may have a fixed and a variable part |
Two consequences are worth stating plainly.
Forests are no longer a concession subject. The 2024 amendment removed the use of forests from the list outright.
Renewable electricity is no longer granted by concession. The same amendment added to the energy point the words except the production of electricity from renewable sources, in accordance with the law governing the use of energy from renewable sources. So a solar or wind project is not a concession file; it belongs to the renewables statute and its own procedure. A conventional energy facility on state-property natural resources still is. This is the single most consequential change in the sequence, and an investor working from a 2019 consolidation would model the wrong regime end to end.
Games of chance were inside the regime for nineteen months. Added with effect from 1 January 2024, removed in August 2025. Concessions granted in that window were granted under the Act; the route is now closed.
The fee side of the 2026 amendment is treated separately in the concession fee note. Article 58(1) remains the base rule: the concession contract may provide for a fee, or for financial compensation or other support to the concessionaire where that serves the public interest — the money does not only travel one way. Under Article 58(2), the fee on a Government concession is revenue of the state budget.
Who grants it, and for how long
Article 9 splits competence three ways:
- the Government decides where Montenegro exercises the ownership rights;
- the municipality decides where the municipality does;
- the Assembly decides, on the Government's proposal and after the statutory procedure, where the concession is above a value set by law — with the state property administration valuing the immovable.
Article 8 ties duration to the same split, and this is the provision that decides whether a project is financeable:
The term may not exceed 30 years where the decision is taken by the Government or a municipality, nor 60 years where it is taken by the Assembly.
Within that ceiling, Article 8(1) has the term set by reference to the public interest, the subject, the time needed to recover the investment and to earn a reasonable profit. So the thirty-year line is not a default to be argued down; it is the ceiling for everything except an Assembly grant.
The procedure, and the two provisions that surprise bidders
Article 7 — the annual plan. Concessions are granted on the basis of an annual plan adopted by the Government or the municipality and published on its website, after a public debate, no later than the end of the current year for the following one. The plan names the localities and fields, the subject, the duration, and an analysis of the public interest with indicators of impact on economic development, employment and the budget, plus the spatial-planning preconditions and property-law position. If a subject is not in the plan, the procedure does not start.
Article 18 — the concession act. The competent authority sends the concession act to the Government or municipal body with five attachments: the public-interest justification including an analysis of alternative ways of providing the service; indicators that the concession provides value for money; an analysis of the allocation of risk between grantor and concessionaire; an assessment of whether the grantor needs to participate in the concession company and on what terms; and the report from the public debate.
Then the two that catch people:
- Article 18(3): before the concession act is sent for adoption, the authority runs a public debate of 15 to 30 days from the day the invitation is issued.
- Article 18(5): experts — legal or natural persons — engaged to help draft, or to draft, the concession act and the tender documentation cannot be bidders in that procedure. Advisory work on the front end forecloses bidding on the back end.
Article 19 sets what the concession act must contain: the description and boundaries of the area, the parameters for assessing economic justification, the minimum or maximum duration, the list of technical documentation and of the permits and consents to be obtained before the activity starts, and an extract from the spatial-planning documentation with the ownership structure and how property-law relations will be resolved. Where that last item is thin, the project is not ready — the permitting chain that follows is set out in the building permit process.
The appeal that stops the clock
Article 31 gives an unsuccessful bidder a real remedy, and it is more useful than most.
The decision selecting the most favourable bid is served on the bidders and published on the authority's website. Within 15 days of service, bidders may request — in writing or electronically — to inspect the documentation. Within the same 15 days they may appeal to the Concessions Commission, which decides within 30 days. The appeal goes in two copies, one of which the Commission forwards to the authority without delay.
And then Article 31(6): a timely appeal interrupts all further activity of the competent authority in the award procedure until the appeal is decided. Suspensive effect, by statute, at bidder level. Article 32, which used to govern a separate objection route, was deleted in 2019.
The register nobody searches
Article 15 puts every concession contract into a register of concession contracts kept by the Commission, recording the concessionaire, the grantor, the subject, the date of conclusion and the duration, with all subsequent changes entered chronologically — and Article 15(5) requires the register to be published on the Commission's website.
Article 10 makes the Commission independent, with a president and eight members appointed by the Government on proposals from the economy, finance and sustainable development bodies and from the Assembly. Article 16 has it report to the Government by 31 March each year, with the report shared with the Assembly and the municipalities.
For anyone buying into a project, a coastal asset or a company that holds a concession, that register is a free, public, first-order diligence source — and it is almost never searched. What a coastal position actually consists of is a separate question, treated in buying a berth in Montenegro and, for the marina itself, in the Bar marina guide.
What this page does not decide
Whether a particular project needs a concession at all, rather than a permit or a lease, turns on the subject and on the sectoral statute — and after the 2024 amendment the renewables answer changed. Nor does this page cover the renewables procedure itself, the hydrocarbons regime that Article 6(1)(4) excludes, or the tax treatment of the fee. The dispute clause in the concession contract is governed by the general rules, which changed in 2014 — see the Foreign Investments Act.
Who we act for
We act for one side and we name it at the start — the bidder, the incoming buyer of a concession holder, or a party challenging an award. Fees are fixed and published, and a first consultation is charged and credited against the engagement if it proceeds.
Before you bid
Send the published concession act and tender documentation, the relevant annual plan entry, and — if you are buying into an existing project — the concession contract with every annex. We come back with a written note: whether the subject is still inside Article 6 after the 2024 and 2025 amendments, which body has to decide and therefore what duration ceiling applies, whether any adviser on your team is disqualified under Article 18(5), and what the Article 15 register already shows about the counterparty.
