Status date: 20 September 2026. Status: Adopted, not yet in force. Instrument: Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Krivičnog zakonika Crne Gore, EPA 1176 XXVIII, act number 23-1/26-21, proposed by the Government of Montenegro. Parliament adopted the text on 16 September 2026. As of the morning of 20 September 2026 it had not appeared in Službeni list.
We opened this file because the parliamentary record contradicts itself. The act page at zakoni.skupstina.me still shows the status "U proceduri" — in procedure. In the document list on that same page sits a Listing glasanja, a voting record, dated 16 September, recording three separate votes. If you read the status field and conclude there is still time to prepare, you will be wrong. The adoption is visible only in the documents.
What the text says
The voting record is short. On the vote in principle: 55 in favour, none against, none abstaining. On the text as a whole: 55 again. Between them sits a third vote that matters more than either — "glasanje o postojanju razloga hitnosti da zakon stupi na snagu", a vote on whether grounds of urgency exist for the law to enter into force, carried with 54 votes. That vote was needed because the final article reads: "Ovaj zakon stupa na snagu narednog dana od dana objavljivanja." The law takes effect the day after it appears in the official gazette. The eight-day buffer that normally follows publication in Montenegro is absent here.
The adopted text is not the bill as tabled. The Government filed 20 amendments; a single amendment from a group of MPs was withdrawn on 16 September. The Legislative Committee found the Government's amendments legally acceptable the same day and asked for corrections in eleven of them, mostly renumbering caused by newly inserted articles. The practical consequence: article numbers in the adopted text do not match the bill. Below we cite provisions by their numbers in the Criminal Code itself, not by the bill's internal numbering.
Four clusters matter for our readers.
| Subject | Rule | Code article |
|---|---|---|
| Jurisdiction over ICT offences | If the system was accessed from Montenegrin territory, the offence counts as committed in Montenegro | new paragraph in čl. 8 |
| Value-based confiscation | Where criminal proceeds cannot be seized, other assets of the offender are taken up to their value | čl. 113 |
| Building without documentation | Starting or carrying out construction without prior building documentation: six months to five years | čl. 326a |
| Connection to infrastructure | Connecting, or allowing connection of, an undocumented building: three months to three years | čl. 326c |
The jurisdiction clause reads: "Krivično djelo učinjeno posredstvom informaciono-komunikacionih tehnologija smatra se izvršenim i u Crnoj Gori ako je informaciono-komunikacionoj tehnologiji ili računarskom sistemu pristupljeno sa teritorije Crne Gore, bez obzira na to gdje se ta tehnologija ili računarski sistem nalazi." Where the server sits stops being decisive; access from Montenegrin soil is enough. The Government's explanatory note ties the addition to the counter-terrorism directive 2017/541, but the wording itself is not confined to terrorism offences. It is drafted for the code as a whole.
On the construction side two things move at once. Article 326a, Nedozvoljeno građenje objekta, is rewritten: "Ko protivno propisima o izgradnji objekata, planiranju i uređenju prostora, započne građenje objekta ili gradi objekat bez prethodno pribavljene dokumentacije za građenje ili protivno odluci nadležnog organa o zabrani građenja, kazniće se zatvorom od šest mjeseci do pet godina." The neighbouring article 326b is repealed outright. Article 326c, on connecting a building to infrastructure, covers both the person who makes the connection and the person who permits it.
What the text does not say
Because the consolidated adopted text is unpublished, three things cannot be shown today.
First, the numbers. The entry-into-force provision was article 49 of the bill. Amendments added articles before and among the existing ones, so its number in the adopted law is probably different. The rule is settled; the number is not.
Second, the definitions article. The Government's seventh amendment added a single paragraph to article 142 treating electronic money and digital assets as criminal proceeds. The Legislative Committee replaced that amendment with a full rewrite: article 142 becomes a forty-one paragraph definitions provision, digital assets appear there as a defined term, and the proceeds paragraph refers back to that definition. The direction of travel is the same, but the paragraph number and the wording changed. That committee document is a scanned Cyrillic copy whose embedded text layer is corrupted, so we have not quoted from it and have relied on its structure alone.
Third, the comparison. We could not read the current wording and penalty range of article 326a from a consolidated official text; the relevant Službeni list pages are published as images, and the bill's public-consultation table does not reproduce this article. So we are not saying the penalty went up or down. What the text does establish is that the article is being rewritten — the formula is "mijenja se i glasi", which presupposes an existing article — and that 326b is gone.
Our reading
If you own property in Montenegro or have building work under way, the thing to do this week is not to wait for the gazette but to check your paper trail. The conduct in article 326a includes starting construction without prior documentation, so the offence does not depend on a finished building. The word "permits" in the connection article means responsibility is not confined to whoever physically makes the connection. If your permit file sits with a contractor, it is worth holding your own copy showing which document was obtained on which date.
If you work remotely from Montenegro, run a company from there, or hold digital assets, the jurisdiction rule is the provision to read. A server or an exchange located abroad is no longer a shield for a transaction reached from Montenegro. Read it together with the confiscation rule: where the proceeds themselves cannot be seized, a court may take other assets of the offender up to the value of those proceeds.
The urgency vote leaves a narrow window. On the day the gazette appears, the law applies from the next morning.
What did not change
Nothing in this article is in force today. As of 20 September 2026 the operative Criminal Code rests on Sl. list RCG 70/03 and 47/06, the chain running from 40/08 to 121/25, and the amendment published as 117/2026. Criminal procedure is untouched by this law: the written notice of rights on detention and the right to counsel sit in a separate statute. Residence and work permit duties, company registration duties and the legalizacija application timetable are unaffected. Tax rates are not in this file at all.
How to verify
The act page is on the parliamentary site: zakoni.skupstina.me act 4349. Do not read the Status field; open Dokumenta and look for the line "Listing glasanja" dated 16.09.2026. The voting record itself is the PDF in that directory. The bill and the Government's amendments are on the government site: Predlog zakona and Predlog amandmana. Watch for the gazette reference at sluzbenilist.me/registri; on the morning of 20 September the latest issue was 135/2026, dated 16 September. The index can lag, so also search propisi for the phrase "Krivičnog zakonika".
We set out the confiscation regime article by article in our piece on criminal proceeds, and the unpermitted-building timetable in the legalisation deadline guide. When the gazette reference appears we will update this page with the final article numbers; readers following the file can track it from the Legislation Tracker.
