Status date: 24 September 2026. Status: 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 and the proclamation decree was signed on 18 September 2026. The law was published in Službeni list Crne Gore issue 137/2026, dated 21 September 2026, and entered into force on 22 September 2026.
When we opened this file, the act page at zakoni.skupstina.me still showed the status "U proceduri" — in procedure. In the document list on that same page sat a Listing glasanja, a voting record dated 16 September, recording three separate votes. Anyone who read the status field and concluded there was time to prepare was wrong: six days passed between adoption and entry into force.
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 of the published text, article 74, reads: "Ovaj zakon stupa na snagu narednog dana od dana objavljivanja u „Službenom listu Crne Gore"." The law took effect the day after it appeared in the official gazette. The eight-day buffer that normally follows publication in Montenegro is absent here.
The timetable closed like this. President Jakov Milatović signed the proclamation decree on 18 September 2026 (No. 01-009/26-1625/2). Issue 137/2026 of Službeni list Crne Gore carries the date 21 September 2026; the law sits in it under registry number 2370, alongside the other six laws proclaimed the same day. Publication 21 September, entry into force 22 September 2026. The issue went up on the gazette's website a day later, on 22 September, but the date printed on the issue is what counts, not the upload date.
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 The Government filed 20 amendments; a single amendment from a group of MPs was withdrawn on 16 September.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
The amending law is now published; a consolidated Criminal Code is not. Of the three open points in our first piece, two have closed and one remains.
The first closed point is numbering. The entry-into-force provision was article 49 of the bill; the published amending law has 74 articles and entry into force is article 74. The rule did not change; the articles inserted by amendment shifted the number.
The second closed point is the definitions article. The Government's seventh amendment added a single paragraph to article 142; the Legislative Committee turned it into a full rewrite. In the published text article 142 is a forty-one paragraph definitions provision. The proceeds rule is paragraph 12: „Imovinskom koristi pribavljenom krivičnim djelom se smatra i elektronski novac i digitalna imovina." Digital assets are defined separately in paragraph 36: a digital representation of value that can be traded or transferred digitally and used as a means of exchange or for investment. In our first piece we said the proceeds paragraph referred to that definition; in the published text it does not. Paragraph 12 names electronic money and digital assets directly; the paragraph that refers to paragraph 36 is paragraph 38, which defines non-cash means of payment.
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 law is now in force and the job is 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 published text also carries a transitional rule. Article 73 inserts a new article 486a into the code: "Postupci koji su započeti do dana stupanja na snagu ovog zakona, okončaće se po propisima po kojima su započeti." Criminal proceedings begun before 22 September 2026 are completed under the rules they began under. The new provisions apply to conduct after that date.
What did not change
The Criminal Code's gazette chain now runs through Sl. list RCG 70/03 and 47/06, Sl. list CG 40/08 to 121/25, 117/2026 and 137/2026. No consolidated official text has been published yet, so the code has to be read together with the amending law. 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. The published text is on the gazette's own site: propisi/398332. The reference box shows "Službeni list Crne Gore, broj 137/2026", publication 21.09.2026 and entry into force 22.09.2026; do not rely on the box alone, read article 74 on the last page as we did. The proclamation decree sits on the presidential site: announcement of 18 September 2026.
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 a consolidated text is published we will align the article numbers on this page with it; readers following the file can track it from the Legislation Tracker.
