Most English-language material about employing people in Montenegro stops at the fine schedules. A company reads that the Foreigners Act sets a range of €1,000 to €10,000 for a legal person, that the labour inspectorate has its own tariff and the occupational safety statute a third, and plans around those numbers. That planning is incomplete. Above the misdemeanour schedules sits a chapter of the Criminal Code — Chapter XX, Krivična djela protiv prava iz rada — spanning nine articles, that makes employment-related breaches criminal offences, names the company's responsible person as the perpetrator in most of them, exposes the company itself under a separate liability statute, and in one case sets a range of six months to five years' imprisonment. This note sets out what is in that chapter, which article attaches to which conduct, and how the company's own exposure is calculated.
The two layers, and why the fine schedules do not show you the second
A Montenegrin employer is supervised on two tracks that run in parallel. The first is the misdemeanour track: prekršaj provisions inside the Foreigners Act, the Labour Act and the occupational safety statute, enforced by inspectors, producing fines. We have set that track out separately in our note on what a Montenegrin employer can be fined for and, for the foreign-worker side specifically, in penalties for employing foreign workers without a permit.
The second track is the Criminal Code: its own thresholds, its own procedure, a prosecutor rather than an inspector, and — for the company — its own liability statute. The two are not alternatives. One set of facts found on one inspection can produce a misdemeanour fine and a criminal referral, and disposing of the first does not dispose of the second. Whether that raises a double-jeopardy objection is a question for defence counsel on the actual file; this note does not resolve it.
The source text used here is the consolidated Krivični zakonik Crne Gore hosted on the website of Montenegro's prosecution service, whose masthead reads: "Službeni list RCG", br. 70/2003, 13/2004, 47/2006 i "Službeni list CG", br. 40/2008, 25/2010, 32/2011, 64/2011 – drugi zakon, 40/2013, 56/2013, 14/2015, 42/2015, 58/2015 – drugi zakon, 44/2017, 49/2018, 3/2020, 26/2021 – ispravka, 144/2021, 145/2021, 110/2023, 123/2024 i 121/2025 (copy retrieved and read on 22 September 2026). Two cautions belong with that. First, a great deal of English-language material about Montenegrin criminal law still cites a chain ending at 3/2020 of 23 January 2020, which is six amending acts out of date. Second, the gazette dates of the five most recent amending acts were not independently confirmed on the day this was written, so the chain is reproduced as the masthead prints it and no date is asserted for any individual amendment.
What can be said with more confidence is that the chapter discussed below is stable. Its text was compared word for word against an independent 2020 consolidation by a different publisher and is identical: the wording quoted here has not moved in at least six years.
Chapter XX: the offences and their ranges
| Article | Offence | Range |
|---|---|---|
| 224(1) | Knowingly disregarding employment-rights or special-protection rules and thereby denying or limiting another's right | Fine or up to 2 years |
| 224(2) | Terminating the contract of an employee who reported a suspected corruption offence | Up to 3 years |
| 225 | Denying or limiting the right to free employment on equal terms | Fine or up to 1 year |
| 225a | Unlawful employment of an illegally staying third-country national, in an aggravated form | 6 months to 5 years |
| 226(1) | Preventing or obstructing a management body or its member from participating and deciding | Fine or up to 1 year |
| 226(2) | The same, by an official or responsible person abusing position or authority | Fine or up to 2 years |
| 227 | Preventing a lawful strike, or dismissing employees for taking part in one | Fine or up to 1 year |
| 229 | Knowingly disregarding social-insurance rules and thereby denying or limiting a person's right | Fine or up to 2 years |
| 232(1) | The person responsible for occupational safety measures knowingly disregarding them so that danger to employees' life or health may arise | Fine or up to 1 year |
Two further articles sit in the same chapter but point away from the employer. Article 228 penalises organising or leading an unlawful strike that endangers life, health or property above €20,000, and Article 230 penalises an employee who obtains a social-insurance entitlement by simulating illness or incapacity. Article 231 mirrors Article 229 for entitlements during temporary unemployment, with the same range of a fine or up to two years.
Three deserve a second look by any foreign-owned company, because they criminalise conduct often treated internally as an HR decision. Article 224(2) makes dismissing a corruption whistleblower an offence in its own right, with no fine alternative. Article 227 does the same for dismissing strikers, and expressly covers "other measures that infringe their employment rights", not only termination. Article 232 requires no one to be hurt: the offence is complete when the responsible person knowingly departs from the safety rules so that danger may arise.
Article 225a, read closely
This is the article most likely to be misread, in both directions. The text provides that a person who employs a foreign national who is not a citizen of an EU member state and does not enjoy free movement rights in the EU, and who is unlawfully staying in Montenegro, commits the offence where any of five further elements is present: the working conditions are exploitative; or the employer knows the person is a victim of human trafficking; or the person is under eighteen; or the employment is for a longer period; or the employer re-employs them; or employs a number of such persons at the same time. The range is six months to five years.
Two readings follow, and both matter commercially.
It is narrower than "employing someone without a permit." The base element is unlawful stay, not a missing work permit, and on top of that the prosecution must establish one of the listed aggravating elements. A permit that lapsed while the worker's residence remained lawful does not, on the text, engage this article at all. That exposure is the misdemeanour one, in Article 210 of the Foreigners Act, set out on the penalties page.
It is also wider than most employers assume. "Za duže vrijeme" — for a longer period — and "istovremeno zaposli ta lica u većem broju" — employing a number of such persons at the same time — are not conditions a company meets by accident once. They are conditions it meets by running a site or a season on irregular labour, which is precisely the profile the wording reaches. The statute defines neither "longer period" nor "a number", and no figure should be assumed for either.
Who counts as the responsible person
Most of Chapter XX names no special perpetrator, but the surrounding provisions do the work. Article 142(4) of the Criminal Code defines odgovorno lice as the owner of a company or another entity, or a person in the company to whom — by virtue of their function, the capital they have put in, or an authorisation — a defined circle of business has been entrusted in managing property, in production or another activity, or in supervising those, or to whom the performance of particular tasks has in fact been entrusted ("ili mu je faktički povjereno obavljanje pojedinih poslova").
That last limb is the operative one for foreign-owned structures: the test is the function actually exercised, not the name in the register. Appointing a local nominal director over an arrangement run from abroad does not move the exposure; on the text, it may simply add a second responsible person. The same logic runs through our note on directors' duties and personal liability.
The company's own exposure
A separate statute makes the company a defendant in its own right: the Zakon o odgovornosti pravnih lica za krivična djela ("Službeni list RCG", br. 2/2007, 13/2007, 30/2012 i 39/2016), read from the copy published on the prosecution service's website on 22 September 2026.
Its scope is general. Article 3 extends it to offences in the special part of the Criminal Code, which includes the whole of Chapter XX, and Article 4(1) defines the legal person to include a foreign company and a part of a foreign company, so a branch operating in Montenegro is within it.
Article 5 provides two alternative bases. The company answers where the responsible person committed the offence acting in the company's name and within their authority with intent to obtain some benefit for it, or where the responsible person's conduct was contrary to the company's business policy or instructions. The second basis is why an internal instruction, standing alone, is not a defence.
Article 6(1) makes the company liable even where the responsible person has not been convicted; Article 6(2) confirms the company's liability does not exclude the individual's. Article 7 keeps a company in bankruptcy within scope. Article 8 carries the fine, security measures and confiscation to the legal successor where the company ceases to exist — a point that belongs in every share-deal and asset-deal diligence file, alongside the structural questions covered on our corporate law page.
The fine is keyed to the prison range of the underlying offence. Article 15 sets the tiers, and Article 14(1) fixes the base as the higher of damage caused or unlawful benefit obtained.
| Chapter XX offence | Prison range | Company fine under Article 15 |
|---|---|---|
| 225, 226(1), 227, 232(1) | Up to 1 year, or a fine | 2x to 5x damage or benefit, or €1,000-€10,000 |
| 224(1), 226(2), 229, 231 | Up to 2 years | 5x to 10x, or €10,000-€20,000 |
| 224(2) | Up to 3 years | 5x to 10x, or €10,000-€20,000 |
| 225a | 6 months to 5 years | 10x to 15x, or €20,000-€50,000 |
The tiers in Article 15 are drafted in round steps — up to one year, up to three, up to five — so a two-year offence falls to be placed in the "up to three years" tier as the only one it fits. Where no damage was caused and no benefit obtained, or these cannot be established, Article 14(3) substitutes a range of €1,000 to €5,000,000. Article 22 adds a penalty that has no misdemeanour equivalent at all: termination of the legal person, available where the company's activity was wholly or substantially in the service of committing the offence, followed by liquidation and forfeiture of the remaining assets to the state.
The compliance defence, in the statute's own words
Article 23(3) provides that a legal person which has taken all effective, necessary and reasonable measures to prevent and detect the commission of the offence may be released from punishment. Article 23(1) and (2) add two further routes: self-reporting before the company learns proceedings have begun, and voluntary restitution or removal of the harmful consequences without delay.
What those measures are is not left to argument. Article 4(3) defines them, and the definition reads as a checklist:
- adopting standards and procedures aimed at detecting and preventing criminal offences;
- adopting a programme to implement them, including the necessary financial and other resources, and an obligation on named persons to supervise implementation continuously and report periodically to a superior and to the management bodies;
- supervision of that implementation by the management bodies;
- barring from management functions any person reasonably suspected of unlawful conduct;
- an effective training programme for responsible persons on those standards and procedures;
- steps to implement them across all employees — periodic effectiveness assessments, guidance, mechanisms for anonymous and confidential reporting of offences, monitoring, and control of the books and other documents;
- disciplinary measures.
Read against Chapter XX, the list is not abstract. The anonymous reporting channel it requires is the same mechanism whose absence makes an Article 224(2) whistleblower dismissal possible. The employee-data and monitoring consequences of running such a channel are covered in our note on employer data obligations.
Where the occupational safety layer now sits
Article 232 is a blank-reference offence: it punishes knowing departure from "the law or other regulations or general acts on occupational safety measures", so the content of the duty comes from elsewhere. That elsewhere changed recently. The Zakon o zaštiti i zdravlju na radu was replaced in full — the new statute was adopted by the Assembly on 7 April 2026, promulgated on 9 April 2026 and published in "Službeni list Crne Gore" br. 051/26 of 15 April 2026, entering into force on the eighth day after publication; its Article 77 repeals the previous statute (34/14 and 44/18). Its misdemeanour Article 68 sets €500 to €15,000 for a legal person or a part of a foreign company, with separate ranges for the responsible person and for entrepreneurs.
The practical consequence is that Article 232 exposure moved on 23 April 2026 without the article changing a word: the duties that define the offence were rewritten underneath it. Sites and seasonal operations are the obvious pressure point, and the planning consequences are in our note on a foreign developer's construction site workforce plan.
What to do with this before an inspection, not after
Identify who the responsible person actually is under the functional test in Article 142(4), and check that the person knows they hold it. Reconcile the residence status, not only the permit status, of every non-EU national on the payroll or on site, because Article 225a keys off unlawful stay. Look for the aggravating elements rather than the headcount: duration, repetition, simultaneous numbers, anyone under eighteen. Put the Article 4(3) items in place as dated documents, since Article 23(3) is a defence about measures taken before the event, not explanations offered after it. Check the successor position under Article 8 in any transaction absorbing or winding up a Montenegrin entity.
If your company employs people in Montenegro and you want the position under Chapter XX reviewed before an inspector or a prosecutor does it, we act as legal counsel on the employment and corporate file; our work permit and recruitment practice covers the foreign-worker side, coordinating with licensed agencies where a placement route is involved. Send us the arrangement as it stands, with the contracts and the residence documents, before anyone signs the next one.
This note states the law as read on 22 September 2026 from the consolidated texts identified above. It is general information about Montenegrin legislation, not advice on any particular file.
