Status date: 19 September 2026. Status: In process (draft/bill). Instrument: six Predlog zakona settled by the Government of Montenegro at its telephone session of 17 September 2026 — amendments to the Zakon o doprinosima za obavezno socijalno osiguranje (Contributions Act), Zakon o radu (Labour Act), Zakon o porezu na dohodak fizičkih lica (Personal Income Tax Act), Zakon o porezu na dobit pravnih lica (Corporate Profit Tax Act), Zakon o penzijskom i invalidskom osiguranju (Pension and Disability Insurance Act) and Zakon o finansiranju lokalne samouprave. Each of the six closes with the same sentence: in force on the eighth day after publication, applicable from 1 January 2027.
Since Thursday evening the question reaching us has been the same one: if contributions go to zero, does employing someone in Montenegro become free? It does not. We take the long answer from the six texts rather than from the government's press statement, because the published files are scans and had to be read page by page.
What the texts say
The Contributions Act carries three rate articles and the bill collapses all three into one sentence each. Article 15 today splits the pension contribution into 0 per cent on the employer's side and 10 per cent on the insured person's side; the new wording keeps a single rate, and that rate is 0 per cent. Article 16 sets the employer's additional contribution for accelerated service at 6, 9, 12, 18 or 28 per cent depending on whether twelve months count as fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen or twenty-four; that becomes 0 per cent as well. Article 18 splits unemployment insurance into 0.5 plus 0.5 per cent; also 0 per cent. Article 2 of the same Act lists only two contributions, and the health contribution rate article was already deleted by gazette 145/21. Nothing else in that statute is left to zero out.
On the labour side the change has two layers. Article 101(2) is rewritten so that the net minimum may not fall below 1,000 euros at qualification level I or II, 1,250 euros at level III or IV, and 1,400 euros at level V or above. Today's text has two steps instead of three: 600 euros up to level V and 800 euros for level VI and above. Notice that the boundaries move, not only the amounts — level V sits in the lower group today and in the top band under the bill. The second layer is a new Article 101a. A private-sector employer may not, for the posts of people who were employed there on 31 August 2026, write a lower qualification level into the systematisation act or the employment contract, and may not change the job title, the job description or the contract in a way that lowers the statutory floor while those employees carry on doing the same or substantially the same work. Anything done contrary to that article "has no legal effect" for the purpose of setting the minimum. Two new points go into Article 208(1), whose band for a legal person is 2,000 to 20,000 euros.
Personal income tax loses one band. Salary is taxed today at 0 per cent up to 700 euros, 9 per cent from 700.01 to 1,000 euros and 15 per cent above 1,000.01 euros. The bill leaves two steps: 0 per cent to 700 euros, 9 per cent on the part above. Corporate tax moves the other way. Article 28(2) today runs 9 per cent up to 100,000 euros, then 9,000 euros plus 12 per cent to 1,500,000, then 177,000 euros plus 15 per cent. The bill deletes the middle band and puts 15 per cent on every euro above 100,000.
| Item | Today | Under the bills | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pension contribution | Employer 0% · insured 10% | 0% | Contributions Act čl. 15 |
| Accelerated-service supplement | Employer 6%-28% | 0% | Contributions Act čl. 16 |
| Unemployment insurance | 0.5% + 0.5% | 0% | Contributions Act čl. 18 |
| Labour Fund contribution | Employer 0.20% | Not in the package | Zakon o Fondu rada čl. 14 |
| Net minimum per month | 600 (to level V) · 800 (VI+) | 1,000 · 1,250 · 1,400 | Labour Act čl. 101 st.2 |
| Tax on salary | 0% / 9% / 15% | 0% / 9% | PIT Act čl. 10 st.1 t.1 |
| Corporate profit tax | 9% · 12% · 15% | 9% · 15% | CPT Act čl. 28 st.2 |
The pension amendment is the quiet but load-bearing part. If nobody pays a pension contribution, what do pension rights rest on? The bill answers before the question is asked. In Article 4a the words "length of payment and the level of the base on which the contribution was paid" are replaced by "length of insurance and the level of the insurance base". Article 22(4) loses the requirement that the contribution was actually paid. Article 61 redefines insurance service as time spent at work or in insurance rather than time for which a contribution was paid. Article 58 then moves indexation of the pension point from three dates a year to four: 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October.
What the texts do not say
The first gap is the practical one. Article 14 of the Zakon o Fondu rada (gazette 080/20) keeps a separate 0.20 per cent contribution on the employer, calculated on the base used for unemployment insurance, and that statute is not in this package. The bills zero the rate of unemployment insurance; they do not remove its base. Reading the two statutes together, the 0.20 per cent survives — but no provision says so, and we flag that as our reading rather than as the text.
Second, the bill zeroes rates without touching the machinery around them. The taxpayer, the base and the calculation and payment regime in Article 21 all stay. What happens to the monthly return is not addressed.
Third, none of this is law. As of the morning of 19 September 2026 not one of the six bills appears on the parliamentary register; the most recent entry there is EPA 1199 of 17 September. The prime minister's statement published that evening — you keep between 92 and 97 cents of every euro the employer sets aside, with a worked example on a net wage of 1,600 euros — is the government's own account. No article of any bill contains those figures.
How we read it
On the employer side the decision that matters today concerns Article 101a. The protection is pegged to 31 August 2026, which is before the package was announced, so a regrading done now cannot be used to hold down the floor for existing staff doing the same work. The new Article 218g limits that protection to calendar year 2027, which reads less like permission to undo it in 2028 than like a lock on the transition year.
On the company side the arithmetic is worth doing now. At 200,000 euros of taxable profit the difference is 3,000 euros a year; at 1,500,000 euros it is 42,000. Above 1,500,000 the marginal rate is 15 per cent either way, so the extra burden stays flat at 42,000 euros. Distribution planning, the 2026 year-end and the timing of deductible costs across the two years are where that number lands.
What did not change
Nothing changed today. On 19 September 2026 the insured person's pension contribution is still 10 per cent, unemployment insurance is still 0.5 plus 0.5, the net minimum is still 600 and 800 euros, salary above 1,000 euros is still taxed at 15 per cent, and the middle corporate band is still 12 per cent. The self-employment thresholds of 8,400 and 12,000 euros and the 15 per cent above them are untouched. The 80 per cent rate on undeclared income in Article 10a stands. The digital nomad exemption in Article 18d of the Contributions Act stands. Work and residence permit duties and the worker registration duties are not affected by this package.
How to verify
The session decision and the list of the six documents are on gov.me: the statement on the telephone session of 17 September 2026. Each bill downloads from the "Materijal" link beside its agenda item; the contributions bill sits at wapi.gov.me/download/7edeb39c-81cc-4468-bd62-6cfc5a36443c. Whether the bills have reached parliament can be checked on the register of acts in procedure; search for "porezu na dobit", "doprinosima" and "Zakona o radu". If they pass, the citation will appear in a numbered issue of the Službeni list Crne Gore.
We set out the current corporate bands and the anti-profit-shifting rules introduced by gazette 104/2026 in a separate note, and that table still holds today. If you employ people in Montenegro, the 2027 budget now has two versions rather than one; our work permit and recruitment page shows which duties stay fixed whatever happens to the rates, and the next steps in this file will appear on Legal Updates.
