A message I get in some version most weeks now. A foreign owner, a plot above the coast bought as an investment, a house finished in 2021 without a building permit, a roofed terrace added in 2024, and a question that is really two questions: is my building still inside the legalizacija window, and what exactly do I hand in? An unpermitted building in Montenegro cannot be lawfully transferred and no business may be run from it until it is legalised, and the evidence base for the procedure is the July 2025 aerial image. The deadline to initiate cadastre registration is reported as 14 August 2027 after successive amendments, which is the date to verify against the current gazette before planning a sale or a rental.
Behind it sit the things an investor actually worries about. The rental income depends on this file. So does the resale.
The short answer to the first question: the only date the statute sets is 14 August 2027, the last day to start cadastre registration of the unpermitted building. It is not a general "legalisation application deadline". Most of what follows comes from that distinction.
The one date the statute sets, and the dates it does not
The Zakon o legalizaciji bespravnih objekata (Law on Legalisation of Unpermitted Buildings; the Legalisation Act from here on) was published in Official Gazette of Montenegro 91/2025 on 6 August 2025 and entered into force on 14 August 2025. Article 48(1) gave the owner of an unregistered unpermitted building six months from that date to initiate registration in the cadastre. The first amendment, Gazette 18/2026 of 13 February 2026, stretched that to twelve months. The second, published on 7 August 2026 as Gazette 117/2026 and in force on 15 August 2026, replaces "twelve months" with "twenty-four months", which runs the period to 14 August 2027.
Update (4 September 2026): I have now read the 117/2026 text in the original — the law as adopted by the Assembly on 31 July 2026, filed as document 27-1/26-8/13. It has three articles: the twelve-to-twenty-four-month substitution in Article 48(1), a set of changes to the commission in Article 14, and the entry-into-force clause. It says nothing about incomplete requests. I had earlier repeated a report (investitor.me, 3 August 2026) that the amendment removed the option of preserving the deadline with an incomplete request; that rule is not in this statute, and I have corrected the passages below. What the amendment does add is a cost: the owner now bears the expense of the on-site inspection. I set out the reading in full in a separate note.
Two other dates circulate on agency pages, and in older drafts of our own: an "application deadline" in autumn 2026, and an exact day in July 2025 for the reference imagery. Neither is in any gazette text I have.
| Instrument | Gazette | Date | Effect on the Article 48 clock |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legalisation Act | 91/2025 | in force 14 August 2025 | Six months to start cadastre registration, to 14 February 2026 |
| First amendment | 18/2026 | 13 February 2026 | Twelve months, to 14 August 2026 |
| Second amendment | 117/2026 | published 7 August 2026, in force 15 August 2026 | Twenty-four months, to 14 August 2027 (adopted text read 4 September 2026); owner now pays the on-site inspection |
| Cadastre bulk annotations | 91/2025, Article 51 | 36 months from 14 August 2025 | Separate clock: the cadastre enters disposal bans ex officio by about August 2028 |
Does your building qualify? The July 2025 image decides
Article 7 fixes the evidentiary baseline: the satellite and aerophotogrammetric image of Montenegro made in July 2025 and published on the Ministry's Geoportal. Article 48(3) prohibits registering an unpermitted building not visible on that image, and Article 48(4) obliges the cadastre to annul the registration and the survey certification if one slipped through. So the first thing I do is open the Geoportal layer and look at the roof. Visible: we proceed. Not visible: we stop before anyone pays a surveyor.
What "not visible" still leaves open. Article 9, as amended by 18/2026, lets buildings visible on the 2018 orthophoto that already had a legalisation application under the old regime continue, provided they were not enlarged since (consolidated text, checked 13 August 2026). A reported expert-evidence route for buildings hidden under vegetation I could not confirm from the adopted text, so I treat it as "read the amended article", not a settled path.
Article 2 matters for the extension case, which is most of my foreign-owner files: where a permitted building exceeds the permitted area, only the excess is unpermitted (Article 2(2)). Your permitted 2016 house with a 2024 roofed terrace is a legal house with an illegal terrace, and the file is about the terrace.
Article 8 excludes temporary structures, buildings that cannot be shown to be stable and safe, and buildings subject to court proceedings. Stability is not fatal on day one: Article 18 allows a suspension of up to three years for reconstruction within the existing envelope; after that, Article 22 requires refusal and a removal decision under Article 31.
What the file must contain
The request should still arrive with the geodetski elaborat izvedenog stanja (the licensed surveyor's as-built record of what actually stands), certified by the cadastre — not because 117/2026 requires it, which it does not, but because Article 48(1) asks you to initiate registration and a request without the survey gives the authority nothing to register. The surveyor is the bottleneck, not the lawyer, and because the fee under Article 23(10) is computed on that report's net area, its accuracy is money. Since 15 August 2026 the on-site inspection itself is billed to the owner, at an amount the Ministry has still to set.
What I assemble, in the order it usually gets done:
- The cadastre folio (list nepokretnosti): sheet A for the parcel, B for the rightholder, V for buildings, G for encumbrances. Since 10 July 2026 e-signed extracts need a Montenegrin ID and eID; an owner abroad orders through a representative.
- The certified as-built survey. Agree in writing who commissions it and what happens if the surveyed area surprises you.
- Proof of presence on the July 2025 image, or, for the Article 9 route, the 2018 orthophoto plus the old application.
- Stability evidence. Article 15(2) lets a basic-housing, auxiliary or residential building of up to 200 m² net, at most two storeys and no business use file the owner's certified statement accepting third-party liability instead of a stability analysis. Everything else goes through Article 17 testing by a licensed entity, with a licensed reviewer above 500 m² (Article 15(1)(7)-(8)).
- The waiver. Article 12(8): the owner's certified statement waiving the right to sue the state, the municipality or a public-interest service company over the legalisation and use of the building. Article 21(1)(3) writes it onto the title sheet.
- The on-site inspection by the mixed-profession commission under Article 14. Someone has to open the gate.
- Signing from abroad. Montenegro is a Contracting Party to the Hague Apostille Convention by succession, in force for Montenegro from 3 June 2006 (HCCH status table, checked 2 September 2026). A power of attorney notarised in another Contracting State needs an apostille and a certified translation, not consular legalisation. The Article 12(8) and 15(2) statements I prefer signed before a Montenegrin notary.
- Collective buildings. Article 19 runs the whole building as one procedure that any unit owner can start; fees are split per unit (Article 19(5)).
Which body receives the request I have not verified from the current text; we confirm it per municipality.
What it costs: the fee logic, not a price list
Article 12(10) is short: the costs of legalisation are borne by the owner. The table is the statute's own structure; municipal tariffs I quote only where I have a dated document.
| Item | Article | How it is set | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urban-sanitation fee (naknada za urbanu sanaciju) | Article 23 | Municipal assembly with prior Government consent; per m² net area on the certified survey; factors include zone, infrastructure, type, purpose, age | Up to 120 monthly instalments; 360 for a basic-housing building |
| Same fee for a hotel, 4-5 star tourist settlement or resort | Article 23(12) | Fixed in the statute at EUR 400-800 per m² of built space | One sum or up to 60 monthly instalments |
| Reductions | Article 23(6)-(7) | Up to 50% basic housing; up to 90% listed vulnerable categories; up to 20% for lump-sum payment | Cannot be combined |
| Special coastal fee (posebna naknada) | Article 25 | Under the Law on regional water supply of the Montenegrin coast | Up to 36 equal monthly instalments |
| Land under the building, where state or municipal | Article 20 | Direct purchase agreement; pre-notation (predbilježba) until paid in full | Up to 360 instalments for basic housing, 120 otherwise |
| Survey, stability testing, notary, translations | Article 12(10) | Market prices | On the owner |
Two things foreign owners get wrong here. First, the basic-housing reduction: Article 10 requires the owner and household to live in the building, hold residence there and own no other dwelling in Montenegro. A second home does not qualify; plan on the full municipal rate and the 120-instalment schedule. Second, the rate itself. I do not have adopted coastal tariffs in front of me. The one figure I can cite is Danilovgrad's draft decision of 3 July 2026 proposing EUR 65 per m² in Zone I down to EUR 10 in Zone VI: inland, a draft, not a national number. For a coastal municipality, ask for the adopted odluka with its gazette reference before anyone quotes you a total.
What happens if you miss 14 August 2027
The statute is blunt. Article 48(2): if the registration deadline is missed, the spatial-protection inspector must issue a removal decision. Whether and when it is executed I will not pretend to know. What I can say is what runs in the meantime.
Article 26 sets an annual fee for use of space where no legalisation request was filed, it was refused, cadastre registration was never initiated, or a removal decision exists: 0.5% to 2.0% per m² of net area where the as-built survey was delivered (Article 26(2)), 1% to 3% per m² of gross area where it was not (Article 26(3)), on the statistics authority's average new-housing construction price for the preceding year. On MONSTAT's Q4 2025 coastal figure of EUR 2,081 per m² (our August 2026 analysis) the lower band is roughly EUR 10-42 per m² a year, about EUR 1,560-6,240 a year for a 150 m² house. My arithmetic on a base that changes every year, not a tariff.
Article 31(5): a removal decision does not affect the assessment and collection of property tax or the Article 26 fee; Article 29(1) ends the obligation only when the legalisation decision becomes final. Property tax itself, under the Zakon o porezu na nepokretnosti (Gazette 25/19 through 133/25, chain verified 29 August 2026), puts an unpermitted building in a higher Article 10 band: 0.3% to 1.5% of market value where it resolves the owner's housing need, 0.3% to 2% where it does not.
And Article 33 keeps running regardless of the deadline. A building erected without or contrary to a building act cannot be alienated, and no economic or other activity may be carried out in it (Article 33(1)-(2)); the ban is annotated on the G sheet on request of a notary, an inspector or anyone with a legal interest (Article 33(3)), and bodies that licensed an activity there must terminate the approval (Article 33(4)). For a holiday-let owner that is the clause that bites; the buyer's side of it I have written up separately, and the criminal layer in Articles 326a to 326c of the Krivični zakonik stays on its own page with the caveats it needs.
What a legalisation decision gives you, and what it does not
Article 21: within forty days of receiving the legalisation decision the cadastre records it and deletes the unpermitted-construction and disposal-prohibition annotations; the title sheet then carries the liability statement, the waiver and the fee arrangement (Article 21(1)(2)-(4)). From that point the building can be sold and mortgaged.
What it does not do is turn the building into one with a use permit. The upotrebna dozvola lives in the Zakon o izgradnji objekata (Gazette 19/2025, amended by 92/2025, 160/2025 and 114/2026): Article 53 has it issued by the permitting authority after the technical inspection under Articles 55-58, and Article 60 bars use before it issues. If your building was permitted but never closed out, the expired or lapsed permit routes are the page to read, not this one.
One more thing about the G sheet. Article 51 gives the cadastre 36 months from 14 August 2025, so until about August 2028, to enter disposal-prohibition annotations ex officio against buildings whose folio already flags a missing permit or use permit. A clean G sheet in 2026 means the annotation has not arrived yet, not that the building is lawful.
If you are not in Montenegro most of the year
The Article 48 clock does not care where you live. The Article 14 commission visit and the notary appointments need a person on the ground; a power of attorney covers the rest, with the apostille point above. From 1 November 2026, nationals of Türkiye, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Belarus need a visa to enter Montenegro under the Government decree of 23 July 2026 amending the visa regime (reported 28 July 2026); if you hold one of those passports and plan to attend the inspection, plan around that date. Social-security agreements have no bearing on this file. Municipality does: the coast carries the Article 25 special fee, and some plots sit inside detailed plans with their own layer, as I set out for Petrovac and its coastal DUP.
If you own a plot in Montenegro with an unpermitted building or extension on it, send us the folio number, the position on the Geoportal and any old permit or application, and we will map the file against Articles 7 and 48 and put the document list and the fee logic for your municipality in writing. RoNa Legal DOO in Budva coordinates the licensed surveyor and, where an authority or court has to be addressed, an advokat registered with the Advokatska komora. Start with our construction advisory page or write to us with the folio attached.