Your Montenegrin company receives a tax decision. Before you argue about the numbers, two procedural questions decide whether you get to argue at all: which authority issued it, and on what date it counts as served. Montenegrin law answers both, and both answers run against a company managed from abroad. The obligation to keep a reachable address is the company's. The appeal deadline is fifteen days. And filing that appeal does not stop the authority from collecting.
Sources, checked 21 September 2026: Uredba o organizaciji i načinu rada državne uprave (consolidated, "Sl. list CG" 98/2023–164/2025); Zakon o poreskoj administraciji (consolidated, "Sl. list RCG" 65/2001 to "Sl. list CG" 104/26 of 17.07.2026); Zakon o upravnom postupku (56/2014, 20/2015, 40/2016, 37/2017); Zakon o upravnom sporu (54/2016, 11/2024 — Odluka US CG, 53/2025). The Government's institution pages were queried the same day. This is general information about procedure, not advice on your matter.
The authority that assesses your tax is not the one most guidance names
From 2021 until the end of 2023 the assessing body was the Revenue and Customs Administration (Uprava prihoda i carina), a merged tax-and-customs authority. It no longer exists. The Decree on the Organisation and Manner of Work of State Administration lists, among the administrative authorities in Article 22, item 3 the Tax Administration (Poreska uprava) and item 3a the Customs Administration (Uprava carina) as separate bodies, with their remits in Articles 25 and 25a. The transitional Article 62a records the handover: the two new authorities were to begin work within 30 days of the amending decree entering into force, each taking over from the old body the civil servants who performed the transferred tasks, the equipment and the official documentation.
Two caveats, stated rather than glossed. The consolidated decree we read ends its chain at 164/2025, so Article 22's list is current to that consolidation rather than necessarily to today; and we did not obtain the amending act's own gazette page, so this article does not state the calendar day on which the split took effect. The outcome is verifiable now: on 21 September 2026 the Government's page for the Revenue and Customs Administration returns HTTP 301 Moved Permanently to the Tax Administration's page, on both the English and the Montenegrin path.
No tax statute had to be rewritten, which is why you will keep meeting the old name on otherwise valid documents. The Tax Administration Act never names the authority: Article 4, item 1 defines poreski organ functionally as a state administration body or a local self-government body competent for the assessment, collection and control of tax. A decision on old letterhead is not void — but it is a reliable sign that the guidance you are relying on has not been checked since 2023.
| Body | What it does | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Poreska uprava (Tax Administration) | Registers taxpayers, assesses tax for all natural and legal persons, carries out tax control, collects regularly and by enforcement, applies double tax treaties | Decree Articles 22(3) and 25; Tax Administration Act Article 6 |
| Uprava carina (Customs Administration) | Customs treatment and control of goods, origin and customs value, calculation and collection of customs debt, VAT and excise on importation | Decree Articles 22(3a) and 25a |
| Ministarstvo finansija (Ministry of Finance) | Supervises the legality and expediency of both authorities' work and of their administrative acts | Decree Article 49 item 3 |
| The body named on your decision | The second-instance body is not named by the Tax Administration Act; the decision's own legal-remedy instruction must state where the appeal goes | Law on Administrative Procedure Article 22 |
| Upravni sud Crne Gore (Administrative Court) | Decides the administrative dispute against the final second-instance decision | Administrative Dispute Act Articles 6 and 16 |
What the Tax Administration may do to your company
Article 6(1) is the power list: inspection supervision and collection measures; deciding on taxpayers' rights; maintaining the company register, the tax register and the register of beneficial owners; assessing tax; requiring taxpayers and other legal and natural persons to submit documentation needed to establish a liability; and summoning persons into the tax procedure. Three of those surprise foreign owners more than the rest.
It can assess on an estimate. Where the decision cannot be made from your books, Article 53(2) allows assessment on an estimated base, and the inputs permitted by Article 53(3) are wider than most finance directors expect: unposted documentation, turnover observed during inspection, comparison with other taxpayers in the same activity and location, installed capacity, earlier returns — and the taxpayer's private spending and assets acquired. Article 53(4)–(5) lets the authority pull those records from other public bodies and from banks, which must supply them on request.
Inspection reaches the owner–company relationship. Article 74(4) says so in terms: inspection of companies also covers the relations between the owners and the company that are relevant for taxation. Shareholder loans, director charges and intra-group flows are inside an ordinary inspection, not outside it — and if payments to related parties abroad were priced on the assumption that nobody looks, Montenegro's 30% withholding list is the other half of that problem.
It can come back within the same year. Article 75(3) expressly permits inspection of the same taxpayer, same tax type and same period more than once a year; the only outer boundary is Article 75(1), which limits inspection to periods for which the right to assess is not yet time-barred.
There is a counterweight companies routinely fail to use. Article 76 requires the subject and period to be fixed in a written order (nalog) naming the period, tax type, place and time of commencement, the inspector, and an invitation to take part; Article 77(1) requires delivery 30 days before the start for a large taxpayer and 15 days before for everyone else. A postponement may be sought only within three days of receiving the order, on stated justified grounds, and that decision is final (Article 77(3)–(4)). Article 77(2) removes advance notice where it would defeat the inspection's purpose.
How a decision reaches you, and why that is the dangerous part
This is where foreign-owned companies lose files they never knew were open. Article 22a governs service of tax acts, and every rule in it runs the authority's way.
Service is by registered post or through an official (Article 22a(1)), and for a company it goes to the seat address recorded in the tax register or, by registered post, to the last known address (Article 22a(4)). A tax act is served when handed to the taxpayer, its legal representative, its attorney or tax attorney, or an ex officio representative (Article 22a(2)) — and, for a legal person, also when handed to an employee (Article 22a(6)). Refusal to accept or to sign does not help: service is proper on the deliverer's official note (Article 22a(8)).
Then the provision that closes the loop. Under Article 22a(3), service by registered post is effective on the day of handover — and, if handover was not possible, on the expiry of 15 days from the day the act was handed to the post office. Nobody has to receive anything. Where even that fails, Article 22b sends the authority to service by public notice under the general administrative procedure rules.
Article 26(1), item 3 puts the matching duty on you: the taxpayer must report every change of the address of its seat, residence or stay, and of the other data in the taxpayer register. A stale address is not a defence; it is a breach.
| Situation | Date the tax act counts as served |
|---|---|
| Handed to the company's representative or attorney | Day of handover (Article 22a(2)) |
| Handed to any employee at the company | Day of handover (Article 22a(6)) |
| Recipient refuses to accept or to sign | Day of the attempt, on the deliverer's official note (Article 22a(8)) |
| Registered post, handover not possible | 15 days after the act was handed to the post office (Article 22a(3)) |
| No service possible under Article 22a at all | By public notice under the Law on Administrative Procedure (Article 22b) |
Run the arithmetic once. Fifteen days of deemed service, then fifteen days of appeal time: a company whose Montenegrin address is an unattended mailbox can face a final, enforceable assessment thirty days after a letter left a post office.
The decision, and the payment clock
Article 54(1) fixes what the operative part of a tax decision must contain, in addition to the general administrative procedure law: the taxpayer's PIB, the tax type, base, rate, amount assessed, tax period, any reliefs, the payment account, the order and deadline for payment, and the interest amount and rate. If those items are absent, you are not looking at a tax decision. (If the PIB is not the one you expect, start with how Montenegrin tax and VAT numbers are built and checked.) Article 55 then sets the payment clock: tax assessed by decision falls due within 10 days of service, unless a tax law provides otherwise.
Because Article 54(1) applies in addition to the general law, Article 22 of that law also governs the document. A written decision must contain an introduction, operative part, statement of reasons, a legal-remedy instruction, signature and seal. Where a law provides that an appeal does not suspend execution — as the Tax Administration Act does — that must be stated in the operative part, with the provision cited in the reasons. The legal-remedy instruction must say whether you may appeal or start an administrative dispute and must name the body or the court; that instruction, not general guidance, identifies your second-instance body. A wrong instruction may not prejudice the party, and a missing one may be corrected on request within 60 days of receipt.
Interest is a formula, not a number to memorise: it runs daily from the day after the due date at the base rate plus three percentage points, the base being the European Central Bank's main refinancing rate in force on the first day of the calendar half-year concerned (Article 95(1)–(3)). The authority must publish that rate on its website on the first working day of each half-year and in the Official Gazette (Article 95(4)–(5)). Use the published figure. And where the full facts cannot be established in time, Article 53(6) allows a provisional decision, which Article 53(7) gives the authority three years to replace — not a draft you can ignore.
The appeal: fifteen days, and it stops nothing
Against a first-instance decision — or where none was issued in time — the party has a right of appeal unless a law excludes it (Article 119(1) of the Law on Administrative Procedure), and the deadline is 15 days from service unless a law sets another period (Article 121). The appeal must identify the decision, the issuing body, its number and date, and the reasons.
File it in the right place: Article 123(1) requires lodgement with the first-instance body that issued the decision, not with the ministry. If you lodge it with the second-instance body instead, Article 123(2)–(3) saves you — it is forwarded and treated as lodged on the day it arrived there.
Now the provision that catches companies from other legal systems. The general rule in Article 124(1) is that a decision cannot be executed during the appeal period. It does not apply here. The Tax Administration Act switches it off twice:
- Article 54(2): an appeal against a tax decision does not suspend its execution.
- Article 58(2): an appeal against an enforced collection decision does not suspend execution either — and under Article 58(1) that appeal has its own 15-day deadline from service.
The appeal preserves your argument. It does not preserve your cash. Paying under protest and appealing is a commercial decision that has to be taken in the same fortnight as the legal one.
| Step | Deadline | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| Tax decision served | — | Tax Administration Act Article 22a |
| Assessed tax falls due | 10 days from service | Tax Administration Act Article 55 |
| Appeal lodged | 15 days from service | Law on Administrative Procedure Article 121 |
| Effect of that appeal on collection | None | Tax Administration Act Articles 54(2), 58(2) |
| Second-instance decision issued and served | 45 days from receipt of the appeal | Law on Administrative Procedure Article 130 |
| Claim to the Administrative Court | 20 days from service of the act | Administrative Dispute Act Article 17(1) |
| Claim for administrative silence | Earliest on the 7th day after the deadline for the act expired | Administrative Dispute Act Article 17(3) |
| Request to supplement a missing legal-remedy instruction | 60 days from receipt | Law on Administrative Procedure Article 22 |
One number there is misstated more than any other: the claim to the Administrative Court is 20 days, not thirty (Administrative Dispute Act Article 17(1)). Where a ministry decided at first instance, Article 119(2) allows an appeal only where a law provides for it or where the administrative dispute is excluded. And before any of this, Article 111 gives you a right worth using: the body must inform the party of the results of the investigative procedure, let it state its position, and say where the case file can be inspected.
If you neither pay nor appeal, what follows is short. Enforcement starts when the decision became enforceable (Article 56(1)), and the enforced collection decision orders payment within 10 days (Articles 56(2), 57(1)). Article 59(1) lists what may be taken — funds, claims, movable and immovable property, the non-exempt part of salaries and pensions, and a holding in a company — with a lien available under Article 60. A shareholding is not a safe harbour but an enumerated object of enforcement, one more reason to check what is registered against a counterparty first, as our note on legal due diligence on a Montenegrin company sets out.
Five years, ten years, and the debts that never expire
Assessment becomes time-barred five years from the end of the year in which the liability should have been assessed (Article 100(1)), and collection five years from the end of the year of assessment, taking interest and costs with it (Article 101(1)–(2)). Both periods are interrupted by any official act aimed at assessment or collection (Articles 100(2), 101(3)), and collection does not run while court proceedings are pending or where an individual taxpayer is outside Montenegro continuously for more than six months (Article 101(4)). Refunds of overpaid tax and tax credit become time-barred five years from the end of the year of the overpayment (Article 102(1)).
Above those sits Article 103(1): the right to assess, collect and refund always becomes time-barred within 10 years from the end of the relevant year, after which the authority terminates the liability ex officio (Article 103(2)). With one exception that changes the risk profile of an older Montenegrin company — Article 103(3): the right to assess and collect does not become time-barred for claims based on pension and disability insurance contributions, or for claims secured by a pledge or mortgage, except as to interest. Unpaid pension contributions on historic payroll do not age out, and neither does a secured tax claim sitting quietly against a property.
On the penalty side, Article 105(1) sets the fine for a legal person, a branch of a foreign company or a trust at €4,000 to €40,000 for the enumerated breaches, which include failing to supply the authority with available information needed to establish the facts relevant to taxation within the period it sets.
What a company run from abroad should actually change
The fix for almost all of this is administrative rather than legal: an address kept current under Article 26(1) item 3, a named person in Montenegro authorised to receive tax acts, and a rule that any envelope from the authority is scanned and dated the day it arrives. Getting a treaty rate right also starts before the payment — see our note on the Montenegro tax residence certificate.
If your company has received a decision from the Montenegrin tax authority, or an inspection order under Article 76, send us the document and the envelope before the tenth day runs. The date on the envelope is usually the fact that decides the case. Our international tax practice works on the document in front of you, not on a general description of it.
