Montenegro punishes unpaid tax in two entirely separate systems, and confusing them is the most common error in this area. One is the misdemeanour layer — administrative fines imposed under the tax and sector legislation. The other is the criminal layer, where a natural person can be imprisoned and the company itself can be prosecuted as a separate defendant.
This note deals with the criminal layer: the amount at which unpaid tax becomes a crime, who is treated as responsible for it inside a company, which other offences officers actually meet, and what happens to the company when its officer is charged.
A note on currency before anything else. The article numbers below come from a consolidated text of the Criminal Code whose amendment chain ends in January 2020. We could not confirm from the gazette's own index whether the Code has been amended since. Monetary thresholds and sentence ranges are precisely the provisions most often changed, so treat every figure on this page as requiring confirmation against the current text before it is relied on.
When unpaid tax becomes a crime
The offence is utaja poreza i doprinosa — evasion of taxes and contributions — in član 264 of the Krivični zakonik.
Stav 1 defines it. A person commits the offence who, with the intention that they or another natural or legal person wholly or partly avoids payment of taxes, contributions or other prescribed levies:
- gives false data about lawfully acquired income, about objects, or about other facts affecting the determination of such obligations; or
- with the same intention, where a return is compulsory, fails to declare lawfully acquired income, objects or other relevant facts; or
- with the same intention, otherwise conceals data relating to the determination of those obligations —
where the amount of the obligation whose payment is avoided exceeds €1,000. The penalty is imprisonment of up to three years and a fine.
Two features of that definition are worth isolating.
It is an intent offence. The words "in the intention that" govern all three limbs. A wrong figure produced by error, or a position taken on a genuinely arguable point, is not this offence — it belongs in the misdemeanour layer or in an ordinary assessment dispute.
It concerns lawfully acquired income. The provision repeatedly refers to zakonito stečeni prihod. This is the offence of hiding legitimate income from the tax authority. Concealing the proceeds of crime is a different offence — money laundering, in član 268 — and the two are not interchangeable.
The thresholds and the sentences
| Amount of the obligation avoided | Sentence | Article |
|---|---|---|
| Over €1,000 | Imprisonment up to three years and a fine | Član 264 stav 1 |
| Over €10,000 | Imprisonment of one to six years and a fine | Član 264 stav 3 |
| Over €100,000 | Imprisonment of one to eight years and a fine | Član 264 stav 4 |
Stav 2 adds a separate limb: where the offence is committed to the detriment of the financial interests of the European Union, the perpetrator is punished by the penalty prescribed for that offence.
The €1,000 entry point is low by comparative standards, and it is the figure most worth checking against the current text before it is quoted.
Who is a "responsible person"
Most of the economic offences in this part of the Code name the odgovorno lice — the responsible person — as the perpetrator. That term is not a synonym for the registered director.
Član 142 stav 4 defines it as the owner of a company or other entity, or a person in a company, institution or other entity to whom — having regard to their function, to invested funds, or on the basis of an authorisation — a defined circle of duties is entrusted in managing property, in production or another activity, or in supervising them, or to whom the performance of particular tasks is in fact entrusted.
That final limb — faktički povjereno — is the one that decides cases. Criminal responsibility here follows the actual allocation of function, not the entry in the register. A person who in practice runs the finance function, signs off the returns, or controls the accounting is within the definition whether or not any document says so; and a formally appointed director who genuinely had no such role is not automatically within it. The same logic appears in the corporate law duties regime, which reaches the de facto and shadow director, and which we set out in our note on director duties and personal liability.
Stav 6 adds that where a provision names an official person, a responsible person or a military person as perpetrator, those categories can commit the offence unless the elements of the particular offence or another regulation indicate that only one of them can.
The other offences officers actually meet
Tax evasion rarely arrives alone. The chapter on offences against payment operations and business conduct contains several that name the responsible person directly.
| Offence | What it covers | Sentence | Article |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abuse of position in business | A responsible person who, by abusing their position or trust in disposing of another's property, exceeding the limits of their authority, or failing to perform their duty, obtains an unlawful pecuniary benefit for themselves or another, or causes another pecuniary damage | Three months to five years; two to ten years where the benefit exceeds €40,000 | Član 272 st. 1 and 3 |
| Misappropriation at work | Appropriating money, securities or other movables entrusted to a person at work in the company, with intent to obtain unlawful benefit | Three months to five years | Član 272 stav 2 |
| Harming creditors | A responsible person who, knowing the entity has become unable to pay, intentionally places one creditor in a more favourable position by paying a debt or otherwise, and thereby significantly harms another creditor | Three months to three years | Član 275 stav 1 |
| Fraudulent harm to creditors | The same person or an entrepreneur who, knowing of the inability to pay and intending to defraud or harm a creditor, acknowledges an untrue claim, draws up a false contract or otherwise defrauds a creditor | Three months to five years; one to eight years where damage exceeds €40,000 or where compulsory settlement or bankruptcy proceedings were commenced against the injured party | Član 275 st. 2 and 3 |
| False balance sheet | Drawing up a false balance sheet in a company determining its profit or loss, or each member's share in it, with intent to obtain a benefit or cause damage | Three months to five years | Član 278 |
| Obstructing control | Preventing an inspection or other supervisory body from inspecting the business books or other documentation, or from examining premises or objects | A fine or imprisonment up to one year | Član 282 |
The creditor-harm provisions in član 275 deserve emphasis for anyone running a company that is drifting towards insolvency. The trigger is knowledge that the entity has become unable to pay — from that point, preferring one creditor over another is not commercial judgement but a potential offence. That sits directly alongside the liquidator's duty to file for bankruptcy within 30 days once the estate proves insufficient, which we cover in our note on the four routes to closing a Montenegrin company.
Can the company itself be prosecuted?
Yes, and under its own statute. Corporate criminal liability in Montenegro is governed by the Zakon o odgovornosti pravnih lica za krivična djela, published in "Sl. list RCG" br. 2/2007, 13/2007, 30/2012 and 39/2016.
Član 5 sets the basis. A legal person is liable for a criminal offence of a responsible person who committed the offence acting in the name of the legal person within the scope of their authority, with the intention of obtaining some benefit for it — or where the responsible person's conduct was contrary to the business policy or the orders of the legal person.
That second limb is the one companies misread. Being able to show that the officer acted against instructions does not automatically exculpate the company; it is one of the two routes into liability, not a defence to it.
Član 6 then removes the obvious escape routes:
- stav 1 — the legal person is liable even if the responsible person who committed the offence is not convicted of it;
- stav 2 — the liability of the legal person does not exclude the criminal liability of the responsible person for the offence committed;
- stav 3 — subjective elements of the offence existing only in the responsible person are assessed in relation to the legal person as well, where the basis of liability in član 5 is made out.
Član 7 deals with insolvency: a company in bankruptcy can be liable for a criminal offence regardless.
What the company pays
Član 15 ties the corporate fine to the prison term prescribed for the underlying offence, and states each band as a multiple of the damage or gain or a euro range:
| Prison term prescribed for the offence | Fine on the legal person |
|---|---|
| Up to one year, or a fine | 2× to 5× the damage or unlawful gain, or €1,000 – €10,000 |
| Up to three years | 5× to 10×, or €10,000 – €20,000 |
| Up to five years | 10× to 15×, or €20,000 – €50,000 |
| Up to eight years | 15× to 20×, or €50,000 – €100,000 |
| Up to ten years | 20× to 50×, or €100,000 – €200,000 |
| Over ten years | At least 50×, or at least €200,000 |
Applying that mechanic to tax evasion: the basic offence in član 264 stav 1 carries up to three years, so it falls in the second band; the aggravated forms in stavovi 3 and 4, with maxima of six and eight years, fall in the fourth. The multiplier limb matters more than the euro range whenever the sum evaded is large, because a multiple of the gain will exceed the fixed ceiling.
Član 14 stav 3 covers the case where no pecuniary damage or unlawful gain was caused, or where its amount is hard to establish within a reasonable time: the court fixes the fine in a determined amount not less than €1,000 and not more than €5 million.
The layer this page does not cover
Unpaid tax also produces misdemeanour liability under the tax legislation, which operates independently of the Criminal Code and on much lower thresholds. Separately, the anti-money-laundering regime imposes its own misdemeanour fines — including for beneficial ownership filings, where the company's exposure runs to €20,000 and the responsible person's to €2,000 — set out in our note on beneficial owners of a Montenegrin company. And the substantive corporate tax position, including the progressive rates, is in our note on what Montenegro's 9% corporate tax really means.
What this means in practice
The threshold is per obligation avoided, not per year of turnover. Član 264 attaches to the amount of the obligation whose payment is avoided, and the first band begins above €1,000.
Title does not decide exposure; function does. Član 142 stav 4 reaches whoever is in fact entrusted with the relevant tasks. Appointing a nominal director does not move criminal responsibility away from the person actually running the finance function.
Insolvency changes the rules on paying creditors. From the point of known inability to pay, selective payment is within član 275.
The company is a separate defendant. Under član 6 of the corporate liability statute it can be convicted without the officer being convicted, and its conviction does not spare the officer.
And check the figures. Every euro amount and sentence range on this page comes from a consolidation ending in January 2020.
If you are an officer or owner facing a tax or economic-crime investigation in Montenegro, our criminal law practice can assess the exposure of the individual and of the company separately; where the question is the underlying tax position rather than the offence, that sits with our international tax practice.
Criminal Code article numbers are from the Krivični zakonik Crne Gore, consolidated text covering "Sl. list RCG" br. 070/03 and 013/04 and 047/06, and "Sl. list CG" br. 040/08, 025/10, 073/10, 032/11, 064/11, 040/13, 056/13, 014/15, 042/15, 058/15, 044/17, 049/18 and 003/20 of 23 January 2020, read on 28 August 2026. Two independent consolidations consulted both end at 003/20; we were not able to confirm from the gazette's own index whether the Code has been amended since, and monetary thresholds and sentence ranges should be verified against the current text before being relied on. Corporate liability article numbers are from the Zakon o odgovornosti pravnih lica za krivična djela, "Sl. list RCG" br. 2/2007, 13/2007, 30/2012 and 39/2016. This note is general information about the criminal layer and is not advice on an actual or threatened investigation or prosecution; it does not set out the separate misdemeanour regime under the tax legislation.
