Montenegro VAT Number and Tax ID (PIB): Format, Checks and What an Invoice Must Show

If your company is about to pay a Montenegrin supplier, invoice a Montenegrin customer or sign a contract with a Montenegrin entity, the counterparty's tax identifiers are the first thing your finance team will ask for — and the first place a company gets caught out. Montenegro changed the form of its VAT number on 6 February 2026, a large share of Montenegrin businesses have no VAT number at all, and the EU's VIES checker will not confirm a Montenegrin number. Fines for a wrong invoice sit with the company that issues it, and for cross-border services the VAT is often payable by the Montenegrin customer, not by you.

Sources, checked 14 September 2026: Zakon o porezu na dodatu vrijednost ("Sl. list RCG" 65/01 … "Sl. list CG" 94/24, 12/26) — the VAT Act in application today; Zakon o izmjenama i dopunama Zakona o porezu na dodatu vrijednost ("Sl. list CG" 12/2026, published and in force 6 February 2026); Zakon o poreskoj administraciji ("Sl. list RCG" 65/01, 80/04; "Sl. list CG" 20/11, 28/12, 8/15, 47/17, 52/19, 145/21, 15/25, 160/25, 70/26, 104/26); Zakon o fiskalizaciji u prometu proizvoda i usluga ("Sl. list CG" 46/19, 73/19, 8/21 — the consolidated text we read runs to 8/21); the Tax Administration's published list of legal-entity PIBs. Article numbers are those of the VAT Act applied today. The new VAT Act ("Sl. list CG" 104/2026) applies only from EU accession under its Article 213 and numbers its articles differently (why in force and in application differ). General information, not advice; confirm figures against the printed gazette.

Two numbers, one base

Montenegro uses one tax number for everything and builds the VAT number on top of it.

• The PIB (poreski identifikacioni broj) is the taxpayer identification number assigned by the tax authority. The Fiscalisation Act defines it as the unique number the Administration assigns to a taxpayer under the tax administration rules (Article 3(6)).
• The VAT number exists only for a person registered for VAT. Since the 12/2026 amendment, VAT Act Article 55(6)-(7) reads: the tax authority assigns a VAT registration number, and "the VAT registration number is the tax identification number (PIB) to which the prefix 'ME' is added."
• The tax authority keeps a Register of VAT payers (Article 55(8)).

Two practical consequences follow. First, a Montenegrin company that is not VAT-registered still has a PIB, so "they have a tax number but no VAT number" is normal, not a warning sign. Second, the ME-prefixed form is recent: the same amending act added Article 72c, under which taxpayers who had already been assigned a VAT registration number receive a replacement number from the tax authority ex officio. Contracts, supplier master data and invoices from before 6 February 2026 may therefore carry a VAT registration number in the old form. Update the record; do not treat the difference as a mismatch.

What a Montenegrin PIB looks like

No article of the statutes we read prints the digit structure of a PIB, so we measured it from the tax authority's own data. The Tax Administration publishes a list of PIB numbers of all legal-entity taxpayers with name and address (document dated 22 September 2020 on the Government's document service). In that file:

• 51,007 of 51,007 PIBs are eight digits, all numeric;
• 48,536 of them begin with a zero (the most common openings are 02 and 03).

So a legal entity's Montenegrin VAT number reads as ME followed by eight digits. Two traps come from this:

1. Spreadsheets strip the leading zero. Paste 02xxxxxx into a numeric column and you get a seven-digit number that matches nothing. Store the PIB as text.
2. Do not borrow a neighbour's format rules. Serbia also calls its number "PIB", but Serbian rules describe a different structure. A validation routine written for Serbian numbers will reject correct Montenegrin ones. The 2020 list is a snapshot of legal entities only; it says nothing about individuals or entrepreneurs, so this page draws no conclusion about their numbers.

Not every Montenegrin business has a VAT number — and that is lawful

VAT registration is triggered by turnover. A person who in the last 12 months, or a shorter period, makes supplies above €30,000 must register for VAT by submitting a registration application by the 20th day of the month following the month in which the threshold was crossed (VAT Act Article 55(1)). The tax authority issues the registration decision within seven days of receiving the application, and taxpayer status starts on the date set in that decision (Article 55(3)). If the person does not apply, the authority registers it ex officio (Article 55(4)).

The other side of the rule matters just as much when you receive an invoice. A supplier that is below the threshold and not entered in the Register of VAT payers is outside the VAT system. Anyone who shows VAT on an invoice that they were not allowed to show becomes liable to pay that VAT (Article 12(1)(4)), and a legal person that charges VAT and deducts input VAT contrary to Article 42 faces a fine (Article 59(1)(8)). An invoice that shows 21% VAT next to a PIB with no ME registration behind it is a question to raise before you pay, not after.

How to check a Montenegrin VAT number

There is no single public screen that answers every question, so check in layers.

1. The Register of VAT payers. Article 55(8) requires the tax authority to keep it; the Government's e-service Pregled registra PDV obveznika (Ministry of Finance) links to the portal at eprijava.tax.gov.me, which returned Service Unavailable when we tried it on 14 September 2026. If it is down, ask the counterparty for its VAT registration decision (rješenje o registraciji za PDV) and file a copy.

2. The business register. Its search shows company name, registration number and PIB side by side, so you can confirm the invoice PIB belongs to the entity in your contract — see our Montenegro company search guide and the investor due diligence checklist.

3. Not VIES. The European Commission's VIES service verifies VAT numbers issued by EU Member States or for Northern Ireland. Montenegro is not a Member State, so a correct ME number will not validate there. A "not valid" VIES result for a Montenegrin number tells you nothing about the number.

4. The fiscal receipt itself. Buyers and recipients of a fiscalised invoice may check whether their invoice was reported to the tax authority within 90 days of its issue (Fiscalisation Act Article 22). That check confirms the invoice, not the supplier's VAT status, but it is a useful second signal on a large payment.

What a Montenegrin B2B invoice must show

When a VAT payer supplies goods or services to another taxpayer, VAT Act Article 32(1) requires the invoice to show at least:

1. date of issue and serial number;
2. name, address and VAT number of the supplier;
3. name and address of the recipient;
4. date of supply;
5. quantity and usual trade name of goods, or type and extent of services;
6. amount of consideration without VAT;
7. the tax rate applied;
8. the VAT amount;
9. total consideration including VAT.

Three additions apply on top of that list:

• Fiscalisation data (Article 32(2)). The Fiscalisation Act adds, among other items, the fiscal invoice number, the time of issue, the taxpayer's identification code, the unique invoice code, the payment method, the payment deadline if payment is not made on issue, and the buyer's PIB where the transaction is between fiscalisation obligors or is a non-cash fiscalised payment (Article 7).
• Exempt or zero-rated supplies must state that VAT was not charged and cite the article providing the exemption or zero rate (VAT Act Article 32(3)).
• Services whose place of supply is not Montenegro under Articles 17 to 17j must carry the words "prenos poreske obaveze" — transfer of the tax liability (Article 32(7), as rewritten by 12/2026).

Invoices may be issued electronically only with the recipient's prior consent (Article 31(6)). The supplier keeps invoices and related records for at least five years after the year they concern, and twenty years for documentation on the taxation of real estate (Article 54(1)-(2)).

Foreign company, Montenegrin counterparty: who pays the VAT

This is where foreign businesses most often make a wrong assumption.

Services you supply to a Montenegrin company. For place-of-supply purposes, foreign legal persons count as taxable persons (Article 17(1)(3)), and services supplied to a taxable person are supplied where that person has its seat (Article 17(2)), subject to the special rules in Articles 17a to 17j — for example, services connected with real estate are supplied where the property is (Article 17a). So a consulting or software service invoiced by your company to a Montenegrin company is, as a rule, supplied in Montenegro.

Who is the VAT debtor. Where a taxable person with no seat, business unit or permanent or usual residence in Montenegro makes a supply in Montenegro, the VAT debtor is the tax representative that person appoints; if no representative is appointed, the VAT is paid by the recipient (Article 12(1)(2)). In the ordinary B2B case with no representative, that means the Montenegrin customer accounts for the VAT. Keep in mind Article 12(1)(4) as well: a person who shows VAT on an invoice that it was not allowed to show becomes liable for that amount.

The exception for consumers. Where the place of supply is determined by the recipient's location and the recipient is not a taxable person — the consumer-facing rules in Articles 17(2)-(5) and 17c-17j — the foreign supplier must establish a permanent business unit or appoint a representative in Montenegro (Article 12(2), added by 12/2026). Failing to do so is a misdemeanour for a legal person, €3,000 to €10,000 (Article 58(1)(1)).

Services a Montenegrin company supplies to you. If the place of supply is outside Montenegro, your Montenegrin supplier's invoice should carry "prenos poreske obaveze" (Article 32(7)). Your own country's rules then decide how you account for it; this page does not cover them.

Does your foreign company need a Montenegrin PIB?

Often, yes — even without a local subsidiary. Tax Administration Act Article 27(2), as rewritten by "Sl. list CG" 70/2026 (published 20 May 2026, in force 21 May 2026), requires a registration application from, among others, a foreign legal person or organisation that carries on an activity, earns income or owns property in Montenegro (point 4), and a foreign natural person who does so (point 5). Registration is what produces the PIB.

As for a local business, the PIB follows tax registration; the ME-prefixed VAT number follows only entry in the Register of VAT payers. How this interacts with a branch or permanent establishment is a separate analysis; see our international tax practice.

The fines, and who carries them

The fines in Article 58 were restated by the 12/2026 amendment. For the foreign-supplier offence in Article 58(1)(1) and for Article 59(1) points 5, 7 and 19, Article 60 also allows a ban on carrying on the activity for 30 days to one year; the invoice-content offence in Article 59(1)(4) is not on that list.

What this page does not settle

• The structure of individual and entrepreneur numbers. The published list we measured covers legal entities only.
• Whether a PIB carries a check digit. No provision we read says so, and we have not tested it. Do not import Serbia's rule.
• Mandatory e-invoicing. The VAT Act in application makes electronic invoices consent-based (Article 31(6)). We found no enacted Montenegrin B2B e-invoicing mandate in the texts we read; if one is adopted, it will be a new act with its own dates.
• Your home country's side of a reverse-charge supply. The table above stops at the Montenegrin border.

Whose side we are on, and how we are paid

We advise the company, not the transaction. We take no commission from suppliers, agents or intermediaries, so telling you that a counterparty's VAT registration does not check out costs us nothing; our fee does not change with whether the deal goes ahead. We do not file VAT returns; where a filing is needed, we work alongside your accountant.

Before your company pays or signs

If your company invoices, or is being invoiced by, a Montenegrin counterparty — or is about to register in Montenegro because it earns income or owns property there — send us the contract, the draft invoice and the counterparty's identifiers before the money moves. We will check them against the VAT Act and the registers, tell you in writing what does not match, and say who carries the Montenegrin VAT. If you are setting up your own presence in Montenegro, the freelancer and entrepreneur guide covers the €30,000 threshold from the supplier's side.