The new repatriation program – Carta Serbica – has been recently introduced allowing people with Serbian roots to obtain temporary residence and possible citizenship in the land of their ancestors.
Carta Serbica program was established on the basis of amendments to the Regulation on the criteria for determining the categories of foreigners who can be granted temporary residence in the Republic of Serbia, regardless of the general grounds for granting temporary residence.
Like other European countries, Serbia faces a labor shortage which surely motivated the Serbian government to proceed with this initiative.
Under the new Carta Serbica program, foreign nationals with Serbian roots who were born abroad or have left Serbia due to certain circumstances and renounced Serbian citizenship can obtain a one-year residence permit in Serbia. Furthermore, they can apply for citizenship, meaning that they can live, work and retire in Serbia.
A simplified procedure for temporary residence can be applied to the following categories of foreign citizens:
- persons of Serbian origin born in the former Yugoslav federal republics;
- persons of Serbian origin born in the diaspora;
- persons of Serbian origin who cannot acquire Serbian citizenship by other means.
Furthermore, new incentives are also introduced, such as tax and customs facilities and the possibility of providing housing loans to non-residents in collaboration with the state-owned Postanska stedionica bank.
It is considered that many of these repatriates will bust the economy by investing, starting a new business, or by introducing advanced know-how.
Carta Serbica was modeled by the similar program earlier introduced in Poland achieving exceptional results.
By Nenad Cvjeticanin, Cvjeticanin & Partners
