Where to live in Serbia
We track 3 cities in Serbia: Belgrade, Niš and Novi Sad. Each averages 13°C over the year. We estimate a couple needs €2,519 to €2,690 a month to live centrally. For foreigners, long-term residency is comparatively open.
12 questions, about 4 minutes, no account needed. Taking the quiz is free, and so is seeing your #1 city. Full results for both of you are a one-time US$12 (€12 in Europe).
- Safety
- 62/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 63/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 5.1/10
- estimated
Estimated from World Bank indicators and calibrated to the scales of our reference tables: safety from the country-level homicide rate per 100,000 people (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5, 2023) and Worldwide Governance Indicators Political Stability and Absence of Violence estimate (GOV_WGI_PV.EST, 2025), healthcare from the life expectancy at birth (SP.DYN.LE00.IN, 2024) and current health spending per person in US dollars (SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD, 2023), cost of living from the price level of GDP relative to the United States, from GDP per person in US dollars and at purchasing power parity (NY.GDP.PCAP.CD/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD, 2025) and democracy score from the Worldwide Governance Indicators Voice and Accountability estimate (GOV_WGI_VA.EST, 2025). Source: The World Bank (World Development Indicators, Worldwide Governance Indicators), CC BY 4.0.
Limited data for Serbia. Figures for safety, healthcare, cost of living and political stability in Serbia are country-level estimates from World Bank indicators, each named with its year. We have no tax, English, social openness or internet speed figures for Serbia, so the quiz scores those factors conservatively and this page leaves them out.
The 3 cities we track
Source: City size from GeoNames, temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages), rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals), coast distance from Natural Earth. Cost is our model estimate for a couple living centrally, from the World Bank price level.
Residency and visas
Comparatively open. Long-term residency is realistic through several routes: owning property of any value, forming a company or registering as self-employed, an investor track, or simply proving sufficient means, with permits issued for up to three years and a path to permanent residence.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Serbia:
- Income: about $647 a month (Serbia sufficient-means / independent-stay temporary residence; means are pegged to the 2026 net minimum monthly salary, RSD 65,296/mo for a standard 176-hour month (ranges RSD 59,360-65,296 ≈ EUR 506-557), per month of stay; converted at ~100.9 RSD/USD; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 90 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 108 need a visa in advance.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).