The Consumer Protection Act (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 35/2026) (hereinafter: the “New CPA“) entered into force on May 1, 2026, with application scheduled to begin on August 2, 2026. An exception applies to the provisions of Article 4(1) and Article 6, which formally took effect upon entry into force but will become effective in practice once the Government adopts a decision identifying the special laws that take precedence over the New CPA, and once the competent minister prescribes the detailed conditions, content, and manner of publishing price lists in digital form.

The previous regulatory framework failed to fully address the complex challenges arising from rapid technological development. E-commerce, as a key driver of market growth, has offered significant benefits to both sides, while at the same time creating a need for more precise regulation of conformity issues and legal remedies. The core purpose of the transposed Directives (EU) 2019/770 and 2019/771 is precisely to remove barriers by introducing uniform rules across all sales channels, thereby ensuring greater legal certainty in digital and cross-border contexts. In addition, the New CPA incorporates solutions from Directive (EU) 2019/2161, which modernizes EU rules by strengthening transparency in online advertising and introducing new mechanisms for sanctioning consumer rights violations.

The New CPA systematically regulates consumer rights with respect to the supply of digital content (films, series, e-books, software, applications, video games, etc.) and digital services (streaming and music platforms, cloud services, hosting, etc.), as well as the position of consumers on so-called online marketplaces (ananas.rs, Shoppster, Glovo, Wolt, etc.). The most important provisions of the New CPA relate to the following:

Digital content and digital services. A trader is required to supply digital content or a digital service that conforms to the contract, with conformity established where both the subjective and objective conditions prescribed by the New CPA are met. The trader is obliged to inform the consumer of updates — including security updates — necessary to maintain conformity of the digital content or digital service. Unless otherwise agreed, digital services and digital content are supplied in the latest version available at the time the contract was concluded. The trader also bears the burden of proving that the digital content or digital service was supplied in accordance with the law. The New CPA further sets out the conditions under which a consumer may exercise the right to terminate the contract in the event of non-supply, or the right to bring the content into conformity, obtain a proportionate price reduction, or terminate the contract in the event of non-conformity. Where a trader’s obligations to the consumer arise from non-supply or non-conformity of digital content or a digital service, the trader has the right to seek reimbursement from the relevant party in the supply chain for what the trader fulfilled under that obligation (right of recourse).

Prohibition of unfair commercial practices and special protection of minors. The New CPA emphasizes that a trader materially distorts the economic behavior of a consumer when its commercial practice significantly undermines the consumer’s ability to reach the level of information necessary to decide, causing the consumer to make an economic decision they would not otherwise have made.

The following forms of commercial practice are considered misleading under the New CPA:

  • displaying search results in response to a consumer’s online search without clearly disclosing any paid advertising or payment made to achieve a higher product ranking in search results;
  • claiming that product reviews were submitted by consumers who actually used or purchased the product, without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to verify that this is the case;
  • submitting fake consumer reviews or endorsements, commissioning another legal or natural person to do so, or misrepresenting consumer reviews or endorsements for the purpose of promoting products.

Aggressive commercial practice under the New CPA also includes requiring a consumer to purchase a product or make any payment during a free excursion organized by a trader for the purpose of promoting or selling products.

The New CPA expands the protection of minors by prohibiting the sale, supply, service, and gifting of electronic tobacco or herbal product heating devices, as well as electronic cigarettes, to persons under 18 years of age, in accordance with applicable tobacco regulations.

An online marketplace is defined as a service that uses software, a website, part of a website, or an application — operated by a trader or on a trader’s behalf — to enable consumers to conclude distance contracts with other traders or consumers.

A provider of an online marketplace is required, prior to the conclusion of a distance contract or before the consumer is bound by a corresponding offer, to inform the consumer in a clear and intelligible manner, appropriate to the means of distance communication, of the following:

  • the main parameters determining the ranking of offers, presented in a dedicated section of the website that is easily accessible from the page displaying the search results shown to the consumer in response to a keyword, phrase, or other input, and the relative importance of those parameters compared to others;
  • whether, based on a declaration made by the third party offering goods, services, or digital content, that third party is a trader or not;
  • the fact that, where the third party offering goods, services, or digital content is not a trader, the provisions of the Act do not apply;
  • the allocation of contractual obligations between the third party offering goods, services, or digital content and the online marketplace provider, it being understood that such information does not affect the liability that the marketplace provider or the third party may bear toward the consumer under this or any other law in connection with the contract.

These obligations will not be considered fulfilled if the information is disclosed solely within the general terms and conditions.

Commercial guarantee is a new legal concept introduced into the domestic legal system by the New CPA. It is defined as any undertaking by which the guarantor commits to, in addition to the trader’s statutory liability for non-conformity, provide the consumer with a refund of the purchase price, replacement, repair, or servicing of goods where the goods do not meet the specifications or other conditions unrelated to conformity that are set out in the guarantor’s statement or in relevant advertising materials made available to the consumer before or at the time the contract was concluded. Since the purpose of the commercial guarantee is to provide additional protection beyond the consumer’s existing statutory rights — and since it neither excludes nor affects those rights in relation to conformity — the New CPA expressly prohibits misuse of the term. Specifically, when concluding a sales contract or advertising in connection with a sale, a trader must refrain from using the term “commercial guarantee” or any expression with equivalent meaning unless the contract actually confers on the consumer rights that go beyond the trader’s statutory liability for non-conformity or other rights under the Act.

*****

Overall, the intention behind the New CPA is for its many innovations to govern consumer relationships that were previously unregulated — or not explicitly regulated — such as the purchase of digital content, digital services, and goods with digital elements (smartwatches, smart home devices, etc.), as well as the use of online marketplaces. There is also a clear intent to strengthen existing consumer rights in the areas of information disclosure, prohibition of unfair commercial practices, and protection under sales contracts and package travel contracts, as well as to modernize the system for out-of-court resolution of consumer disputes.

Violations of the New CPA’s obligations remain subject to misdemeanor penalties of up to RSD 2,000,000 for legal entities. While the New CPA provides that the financial gain obtained — or losses avoided — by a trader as a result of a consumer rights violation shall be taken into account as one of the criteria in determining the penalty (where such data are available), there is a view that this penalty framework does not adequately account for the real differences in the financial capacity of traders and will disproportionately affect so-called micro and small enterprises, which will in turn bear a proportionally greater burden of the technical and legal compliance costs imposed by the New CPA.

From the consumer’s perspective — which is ultimately the most important one — consistent enforcement of the prescribed rules and the practical implementation of traders’ obligations will be of fundamental importance.