Serbia’s services economy is becoming one of the most important structural growth stories in the country. In Q1 2026, business-services turnover rose by 9.7% year-on-year. The largest segments were transport and storage, with 31.3% of the structure; information and communications, with 27.7%; professional, scientific, innovation and technical activities, with 16.3%; and administrative and support services, with 11.4%.
The fastest growth came from the part of the economy that most closely resembles a modern nearshoring platform. Professional, scientific, innovation and technical activities grew by 21.2%, while information and communications increased by 13.5%. These are not peripheral sectors. They include engineering, consulting, software, design, technical advisory, business-process services, research, legal, accounting and other exportable or regionally scalable functions.
This is where Serbia’s investment narrative is shifting. The country has long been marketed through manufacturing, free zones and logistics. Those remain important, but the stronger margin opportunity may increasingly sit in services that support manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, finance, e-commerce and regional corporate administration. Engineering supervision, environmental compliance, CBAM documentation, software integration, grid studies, technical design, logistics control towers and financial outsourcing are all part of the same trend.
The base-case projection is for business-services turnover to grow by 8–11% in nominal terms in 2026, with information and communications likely to expand by 10–13% and professional/technical services by 12–16%. The constraint will be skilled labour availability and wage inflation. The opportunity will be exportable expertise.
For investors, this is not a small-business story. It is a platform story. Serbia can become a regional operating base for professional services tied to energy transition, infrastructure, industrial compliance, software, logistics and financial administration. The strongest companies will not simply sell labour hours. They will package knowledge, regulatory understanding, engineering competence and regional execution.
The services sector is quietly doing what industrial policy often promises: moving Serbia into higher-value activities. The challenge is to connect it more deliberately with manufacturing, energy, mining, construction and EU-compliance demand.
