Serbia has strengthened its position in international assessments of business conditions, particularly in starting companies and regulatory efficiency, but the increasingly important question for investors is moving from market entry towards the conditions required to operate and expand successfully.
The World Bank’s Business Ready 2025 assessment placed Serbia among nine economies in the top quintile in two of its three broad pillars.
Serbia ranked 18th among 101 economies for regulatory framework and 19th for operational efficiency, while ranking fourth globally for starting a business.
It was also among the top 20 economies in another four areas across the business lifecycle.
An OECD assessment of Western Balkan competitiveness showed Serbia improving in eight of 15 policy areas compared with 2021 and performing above the regional average in 13.
The strongest improvements were recorded in agriculture, science, technology and innovation, and employment policy.
For Serbia’s investment model, those results indicate that administrative barriers to entering the market have become less central than they were a decade ago.
The investor conversation is increasingly shifting to what happens after incorporation.
Manufacturers now focus heavily on labour availability, energy security, logistics, industrial land, connections to electricity and gas networks, environmental permitting and the ability to recruit skilled workers.
Larger investors also require predictable legal enforcement, efficient dispute resolution and sufficiently deep financial markets to support expansion.
That matters because Serbia’s FDI model is maturing.
The country attracted €24.4 billion of foreign direct investment between 2020 and 2025, with almost 60% going into tradable sectors and around €6.3 billion into manufacturing.
The next challenge is retaining those investors as they decide where to place second and third rounds of capital.
An investor choosing whether to build a first factory may be heavily influenced by incentives and market-entry procedures.
A company deciding whether to double production five years later is more likely to focus on productivity, electricity availability, supplier quality, engineering skills, transport links and operating costs.
Serbia’s relatively high ranking for starting businesses therefore addresses only the beginning of the investment lifecycle.
Improving competitiveness after market entry becomes increasingly important as the economy moves from attracting greenfield investment towards retaining and upgrading an established industrial base.
The strongest long-term investment markets are not necessarily those where entering is easiest, but those where profitable companies find it attractive to reinvest.
Serbia’s progress in administrative and regulatory conditions gives it a stronger starting point. Whether that translates into another decade of industrial investment will increasingly depend on the infrastructure, skills, energy and institutional environment companies encounter after they have already arrived.
