Serbia’s construction sector continued expanding during the first quarter of 2026, with new data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia indicating ongoing growth in construction activity despite mounting financing pressures across Europe and slowing parts of the regional real-estate market.
According to official statistics, the value of completed construction works in Serbia during the first quarter of 2026 increased by 7.6% in current prices compared with the same period last year, while growth measured in constant prices reached 4.7%, indicating that the sector continues expanding in real terms beyond inflationary effects.
The structure of activity highlights the increasingly dominant role of infrastructure and engineering projects within Serbia’s construction cycle. Civil engineering works accounted for approximately 52.7% of total construction activity, while building construction represented 47.3%, reflecting the state’s continued emphasis on transport, energy and utility infrastructure investment.
Residential construction nevertheless remains a major component of sector growth, particularly in Belgrade, Novi Sad and increasingly across logistics corridors connected to industrial expansion and foreign direct investment projects. Serbia’s real-estate market continues benefiting from industrial relocation trends, infrastructure modernization and sustained demand linked to tourism, logistics and energy-transition investments.
The latest figures suggest Serbia’s construction market is currently outperforming several neighboring Southeast European economies in terms of execution continuity and infrastructure pipeline scale. Major state-backed projects including highways, rail modernization, industrial parks, energy infrastructure and EXPO-related developments continue supporting contractor activity and public-sector construction spending.
The expansion also reflects the increasingly strategic role construction plays within Serbia’s broader economic model. Large infrastructure programs financed through Chinese, European and multilateral funding sources remain central to GDP growth, employment and industrial activity.
Transport infrastructure continues dominating capital expenditure flows. Ongoing corridor development, railway modernization projects and urban infrastructure upgrades are generating sustained demand for engineering contractors, imported materials, heavy equipment and technical supervision services.
At the same time, Serbia’s energy transition is emerging as another major construction driver. Renewable energy projects, transmission upgrades, battery storage investments and gas infrastructure developments are increasingly feeding into engineering and industrial construction demand, particularly as Serbia attempts to strengthen energy security and align more closely with European decarbonization requirements.
Yet despite continued growth, the sector faces mounting structural pressures. Financing costs remain elevated, labor shortages are intensifying and imported construction materials continue exposing developers to currency and supply-chain volatility. Contractors also increasingly face pressure linked to ESG standards, environmental permitting and stricter technical compliance requirements from international lenders and institutional investors.
Another important trend is the growing segmentation of Serbia’s property market. Premium residential and mixed-use developments in Belgrade continue attracting foreign and diaspora capital, while secondary markets are becoming more sensitive to domestic financing conditions and household purchasing power.
Industrial and logistics construction, however, remains particularly resilient. Serbia’s position within European nearshoring and supply-chain diversification strategies continues generating demand for manufacturing facilities, warehousing, logistics hubs and energy-intensive industrial infrastructure.
The data also reinforce the increasingly interconnected nature of Serbia’s construction and energy sectors. Grid infrastructure, gas interconnectors, renewable energy plants and industrial utility systems are becoming some of the most capital-intensive components of the country’s broader investment cycle.
From a banking perspective, construction remains among the most systemically important sectors within Serbia’s economy. Real-estate lending, infrastructure financing and EPC-driven industrial investments remain deeply tied to bank balance sheets, sovereign borrowing dynamics and foreign investment inflows.
The first-quarter figures therefore suggest that Serbia’s construction sector remains structurally expansionary, although increasingly dependent on large strategic infrastructure programs and foreign-financed investment pipelines rather than purely cyclical residential growth.
