A new economic impact assessment of EXPO 2027 Belgrade estimates that Serbia could ultimately collect €3.82bn in tax revenues from approximately €2bn of direct public investment, implying 1.91 dinars of fiscal revenue for every dinar invested by the state. The headline ratio is striking, but the underlying projections show that the investment case depends much less on the three-month exhibition itself than on whether the new Surčin district continues generating tourism, commercial activity and private investment for a decade after the gates close.
The assessment, prepared by international consultancy Louis Berger, considers the economic, social and environmental effects of EXPO over a period stretching from the beginning of preparations in 2023 through 2037. That long horizon is central to the model. Serbia is not projected to recover the initial public expenditure before the event or even during EXPO itself. Most of the claimed fiscal return appears only through the subsequent utilisation of the site and the economic activity expected around it.
The study puts direct Serbian state investment associated with EXPO at approximately €2bn. Of that amount, around €1.23bn is allocated to the exhibition complex itself, including halls, the national pavilion and other buildings, while another €775mn is attributed to supporting infrastructure such as roads, rail connections, water and sewerage networks and energy facilities.
The National Football Stadium is excluded from this calculation because it is formally treated as a separate project, despite being developed within the wider Surčin investment zone. That distinction is important when interpreting the €2bn number. The expenditure covered by the impact study should not be read as the total cost of all public projects politically or geographically associated with preparations for 2027.
The consultancy estimates that public expenditure will stimulate another €1.83bn of private investment, bringing combined public and private investment associated with the EXPO ecosystem to roughly €3.8bn. About €500mn of private investment is expected before the exhibition, with the majority arriving afterwards as hotels, commercial facilities and other businesses respond to the development of the new district.
On that basis, the study calculates that the combined investment could generate approximately €9.1bn of additional economic value for Serbia by 2037 through direct, indirect and induced effects.
Direct effects include construction expenditure, operation and maintenance of the exhibition facilities and visitor spending. Indirect effects extend through suppliers of construction materials, security, cleaning, logistics and other services, as well as investment by hotels, restaurants and commercial businesses serving visitors. Induced effects capture the additional consumption generated when workers and businesses receiving income from these activities spend part of it elsewhere in the economy.
These distinctions matter because the €9.1bn figure is an economic-impact estimate, not cash revenue received by the Serbian state. The fiscal component is considerably smaller. Louis Berger estimates cumulative tax receipts of approximately €3.82bn, while the remaining €5.3bn represents additional value attributed to households and businesses across the broader economy.
The timing of those gains reveals the central assumption behind the entire calculation. The period before EXPO is expected to generate around €2.5bn of added value, while the exhibition itself contributes another €1.13bn. By contrast, approximately €5.43bn, close to 60% of the estimated total, is expected to be generated between 2028 and 2037.
The tax profile follows a similar pattern. The study expects approximately €823mn of tax revenue before EXPO and another €671mn during the event, producing around €1.5bn by the end of the exhibition period. The remaining €2.33bn would arrive between 2028 and 2037.
That means the widely cited 1.91-to-one fiscal return is not an immediate investment multiplier. Before the exhibition, each dinar invested is projected to produce only 0.41 dinars of tax revenue. By the time EXPO itself finishes, the cumulative ratio is estimated at around 0.74 dinars. The project moves above fiscal break-even only because the model assumes substantial and sustained economic activity during the following decade.
This makes the legacy of the Surčin development economically more important than the exhibition itself.
The physical assets planned for the site after August 2027 include a new Belgrade Fair, retail facilities, residential and office space and entertainment facilities. Their utilisation rates, operating costs, commercial attractiveness and ability to support further private investment will determine whether the longer-term revenue assumptions embedded in the Louis Berger model can be realised.
The tourism component is particularly ambitious. The study estimates that approximately 1.65mn foreign visitors will come to Serbia during the three-month EXPO period from 15 May to 15 August 2027. Of these, close to 522,000 are expected to be day visitors spending an average of approximately €103.
Another 1.13mn foreign visitors are expected to stay in Serbia for an average of around 3.5 days. The model assumes conventional leisure visitors will spend approximately €137 per day, while business visitors will spend around €468 per day. A much smaller group of roughly 3,200 delegates is assumed to remain for substantially longer periods, with average daily expenditure of approximately €250.
EXPO organisers separately present the event as a 93-day exhibition expected to attract around 4.1mn visits, with participation now confirmed by 139 international participants. The difference between total visits and the study’s foreign-visitor estimate is significant because total admissions can include domestic visitors and repeat visits, while the economic impact of international visitors is generally larger because their spending represents an inflow into the Serbian economy rather than largely a redistribution of domestic consumption.
Tourism is consequently responsible for a substantial portion of the projected return. Louis Berger attributes approximately €3.22bn of economic value to tourism through 2037, compared with around €4.04bn generated by capital investment.
The fiscal contribution from tourism is projected to be even more important relative to construction. Tax revenues associated with tourism are estimated at approximately €1.79bn, compared with around €1.27bn attributed to capital investment.
This places an unusually large share of the EXPO investment thesis on Serbia’s ability to convert a temporary international event into a permanent increase in visitor numbers.
The model assumes that another 2.3mn foreign visitors will visit the exhibition complex and associated facilities between 2028 and 2037. That assumption effectively transforms EXPO from an event-financing calculation into a long-term tourism and urban-development strategy.
The economic logic is plausible but far from automatic. International exhibitions can accelerate infrastructure construction, increase destination visibility and create new commercial districts, but the post-event performance of exhibition sites differs considerably depending on connectivity, management quality and the ability to attract recurring events.
Surčin therefore becomes the central asset in the calculation. Its proximity to Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, motorway infrastructure and the future rail connection gives the district structural advantages as a potential convention, exhibition and commercial location. At the same time, the scale of new space coming onto the market means occupancy and utilisation will matter significantly once the extraordinary demand associated with EXPO disappears.
Hotel investment provides one of the clearest examples of private capital responding ahead of the event. Belgrade’s hospitality market is already undergoing a new investment cycle, including major hotel renovations and projects targeting higher-value international visitors. That additional capacity should improve Serbia’s ability to capture tourism expenditure during EXPO, but it also creates a post-2027 challenge: the city will need sustained growth in business and leisure tourism to maintain occupancy and room rates after the exceptional demand generated by the exhibition falls away.
The fiscal backdrop makes execution quality particularly important. Serbia’s 2026 state budget envisages revenues of approximately RSD2.415tn, expenditure of around RSD2.752tn and a deficit equivalent to 3% of GDP. Public investment remains concentrated heavily in transport infrastructure, defence and EXPO-related projects.
The country’s debt position remains manageable, but the fiscal room is not unlimited. Serbia’s Fiscal Council expects public debt to remain broadly on a declining path relative to GDP, from approximately 44.7% of GDP at the end of 2025 towards roughly 43.9% by 2029, provided the planned fiscal framework is maintained.
That debt ratio is substantially below the levels recorded in many EU economies and gives Serbia room for large capital programmes. The more relevant issue is therefore not whether the sovereign can finance EXPO but whether the return on each incremental public investment justifies its opportunity cost.
The Fiscal Council has repeatedly identified weaknesses in Serbia’s management of major public investment projects. Its latest assessment of the fiscal strategy notes that the government still provides insufficient information on the sectoral composition and evolution of capital expenditure and warns that costs on some large projects have exceeded contracted amounts by as much as 80%.
This is particularly relevant to the EXPO debate. A projected 1.91 dinar fiscal return is highly sensitive to the denominator. The ratio improves when the public investment cost remains around €2bn and deteriorates when additional infrastructure, operating costs or cost overruns are added to the investment base.
The same sensitivity applies to the revenue side. Forecast tax receipts depend on visitor volumes, average spending, private investment, business occupancy and the economic activity generated by the site through 2037. Lower tourism expenditure or weaker utilisation after 2027 could materially reduce the projected return even if construction is delivered broadly on budget.
There is also a financing-cost issue that headline multiplier calculations do not capture particularly well. Public investment financed through borrowing carries interest expense. Serbia’s borrowing costs remain considerably higher than those of core euro-area sovereigns, and the Fiscal Council has explicitly warned that elevated interest rates reduce fiscal manoeuvring room.
A project producing €3.82bn of nominal cumulative tax revenues from €2bn of initial expenditure over more than a decade is therefore not equivalent to an investment generating an immediate 91% financial return. Future tax receipts need to be considered in present-value terms, while financing costs, maintenance expenditure and the eventual capital expenditure required to keep the facilities competitive also matter.
The distinction becomes more important because €2.33bn of the projected €3.82bn tax receipts arrives only after 2027. Discounting those future revenues at Serbia’s effective sovereign financing cost would reduce their current economic value.
Private investment provides another test of the model. The assumption of €1.83bn in complementary private capital is critical because private developers effectively magnify the original public infrastructure investment without placing the entire financing requirement on the sovereign balance sheet.
The strongest version of the EXPO strategy would therefore see the public sector finance infrastructure that unlocks commercially viable private projects in hotels, offices, retail, residential development, logistics and tourism. The weaker version would leave the state responsible for maintaining expensive infrastructure that private capital uses less extensively than anticipated.
This is where the quality of post-EXPO urban planning becomes financially consequential. Transport links, land use, commercial leasing strategy and integration with the wider Belgrade economy will influence whether Surčin evolves into an autonomous business district or remains heavily dependent on publicly sponsored events.
The scale of Serbia’s overall capital programme adds another layer. EXPO is being delivered alongside highways, railways, energy infrastructure and other projects grouped around the broader investment cycle extending towards 2027. These programmes can raise Serbia’s productive capacity, but simultaneous construction also creates pressure on labour, materials and contractor capacity.
Construction-cost inflation could erode projected returns even without formal changes to project scope. The economic benefit of completing infrastructure quickly must therefore be balanced against the premium that can arise when the state compresses several large projects into the same delivery window.
There is nevertheless a potentially powerful macroeconomic effect from the investment cycle. Serbia’s economy is approaching €100bn in nominal annual GDP, making a combined €3.8bn public-private EXPO investment envelope economically significant. Spread over several years, the programme can support construction, engineering, building materials, transportation, hospitality and professional services while also generating additional VAT, payroll taxes and corporate income tax.
The challenge is separating temporary demand stimulus from permanent productivity gains.
Construction spending mechanically raises economic activity while projects are being built. A stronger investment case requires that the resulting infrastructure continues producing value once construction workers and contractors leave. Rail connectivity, utilities and transport infrastructure can meet that test relatively easily when they serve broader parts of the economy. Exhibition halls, entertainment facilities and specialised commercial assets require consistently strong utilisation.
The Louis Berger study effectively assumes that this second phase succeeds.
Its €5.43bn post-EXPO added-value estimate is therefore arguably the most consequential number in the assessment, more important than the 1.91 dinar headline multiplier. Almost three-fifths of the projected economic benefit is tied to what happens after the event.
Serbia has several factors working in its favour. Belgrade’s role as the largest business and aviation centre in the Western Balkans gives it a deeper base of demand than many cities hosting temporary mega-events. Airport passenger traffic has expanded considerably over the past decade, the city’s international hotel offering is increasing, and improved motorway and rail connectivity has widened its regional catchment area.
EXPO can accelerate those trends rather than create them from zero.
The confirmed participation of 139 international participants also gives the event considerably greater international reach than a purely regional exhibition. Serbia won the right to host the specialised exhibition in 2023 against competing bids from the United States, Spain, Thailand and Argentina, making Belgrade the first Western Balkan city to host an event of this type.
That provides marketing value that is difficult to capture in a conventional fiscal multiplier. Business relationships, increased international visibility and destination recognition can produce benefits beyond ticket sales and direct visitor spending.
Those softer benefits, however, should remain separate from hard fiscal calculations. The credibility of the €3.82bn tax-revenue forecast ultimately depends on measurable activity, not diplomatic visibility.
Louis Berger itself was selected to conduct the impact study in September 2025, with the contract valued at approximately RSD68.9mn including tax. The study is therefore best viewed as a forward economic model whose assumptions can be tested progressively as actual construction costs, private investment commitments, visitor bookings and operating contracts become available.
The numbers already establish a useful benchmark.
Public investment is estimated at €2bn. Private investment is projected at €1.83bn. Combined investment therefore approaches €3.8bn. The model expects €9.1bn of additional economic value, including approximately €5.43bn after the exhibition, and cumulative tax revenues of €3.82bn through 2037.
Those figures describe a project whose economics are fundamentally long term.
Before EXPO begins, the state is projected to recover only 41 cents in tax revenue for every euro-equivalent invested. Even after the exhibition closes, the cumulative ratio reaches only around 0.74. The eventual 1.91 multiple emerges from the subsequent decade of tourism, exhibitions, property activity and commercial use.
The real financial test of EXPO 2027 will therefore begin on 16 August 2027, the day after the event closes. By then, the buildings will largely have been paid for and the temporary surge in visitors will be ending. Serbia will be left with a newly developed district, major infrastructure and a large stock of commercial and exhibition assets whose utilisation must justify the capital already committed.
A successfully integrated Surčin business and exhibition district could make the €3.82bn fiscal-return projection achievable while creating an enduring tourism and services cluster around Belgrade’s airport corridor. Weak post-event utilisation would expose how much of the headline return depended on economic activity that had yet to materialise.
The 1.91 dinar figure is therefore less a measure of what EXPO will earn during 2027 than a valuation of what Serbia expects Surčin to become by 2037.
