Tax on Freelance IncomeCompanion tool for the video — Tax on freelance income
How much do you actually keep?
Enter your planned monthly income and see which model — Freelancer, Flat-Rate, or Personal Salary — leaves you with the most net money.
01 — Calculator
Enter your planned monthly income
This is an illustrative calculation with simplified formulas (fixed rates, without a specific activity code or municipality) — not tax advice. For an exact amount and a final decision, consult an accountant.
Note: there is also a fifth option — an association ("udruženje") — for projects not aimed at personal profit (e.g. donations, rallying people around an idea). Since there is no classic "net salary" there, it is not included in the calculation below.
Affects the Freelancer calculation (the health contribution drops to 0% if you are already insured). Flat-Rate and Personal Salary assume standard registration.
02 — How it works in practice
Korak po korak
03 — Glossary
Terms you will keep seeing
If anything above is not clear, it is probably explained here.
- Invoice
- The document you issue to a client when billing them for a service — it states what you did and how much it costs. A business "bill."
- Gross
- The full amount, before anything (tax, contributions) is deducted from it.
- Net
- What actually stays in your pocket, after tax and contributions. This is the number you care about most.
- Tax
- The part of your income that by law goes to the state.
- Contributions
- Money set aside for pension insurance (PIO) and health insurance — this later secures your pension, sick leave, and healthcare.
- Base (osnovica)
- The exact amount on which tax or a contribution is calculated — often not your whole income, since some recognized costs are deducted first.
- Standardized expenses (normirani troškovi)
- Costs the law "assumes" upfront that you have in your business, automatically deducted before tax is calculated — regardless of how much you actually spent.
- Goes to tax (effective rate)
- What percentage of your earnings ultimately goes to the state — tax and contributions combined. It is the gap between gross and net.
- VAT (PDV)
- Value-added tax. Becomes mandatory once your annual turnover exceeds 8,000,000 RSD.
- Flat-rate taxpayer (paušalac)
- A status where you pay a fixed amount of tax and contributions, the same every month, regardless of how much you earn.
- Working off the books ("na crno")
- Getting paid in cash for a service with no registration and no tax paid. Illegal, both for you and for whoever pays you.
- APR
- The Serbian Business Registers Agency — where you officially register when opening flat-rate status, a sole proprietorship, or a company.
- Association (udruženje)
- A fifth legal form, for projects not aimed at personal profit — donations, projects, rallying people around an idea. It is not compared with the other four models since there is no classic "net salary" there.
Rates and formulas are simplified for illustration. The flat-rate amount is taken for activity code 5911 (32,584 RSD, 2026); Freelancer Option 1 and Option 2 follow the Personal Income Tax Law; Personal Salary (PR) is calculated on a gross of 51,297 RSD (the minimum monthly contribution base for entrepreneurs in 2026) plus bookkeeping of 15,000 RSD per month, so the result changes if your own figures differ; the LLC (DOO) follows the Corporate Income Tax Law, assuming the founder pays themselves a personal salary of 51,297 RSD gross (same as PR) and bookkeeping of 20,000 RSD per month. This is not tax advice.