Anti‑Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Table of contents
At the State level, Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the Anti-Corruption Strategy 2024-2028, approved by the Council of Ministers on 18 June 2024, which establishes strategic objectives to mitigate public integrity risks in key areas. The Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and Coordination of the Fight Against Corruption (APIK) serves as the central coordinating body responsible for developing the Strategy and action plan, as well as implementing, monitoring, reporting on, and evaluating the action plan. The Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest in Institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina establishes a framework on incompatibilities with other public and private positions, as well as regulating conflict of interest situations.
Interest declarations are submitted to the Commission for Deciding on Conflict of Interest in Institutions at the Level of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bosnia and Herzegovina maintains a comprehensive regulatory framework for political finance under the Law on Financing of Political Parties and the Election Law. The Central Election Commission is an independent body tasked with overseeing the financing of political parties and election campaigns. The Law on Freedom of Access to Information at the level of the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina regulates access to information and open data. The Appeals Council and the Human Rights Ombudsman serve as supervisory bodies for public information issues. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, companies are required to maintain beneficial ownership information.
Note: 2025 and 2020 data or latest year available. Data for judicial integrity, prosecutorial integrity and disciplinary system are not available.
Source: OECD Public Integrity Indicators Database (data extracted on 7 March 2026).
Data on where Bosnia and Herzegovina’s integrity system is strongest and could be most improved can be found at the link below:
Note: 2025 data or latest year available.
Source: OECD Public Integrity Indicators Database (data extracted on 7 March 2026).
Bosnia and Herzegovina fulfils 47% of criteria on strength of the strategic framework, and 50% on practice, compared to the OECD average of 38% and 32%, respectively.
The Anti-Corruption Strategy 2024-2028, which was adopted by the Council of Ministers on 18 June 2024, establishes strategic objectives to mitigate public integrity risks in key areas. These include human resources management, public financial management, public corporations, state-owned enterprises, and public-private partnerships, as well as to reduce fraud and other forms of corruption across the public sector. The Strategy includes a situation analysis identifying existing public integrity risks, along with an action plan; however, it lacks outcome-level indicators and target values for the public integrity objectives.
The Strategy underwent public consultation through the public consultation portal. Although inter-institutional consultation is not mandatory by law, the Strategy was consulted prior to adoption by the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the Strategy did not undergo an extended consultation process, such as open meetings with stakeholders (town hall meetings) and coordinated social media outreach.
In addition to developing the Strategy and action plan, the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and Coordination of the Fight Against Corruption (APIK) serves as the central coordinating body responsible for implementing, monitoring, reporting on, and evaluating the action plan. While the action plan identifies lead organisations for each activity, it lacks outcome-level indicators, baseline targets. The Strategy contains a section specifying the monitoring, reporting, and evaluation arrangements. The Strategy describes plans for a midterm and end of term evaluation. Bosnia and Hercegovina reported a 29% implementation rate in 2025 (4 out of 14 activities were fully implemented).
Note: 2025 data or latest year available.
Source: OECD Public Integrity Indicators Database (data extracted on 7 March 2026).
Bosnia and Herzegovina fulfils 20% of criteria on lobbying regulations, and 0% on practice, compared to the OECD average of 43% and 38%, respectively.
Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a legal framework that defines lobbying activities or lobbyist. Additionally, it lacks proportional sanctions for violations of lobbying rules and cooling-off periods for lobbyists. However, the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest in Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina establishes cooling-off periods for public officials.
At the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism requires companies to maintain beneficial ownership information, it does not establish registration requirements.
Note: 2025 data or latest year available.
Source: OECD Public Integrity Indicators Database (data extracted on 7 March 2026).
Bosnia and Herzegovina fulfils 100% of criteria on conflict-of-interest regulations, and 33% on practice, compared to the OECD average of 80% and 45%, respectively.
The Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest in Institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina establishes incompatibility with other public and private positions and an obligation to manage conflicts of interest. It defines conflicts of interest, circumstances and relationships that may lead to them, and restrictions on accepting gifts. The law further requires members of government, members of Parliament, high ranking judges, top tier civil servants and public officials in high-risk positions to declare their assets and interests. It establishes an obligation to submit interest declarations to the Commission for Deciding on Conflict of Interest in Institutions. Asset declarations must be submitted upon taking public office, and then annually and upon leaving office, as well as at the Commission’s request.
Over the past six years, the annual submission of interest declarations by the 19 members of Government from Brčko District has not been comprehensive. In 2023 and 2024 alone, only 16 complied with the requirement. In the preceding years, no more than four declarations were filed per year.
Likewise, not all members of Parliament from Brčko District required to submit an interest declaration did so during the 2018-2024 period. Data for members of the highest courts of justice and top-tier civil servants was not available. Despite the lack of full disclosure of asset declarations across all categories of public officials, all declarations received per year are verified by the Commission on Conflicts of Interest. The Commission also has an advisory role which involves issuing recommendations of measures to resolve a conflict of interest. However, recommendations on how to solve a conflict of interest were issued in only one out of eight cases detected in 2024.
Note: 2025 data or latest year available.
Source: OECD Public Integrity Indicators Database (data extracted on 7 March 2026).
Bosnia and Herzegovina fulfils 70% of criteria on political finance regulations, and 71% on practice, compared to the OECD average of 76% and 58% respectively.
Bosnia and Herzegovina maintains a comprehensive regulatory framework for political finance under the Law on Financing of Political Parties and the Election Law. The former bans anonymous donations, contributions from foreign states and from publicly owned enterprises. It also sets thresholds for personal contributions to candidates’ campaigns, requires political parties and candidates to disclose financial reports annually and during electoral campaigns, and defines sanctions proportional to the severity of the offence.
While the Electoral Law regulates electoral campaigns, it does not establish limits on campaign expenditures incurred by third parties on behalf of political parties or independent candidates. The Central Election Commission, an independent body mandated to oversee the financing of political parties and election campaigns, employs certified auditors and accountants. It also ensures transparency by publishing information on its activities, including cases initiated, investigations conducted, and sanctions imposed, through its annual reports.
All financial reports are available on the Central Election Commission website. In practice, the timely submission rate of parties represented in parliament over the past five years has been 87%.
Note: 2025 data or latest year available.
Source: OECD Public Integrity Indicators Database (data extracted on 7 March 2026).
Bosnia and Herzegovina fulfils 67% of criteria on public information regulations, and 54% on practice, compared to the OECD average of 72% and 62%, respectively.
The Law on Freedom of Access to Information at the level of the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina establishes that Government data are made publicly available and everyone, including non-citizens, has the right to access public information in all available formats. However, the law does not specify that private entities performing public functions are considered holders of public information. Citizens may appeal refusals or inactivity when requesting public information by filing an action in court. The Law on Freedom of Access to Information at the level of the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina stipulates that restrictions on access to public information are limited to those explicitly defined by law and consistent with the Tromsø Convention. The Appeals Council and the Human Rights Ombudsman serve as supervisory bodies for public information issues.
Furthermore, upon receiving a request for access to information, the competent institution is required to issue a decision without delay and no later than 15 days from the date of submission of a valid request, and information holders are required to provide the requested information in the format specified by the applicant. However, access to information is not always free of charge, as institutions may impose fees to cover reproduction costs. Moreover, since the Appeals Council operates within the Council of Ministers, this structure allows the Executive to potentially overturn its decisions on access to information.
High-value datasets, such as interest declarations of public employees, ministers’ agendas, aggregated data on lobbying and requests for information, salaries of individual civil servants, and asset declarations of public officials are not published or centralised on government websites.
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This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Member countries of the OECD.
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The full book is available in English: OECD (2026), Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2026: Harnessing the Integrity Advantage, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/16708b78-en.
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