Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs 2026

37. Serbia

Key facts on SME financing

SMEs dominate the Serbian business economy, accounting for 99% of all enterprises. In 2024, SMEs employed more than 64% of the labour force and accounted for 56.9% of total gross value added and for 63.7% of turn over. Sector-specific data indicates that most SMEs belonged to the trade sector (20.1%), followed by the professional, scientific and innovative activities (16.2%), manufacturing sector (13.7%), and transportation and storage (8.0%).

According to the preliminary results from the 2024 SME lending conditions survey conducted by the National Bank of Serbia in 2025, the stock of SMEs loans in 2024 increased by 7.3% year-on-year to EUR 9.3 billion.

New bank lending to SMEs in 2024 amounted EUR 6.4 billion (increase of 17.7% compared to the previous year). The share of new SMEs loans among total corporate loans decreased by 3.7 percentage points to 31.9% in 2024. The share of outstanding SME loans in total corporate loans decreased to 26.1% (from 27.1% in 2023). Long-term loans decreased as well and amounted to 86.4% of total SMEs loans.

Interest rates for SME loans in/or indexed to foreign currencies stayed at 6.7% in 2024, maintaining the same level as in 2023. However, the interest rate spread between large companies and SMEs increased to 1.7 percentage points (from 0.5 percentage points in 2024). On Serbian dinar-denominated loans interest rates were 1.0 percentage points lower compared to the previous year (8.0% vs. 9.0%) and the spread between large companies and SME was 1.4 percentage points.

The rejection rate (the percentage of SME loan applications that are rejected considering the amounts of loans) was 9.7% in 2024 (19.2% in 2023), while the utilization rate (the percentage of used SME loans among all SME loans that were approved) was 95.9% in 2024 (99.5% in 2023). At the same time, the share of loans requiring collateral (excluding bills of exchange) was 43.2% in 2024 (41.2% in 2023).

The share of NPLs in total SMEs loans decreased to 3.0% (compared to 3.1% in 2023), while NPLs for the whole corporate sector decreased to 1.7% in 2024 from 2.0% in 2023.

Table 37.1. Scoreboard for Serbia

Indicator	Unit	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Debt
Outstanding business loans, SMEs	EUR million	4.35	4.06	4.78	5.34	5.55	5.80	6.49	7.14	8.19	9.04	8.48	8.65	9.28
Outstanding business loans, total	EUR million	20 460	19 154	18 724	18 677	18 362	19 150	20 847	22 394	24 622	27 273	30 251	31 920	35 600
Share of SME outstanding loans	% of total outstanding business loans	21.27	21.20	25.52	28.59	30.24	30.3	31.1	31.9	33.3	33.2	28.0	27.1	26.1
New business lending, total	EUR million	9 043	7 093	6 765	8 461	10 130	10 966	12 339	13 629	11 424	13 944	15 012	15 143	19 897
New business lending, SMEs	EUR million	2 771	2 302	2 717	3 332	4 038	4 688	5 478	6 087	4 927	5 170	5 210	5 386	6 338
Share of new SME lending	% of total new lending	30.64	32.45	40.16	39.38	39.86	42.7	44.4	44.7	43.1	37.1	34.7	35.6	31.9
Outstanding short-term loans, SMEs	EUR million	1 257	1 386	1 405	1 348	1 380	1 451	1 480	1 347	1 013	1 199	1 184	1 150	1 261
Outstanding long-term loans, SMEs	EUR million	3 096	2 675	3 374	3 993	4 172	4 350	5 008	5 793	7 181	7 844	7 292	7 500	8 019
Share of short-term SME lending	% of total SME lending	28.87	34.13	29.40	25.24	24.86	25.0	22.8	18.9	12.4	13.3	14.0	13.3	13.6
Government guaranteed loans, SMEs	EUR million	569	342	750	117	13	14	15	14	357	349	206	99	78
Non-performing loans, total	% of all business loans	19.2	24.5	24.6	21.71	17.22	10.41	5.05	3.17	2.82	2.64	1.94	1.97	1.65
Non-performing loans, SMEs	% of all SME loans	26.1	28.0	27.1	26.69	20.16	9.91	6.93	4.66	4.62	3.57	3.88	3.11	2.98
Interest rate, SMEs	%	7.6	7.5	7.0	5.62	4.35	3.28	3.17	3.14	3.06	3.04	3.93	6.68	6.68
Interest rate, large firms	%	6.8	7.2	5.9	3.86	3.07	2.66	2.18	2.42	2.18	2.29	3.46	6.16	5.04
Interest rate spread	Percentage points	0.8	0.3	1.0	1.76	1.28	0.62	0.99	0.72	0.88	0.75	0.46	0.52	1.71
Collateral, SMEs	% of SMEs needing collateral to obtain bank lending	53	55	53	53.79	42.70	53.85	50.69	50.64	50.53	43.33	43.42	41.21	43.19
Percentage of SME loan applications	SME loan applications/ total number of SMEs				14.94	16.46	16.89	15.46
Rejection rate	1-(SME loans authorised/ requested)	32	32	25	24.52	28.18	28.32	17.23	6.52	19.27	20.49	16.77	19.24	9.71
Utilisation rate	SME loans used/ authorised	86	88	86	87.86	88.05	90.58	94.97	98.25	96.08	97.00	96.47	99.50	95.86