SME Policy Index for Western Balkans and Türkiye 2026 – Economy Profile for Montenegro

Montenegro: SME definition and data coverage

SME definition

Montenegro defines enterprise size categories in Article 7 of the Law on Accounting, applying a “two out of three criteria” rule across headcount, annual revenue and total assets – the same structural approach as the EU definition. Headcount thresholds are identical to the EU standard. Financial thresholds diverge, most notably at the micro level: Montenegro caps microenterprise revenue at EUR 900 000 and assets at EUR 450 000, compared with EUR 2 million for both under the EU Recommendation. Small and medium revenue ceilings match the EU thresholds (EUR 10 million and EUR 50 million, respectively), but asset ceilings are lower across both categories. The practical consequence is that some firms classified as micro or small under the EU definition (European Commission, 2003[1]) would fall into a higher category under Montenegrin law (Government of Montenegro, 2025[2]) (Table 1).

Table 1. Definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Montenegro

Category	EU definition	Montenegro
Micro	< 10 employees ≤ EUR 2M turnover or balance sheet	< 10 employees; ≤ EUR 900 000 annual revenue; ≤ EUR 450 000 total assets (2 of 3 criteria)
Small	< 50 employees ≤ EUR 10M turnover or balance sheet	< 50 employees; ≤ EUR 10 million annual revenue; ≤ EUR 5 million total assets (2 of 3 criteria)
Medium-sized	< 250 employees ≤ EUR 50M turnover or ≤ EUR 43M balance sheet	< 250 employees; ≤ EUR 50 million annual revenue; ≤ EUR 25 million total assets (2 of 3 criteria)

Sources: European Commission (2003[1]); Assembly of Montenegro (2022[3]).

SME data coverage

The sector overview above is grounded in Structural Business Statistics (SBS) produced by the Statistical Office of Montenegro (MONSTAT), with Eurostat databases providing supplementary macroeconomic and trade context. These sources collectively underpin the analysis of enterprise structure, sectoral composition, productivity dynamics and export performance. Table 2 sets out the principal data dimensions, their availability and timeliness.

MONSTAT publishes SBS data using a three-tier size classification (1-49, 50-249, and 250+ employees) rather than the EU standard four-class breakdown into micro, small, medium, and large enterprises. This prevents separate examination of the micro and small sub-segments. More critically, the SBS framework does not include employment headcount: MONSTAT reports financial variables (turnover, gross value added, labour costs, investment) but not the number of persons employed, precluding direct computation of labour productivity and necessitating a value-added-to-labour-cost ratio as a proxy throughout this chapter.

Cross-tabulations combining size class and NACE Rev. 2 economic activity are not published, limiting the scope for joint size-sector analysis. The most recent SBS reference year is 2024. Foreign trade disaggregated by enterprise characteristics is available exclusively from Eurostat and covers 2021 and 2022. Business demography data – quarterly enterprise registrations by NACE sector – are available from 2021, though without size-class disaggregation or published enterprise death statistics. Notably, MONSTAT does not operate a searchable online statistical database, constraining users’ ability to extract tailored cross-tabulations or construct custom queries from published data.

Table 2. Core statistical sources for the SME sector overview, Montenegro

Data source	Size-class breakdown	Sectoral breakdown	Size × sector cross-tab	Time series	Key indicators
Structural Business Statistics (SBS)	Partial (1-49, 50-249, 250+); micro and small combined into a single class	Yes (NACE Rev. 2)	No	2021-2024	Number of enterprises; turnover; gross value added; labour costs; investment – employment headcount not published (labour productivity cannot be derived directly).
Foreign trade by enterprise characteristics	Yes (micro, small, medium, large)	Yes (NACE Rev. 2)	Yes	2021-2022	Number of exporting firms; export value (and, derivatively, average export value per firm). Available through Eurostat for recent years, while additional SME export indicators are provided through the OECD questionnaire.
Business demography	No	Yes (NACE sections)	No	2021-2025 (registrations); 2023-2024 (active enterprise counts)	Enterprise registrations (births) by NACE sector (quarterly); active enterprise counts by sector, size class and gender – enterprise deaths and survival rates not published.

Sources: Eurostat (2026[4]); MONSTAT (2025[5]; 2026[6]).

Beyond the publicly available statistical sources summarised above, the assessment of individual policy dimensions in this publication draws on a standardised set of statistical indicators collected through OECD questionnaires administered to economy-specific counterpart institutions. For Montenegro, the principal respondents were MONSTAT, the Tax Administration, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Central Bank of Montenegro and the Directorate for Public Procurement, with supplementary contributions from the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Energy and Mining. The questionnaires span nine thematic areas aligned with the policy dimensions of the SME Policy Index, plus a general statistics module on structural business demographics.

Of the approximately 160 indicators requested at the economy level, Montenegro provided data for roughly one in eight, with meaningful multi-year coverage, while a further set was reported as single-year snapshots or in non-standardised text formats. Coverage is strongest in women’s entrepreneurship indicators and access-to-finance metrics, where the Tax Administration and the Central Bank supplied near-complete time series, alongside reasonable reporting on digital transformation from MONSTAT’s information and communication technology (ICT) surveys. The weakest areas are bankruptcy proceedings, public procurement and the green economy, where the questionnaires were returned with little or no quantitative data. A notable cross-cutting gap is the absence of a general statistics module, which means that enterprise demography ratios, size-disaggregated employment, and export data were not supplied through the questionnaire pathway, despite being partly available from public sources. Table 3 provides a dimension-by-dimension summary.

Table 3. Statistical data coverage by thematic area, Montenegro

Thematic area	Coverage*	Indicators reported	Principal gaps
Structural business statistics (SBS)	Limited**	General statistics questionnaire returned without data; core SBS indicators (enterprises, turnover, GVA, labour costs by size class; sectoral breakdown by NACE Rev. 2) available from MONSTAT public publications (2021-2024)	Enterprise demography ratios (birth and death rates, survival rates, high-growth firms, gazelles); employment by size class; exports by enterprise size; women-owned enterprises by size class – none reported through the questionnaire
Entrepreneurial learning and women’s entrepreneurship (Dimension 1)	Moderate	Share of majority female-owned businesses (2019-2024); female self-employment rate (2019-2024); growth rate of women-owned enterprises (2019-2024); share of government financing to female-owned businesses (2019-2024); share of women graduating in STEM tertiary fields (2022-2024)	VET work-based learning exposure; share of women CEOs; IP registrations by women; women’s participation in state-funded SME trainings; government contracts awarded to female-owned enterprises; STEM VET graduates; share of female university graduates
Bankruptcy and second chance (Dimension 2)	Limited	Average time and cost of liquidation and reorganisation proceedings (single-year 2024 estimates only)	Number and flow of bankruptcy proceedings; non-performing loan ratios (total and SME); debt ratios, liquidity and productivity of failing vs. total SMEs; B2B payment delays; discharge and credit score clearing timelines
Public procurement (Dimension 5b)	Limited	Share and value of contracts awarded to foreign operators (2019-2020 only)	SME share in total value of public contracts; SME participation rate in tenders and e-procurement; payment delays from public authorities; green and social criteria in procurement; SME complaint filing and resolution rates
Access to finance (Dimension 6)	Moderate	Outstanding business loans and SME share (2019-2024); interest rates for SMEs and large enterprises (2019-2024); credit guarantee scheme volumes (2022-2024); government direct loans to SMEs (2022-2024); factoring volumes (2021-2024); population with bank accounts (2019-2024)	Collateral requirements (total and SME); loan application and rejection rates; private equity and venture capital volumes; leasing volumes; crowdfunding activity; fintech indicators; savings and investment product penetration; green financial product awareness
Enterprise skills and innovation (Dimensions 8a and 8b)	Partial	Long-term unemployment rate (2019-2024); over-qualification rate (2019-2020); GERD as % of GDP (2019-2020); BERD and BERD performed by SMEs (2019, single-year); direct government funding of GERD (2020-2021) and BERD (2019, single-year)	Job vacancy rate; SME training incidence; social enterprise and co-operative statistics; SME product, process and collaborative innovation rates; tax incentives for business R&D; IP filing and enforcement by SMEs; most R&D indicators are single-year snapshots
Green economy (Dimension 9)	Limited	Main questionnaire returned largely without quantitative data; supplementary worksheets provide partial CO₂ emissions for selected sectors (2019-2022) and energy consumption by industry (2019-2022); environmental economy value added worksheet returned empty; public support for circularity, energy efficiency and renewables reported in text format for isolated years	All SME-specific indicators absent: resource efficiency, environmental management systems (ISO 14001), ecolabels and green products (single 2024 observation for ecolabels only); SME disaster risk preparedness and insurance; social enterprise classification
Internationalisation (Dimension 10)	Moderate	SME share in total goods exports (2020-2023); average export value per exporting SME (2020-2023); total SME export value (2020-2023); export growth rate (2019-2024)	SME services export share; government expenditure on export support; share of SMEs integrated into global value chains; SME export composition by sector
Digital transformation (Dimension 11)	Moderate	E-commerce sales by enterprise size (2019-2024); share of enterprises with a website (2019-2024); ICT security measures, documents and incidents (2022, 2024); AI technology adoption (2020, 2023-2024); ICT training provision (2019-2024, with gaps); digital intensity level (2022, 2024); robotics and 3D printing adoption (single-year snapshots); public support for digitalisation (2020-2024)	Digital payment acceptance; business software adoption (ERP, CRM – single 2023 observation); big data analytics (single 2020 observation); IoT adoption (single 2021 observation); high-tech enterprise demographics; government-provided innovation infrastructure; most technology adoption indicators are point-in-time rather than time series

Notes: STEM: Science, technology, engineering and mathematics; GERD: Gross domestic expenditure on research and development; GDP: Gross domestic product; BERD: Business enterprise expenditure on research and development; CO₂: Carbon dioxide; ICT: Information and communication technology; AI: Artificial intelligence; VET: Vocational education and training; CEOs: Chief executive officers; IP: Intellectual property; B2B: Business-to-business; R&D: Research and development; ERP: Enterprise resource planning; CRM: Customer relationship management; IoT: Internet of Things.

* Coverage ratings reflect data submitted by economy-specific counterpart institutions through OECD statistical questionnaires. “Substantial” denotes that a majority of indicators were reported with multi-year series; “Moderate” indicates that core indicators are available, but important sub-indicators are missing or reported as single-year snapshots only; “Partial” means fewer than half of indicators were provided with meaningful coverage; “Limited” applies where below one-quarter of indicators were provided or data are restricted to single-year estimates. Ratings reflect data as received; some gaps may be addressable through alternative economy-specific or international sources.

** For structural business statistics, the general statistics questionnaire was returned without data; however, core SBS indicators (enterprises, turnover, gross value added [GVA] and labour costs by size class) are available from MONSTAT’s published statistics and are used in the sector overview above.

The availability of multi-year banking and lending data, a solid set of women’s entrepreneurship indicators and a reasonably broad digital transformation survey provide a foundation for assessing several dimensions of Montenegro’s SME policy environment. However, the near-total absence of data on bankruptcy proceedings, public procurement and the green economy, combined with the empty general statistics module and the structural limitations of the SBS framework – notably the missing employment headcount and the merged micro-small size class – significantly constrain the depth of cross-cutting analysis. Strengthening Montenegro’s statistical infrastructure to close these gaps remains a priority for the evidence base that underpins SME policy design.