The numbers are in, and they are not pretty.
Contract awards in Saudi Arabia collapsed from $151.7 billion in 2024 to roughly $20.5 billion in 2025. Meanwhile, the UAE dropped from $96 billion to $31 billion in the same period. These are not projections. This is reported data from the Middle East Institute. Furthermore, the IMF has cut its MENA growth forecast, citing trade barriers, volatile oil prices, and deepening regional instability as compounding pressures on an already fragile recovery.
Smart founders are not waiting for a ceasefire that may never hold. Instead, they are moving.
Where Capital Goes When the Middle East Stalls
Global investment patterns in 2026 show that escalating tensions combined with growing geopolitical rivalry have pushed capital into a classic flight-to-quality pattern. The usual suspects fill up fast. London, Amsterdam, and Switzerland absorb the first wave. As a result, costs spike, banking queues grow, and the arbitrage disappears the moment the crowd arrives.
Serbia, however, is different. It is still uncrowded. Moreover, the window is open right now.
What Serbia Actually Offers in 2026
Serbia’s corporate tax rate is a flat 15%, confirmed by PwC, and among the lowest in Europe. In addition, there is no minimum founding capital requirement for a DOO, the Serbian equivalent of an LLC. Entity formation takes 5 to 10 business days when executed correctly. Furthermore, total employer costs in Serbia stand at roughly 50% of Eastern European EU levels, according to the Serbian Development Agency. Belgrade and Novi Sad have consequently developed into genuine tech talent hubs, with skilled engineers at a fraction of Western European cost.
Serbia is not a tax haven. Rather, it is a functioning country with a real legal framework, a growing infrastructure, and an EU accession process that is steadily raising compliance standards without yet adding EU-level cost burdens.
The Setup Problem Nobody Talks About
The numbers look compelling on paper. However, execution is where founders get burned.
Serbian bureaucracy is real. Language barriers are also real. Banking KYC requirements and compliance obligations for foreign companies are complex and unforgiving. In fact, entity formation without local knowledge often takes months rather than days. As a result, banking applications submitted without the right documentation stall or fail outright.
That gap is exactly what SerbiaOps fills.
Why Stefan Novakovic and SerbiaOps?
My name is Stefan Novakovic. Over fifteen years, I have built and operated companies in Serbia across SaaS, consulting, and international operations. Consequently, I know which registry offices move fast and which ones stall. I also know which banks approve foreign founders and which ones quietly avoid them. Most importantly, I know how to structure your entity so that payroll, compliance, legal representation, and banking are airtight from day one.
The founders winning right now are not the ones watching the news. Instead, they already have a clean, operational European entity, while everyone else waits for the region to stabilize.


