The Impact of Tourism on Serbia’s Real Estate Market

Published on January 17, 2026 and written by Cyril Jarnias

For a long time, Serbia was perceived as a “transit” destination on the Balkan route. That period is over. The country is gradually establishing itself as a full-fledged tourism economy – landlocked, but with attractive mountains, historic spa towns, a strategic river like the Danube, and above all, a capital city that concentrates flows of visitors, investors, and new residents. This tourism shift is directly reflected in brick and mortar: whether in Belgrade, mountain resorts like Kopaonik and Zlatibor, or in regional cities, tourism now acts as a genuine accelerator for the real estate market.

A Macroeconomic Framework Supporting the Rise of Tourism

The economic context creates favorable ground for the simultaneous rise of tourism and real estate. Between 2020 and 2023, cumulative real GDP growth was close to 12%. The momentum continues with a 4.7% rise in GDP in the first quarter of 2024 and medium-term forecasts around 4% per year according to the IMF and the National Bank of Serbia. Rating agencies confirm this trajectory: S&P upgraded the sovereign rating to “investment grade” (BBB-), while Fitch maintains a positive outlook.

In this context, the real estate market is becoming more structured and upscale, but remains largely dominated by owner-occupied property: over 90% of households are owners, and only 6.4% of occupied dwellings are declared as rented. This makes the development of a genuine rental market driven by tourism all the more significant.

Tourism: From Underutilized Potential to a Genuine Real Estate Driver

Serbian authorities acknowledge that the country’s tourism potential was long underutilized. A national report still highlighted in 2010 that tourism had never been a structuring axis of development policy, with few major investments outside Belgrade and Novi Sad. The subsequent tourism strategy changed course, clearly identifying several pillars: winter tourism, spa & wellness, Danube river tourism, rural and nature tourism, and urban cultural tourism.

This rise translates very concretely into real estate. Everywhere visitor flows intensify – Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kopaonik, Zlatibor, spa towns, Danube cities – demand shifts towards flexible forms of housing: new-generation hotels, serviced residences, short and medium-term apartments, second homes. For investors, the argument is twofold: on one hand, prices per square meter still well below those in Western Europe; on the other, rental yields boosted by tourism, sometimes higher than those of more mature markets.

Belgrade: Tourism Epicenter and Real Estate Locomotive

Belgrade concentrates the majority of the dynamics. The political and economic capital, it also remains the country’s main tourist destination. Data from the Geodetic Republic is clear: in the first nine months of 2024, the city accounts for 36.6% of all apartments sold in Serbia, but nearly 55% of the total transaction value. By itself, it captures over half of the national residential value.

On the price side, the trend remains upward. In the capital, the median price in the third quarter of 2024 reached €2,180/m² for new homes and €2,130/m² for resales. Over the entire year, residential prices there rose by about 5%, with stronger peaks in some central neighborhoods or along the Sava and Danube. In high-end projects like Belgrade Waterfront, the price per square meter can soar to €6,000, with record transactions close to €9,000 to €10,000/m² for prestige apartments.

The link with tourism and hospitality is direct. Belgrade concentrates the vast majority of upscale hotel supply: 134 hotels, 57% of which are four-star, and the arrival of international brands (W, St. Regis, Hilton, Mama Shelter, InterContinental, etc.). Business travelers, the diaspora, digital nomads, and city-break tourists converge in the same place. Result: the rental market, especially short-term, has skyrocketed, causing a surge in rents. After spectacular increases of 23% in 2022 and then 18% in 2023, the growth has moderated but remains high, around 7% in 2024.

Belgrade Waterfront: Showcase of the Tourism–Real Estate Intersection

It’s difficult to analyze the impact of tourism on Serbian real estate without focusing on Belgrade Waterfront, a mega-project to redevelop the banks of the Sava River conducted in partnership with the Emirati group Eagle Hills. With an estimated budget between €2.5 and €3.5 billion and over 1.8 million m² built, the project combines all the codes of major international operations: 7,000 to 10,000 planned homes, eight hotels, 250,000 m² of offices, a giant shopping mall (BW Galerija, presented as the largest in the Balkans), redeveloped green spaces (Sava Park, linear promenade), luxury towers including the St. Regis Residences.

This project is emblematic because it was situated at the border of several worlds: post-industrial wasteland by the river, strategic corridor for the city, potential showcase for high-end urban tourism. Today, it has shifted Belgrade’s economic and symbolic center of gravity, attracting wealthy local buyers, the diaspora, foreign investors, and international tourist clientele. Residential sales there have already generated over one billion euros in revenue, and prices for the first delivered phases jumped 10 to 20%.

The spillover effect extends far beyond the project’s perimeter. Adjacent neighborhoods – Savamala, Dorćol, the Kalemegdan area, and even some blocks of Novi Beograd – see their prices rise, their buildings renovated, their brownfields converted. The planned arrival of the metro, with a line passing through the Waterfront area, accentuates this phenomenon, with studies pointing to a real estate premium of around 8 to 11% for properties located near future stations.

The City as an Airbnb Destination: The Short-Term Rental Boom

In this Belgrade reshaped by tourism, the furnished short-term rental market plays a leading role. Data from specialized platforms shows that between 3,300 and over 5,000 active listings are recorded depending on the period, over 94% of which are for entire homes, almost exclusively one- or two-room apartments. Almost all are condos ready to accommodate two to four people, an ideal configuration for couples, small tourist groups, and digital nomads.

Belgrade also stands out for the high proportion of international bookings: nearly 92% of visitors to short-term rentals come from abroad, with significant clientele from the United Kingdom, the United States, and other European countries, but also a notable Russian-speaking presence. A majority of bookings are for short stays, although nearly one-third of listings set a minimum of 30 nights, targeting a clientele of temporary expatriates, remote workers, or students.

This boom of “apartments for a day” has a mechanical effect on the classic rental market. By removing part of its units from the housing stock for tourist rental, it reduces the supply of long-term rentals, pushes rents upward, and fuels speculation in the most sought-after neighborhoods. Professionals estimate that monthly income from short-term rentals can be three to four times higher than that from a traditional lease, which encourages many owners to switch to this model, despite the greater management time and additional costs.

Zlatibor, Kopaonik and the Mountains: Leisure Tourism, Pillar of Real Estate Resorts

The other major theater of tourist impact on real estate is in the mountains. Here again, the transformation is spectacular.

Kopaonik, nicknamed the “Sun Mountain,” has become one of the most sophisticated resorts in the Balkans. It features a luxury ecosystem valued between €1 and €1.5 billion: high-end hotels, hotel residences, chalets, ski-in/ski-out apartments, spas, restaurants. Unit investments for some hotel complexes range from €50 to €150 million, and the local tourism economy generates €150 to €250 million in direct spending annually. For investors, the resort offers a dual engine: a steady flow of vacationers in winter, but increasingly also in summer, attracted by hiking, mountain biking, wellness, and fresh air.

Yields there are significantly higher than those in large cities. Studies on vacation rentals indicate gross yields of 7 to 12% for properties rented nightly or weekly via platforms like Airbnb or Booking, driven by high occupancy rates during winter and summer peaks. This combination of still reasonable entry prices, rapid growth in tourist flows, and attractive profitability attracts both local savings and foreign capital.

The Danube, Regional Cities and River Tourism: A New Real Estate Wave

The Danube represents the other major development frontier. For nearly 600 km, it crosses or borders Serbia, irrigates nine districts, 867 localities, and two national parks (Fruška Gora, Đerdap). Cities located along the river – Belgrade, Novi Sad, Smederevo, Golubac, Donji Milanovac, Kladovo – are identified as major hubs for future river and cultural tourism, driven notably by Danube cruises, one of the fastest-growing segments on a European scale.

A project like “Danube Riverside” in Novi Beograd illustrates this water–tourism–real estate convergence: on the site of the former Hotel Jugoslavija, it plans for over 500 apartments, a hotel of nearly 200 rooms, and a Class A office building with a helipad. These operations, still few in number, nevertheless indicate the future direction: densified waterfronts, mixing residences, hotels, retail, and offices, designed to accommodate residents, cruise passengers, conference attendees, and visitors alike.

In these cities, tourism is not always the primary driver, but it acts as an accelerator: it drives demand for short and medium-term rentals, supports local hotel projects, strengthens international visibility, improves investor risk perception, and ultimately contributes to price increases.

Short-Term Rentals: Tourism Windfall, Social Pressure

If one had to summarize the most visible impact of tourism on Serbian real estate in one mechanism, it would be this: the rise of furnished short-term rentals. The model of “apartments for a day” has spread to all major cities and resorts, driven by the rise of Airbnb, Booking, and others, to the point of making it a significant activity in fiscal terms.

This formalization remains incomplete, however. Despite this framework, the actual level of regulation is still described as “low” by observers, with a large share of offers operating informally or partially compliantly. Many downtown condominiums thus find themselves with a majority of units transformed into pseudo-hotels. Some homeowners’ associations, notably in Belgrade, have tried to ban these rentals from their buildings, at the cost of legal conflicts with rental property owners.

National authorities are closely observing European examples. Cities like Barcelona, Amsterdam, or Paris have adopted drastic rules (limitation of rentable days, highly regulated licenses, heavy fines). Reform work is underway at the Serbian Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications to adapt the law on housing and building maintenance to this new reality. Among the avenues mentioned are mandatory registration of all short-term housing, quotas by zone, increased specific taxation, and a systematic obligation to report guests, already partially in place via eTourist.

In a country where only 6.4% of occupied dwellings are officially rented, the stakes are high: it is a matter of preventing entire neighborhoods in urban centers from transforming into tourist housing parks, at the risk of making homeownership and long-term rental unaffordable for residents.

Spa Towns, Health Tourism and Real Estate Repositioning

Beyond cities and mountains, Serbia has another major geographical asset: its thermal springs. There are about forty spa resorts and over 1,000 mineral and thermal springs across the country. Yet, this heritage remains underutilized compared to neighbors like Hungary or Slovenia.

These markets also align with the logic of short stays: cures of a few weeks, wellness weekends, seasonal getaways. More and more individuals are buying studios and small apartments there to operate as tourist rentals, sometimes coupled with offers for treatments, spa, hiking. Institutional investors are beginning to look at these destinations to establish more modern wellness resorts, betting on a regional clientele (Balkans, Central Europe, Russia, Middle East) seeking alternatives to saturated Western European resorts.

Infrastructure, EXPO 2027 and Tourism-Real Estate Corridors

The power of the link between tourism and real estate in Serbia also lies in massive infrastructure investments. The country is engaged in an unprecedented construction program: 500 km of highways, 2,000 km of modernized railways, two metro lines in Belgrade, new transversal corridors (Morava corridor, axes towards Montenegro, North Macedonia, Hungary), airport extensions (Belgrade, Niš, Kraljevo), riverfront development along the Danube, Sava, and Drina.

The EXPO 2027 plan plays the role of accelerator. It aims not only to host a world expo in Belgrade but also to reposition Serbia as a regional hub, which requires modernizing transport networks, business districts, exhibition sites, and hotel zones. Anticipatory effects are already being felt on land values along infrastructure routes, in peripheral municipalities of the capital (Surčin, Voždovac, Zemun, Zvezdara), and in some Vojvodina cities.

Opportunities and Risks: A Still Young, Highly Promising but Under-regulated Market

Serbia today stands out as one of the most dynamic real estate markets in Central and Balkan Europe, with an average annual increase in apartment prices of 4.69% in the third quarter of 2024, transactions up over 16%, and overall sales value up over 30% over the same period. Tourism contributes directly to this vitality, whether through purchases of second homes in resorts, mixed hotel and residential projects in cities, or the explosion of short-term rentals.

The second risk concerns housing affordability for permanent residents. In highly touristic neighborhoods of Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, or mountain resorts, the mass conversion of apartments into furnished tourist units reduces the supply of long-term rentals and contributes to driving up rents. Students, young professionals, and modest households struggle to keep up, even though the state is trying to respond with affordable housing programs (1,100 new apartments in Belgrade with favorable loan conditions, a project for 5,000 social housing units in the capital).

Finally, environmental and urban challenges loom over the entire sector. Tourism and real estate pressure can lead to poorly managed densification, a reduction of green spaces, a degradation of air quality and landscapes, particularly in mountain resorts and along the Danube. Initial safeguards are appearing (urban greening in Belgrade, new air quality laws, environmental taxation), but the authorities’ ability to reconcile tourism growth, real estate development, and sustainability will remain a decisive test for the coming decade.

Conclusion: A Market at a Crossroads

Tourism has already changed the face of the Serbian real estate market. In Belgrade, it has contributed to the emergence of megaprojects like Belgrade Waterfront, the surge in rents in central neighborhoods, the proliferation of short-term rentals, and the redevelopment of the Sava and Danube riverbanks. In the mountains, it has transformed Kopaonik and Zlatibor into sought-after investment resorts, with high yields for vacation homes. In regional cities and spa resorts, it supports the upgrade of a long-aging hotel stock, stimulates demand for small apartments intended for tourist rental, and brings back to the market properties long left abandoned.

The question is no longer whether tourism will continue to influence the Serbian real estate market, but how the country will manage this influence: what share to leave for tourist rentals versus permanent housing; how to distribute the investment windfall between the capital and the regions; how to preserve the environment and heritage in the most exposed areas; how to use EXPO 2027 as a sustainable lever rather than just a fleeting showcase.

Serbia is, in short, at a turning point: its tourism is catching up, and its real estate is reorganizing around this new reality. How these two forces are articulated will largely determine the urban, social, and economic face of the country in the coming decades.