Under the new Law, certificates of temporary incapacity for work will be delivered to employers exclusively in electronic form by physicians and healthcare institutions, and sick leave will likewise be concluded electronically.
All employers will be required to use the “eSick Leave” software on the eGovernment platform to receive certificates and reports on sick leave, submit requests for salary compensation calculations, and review decisions of medical commissions.
Consequently, from early 2026 onwards, employees will no longer be required to deliver certificates of temporary incapacity for work to their employers in person. Furthermore, the termination ground under Article 179, paragraph 3, item 2 of the Labour Law, which allowed termination if an employee failed to submit a certificate within the prescribed deadlines, will no longer apply. Of course, employees are still required to visit their chosen physician in the event of temporary incapacity for work to justify their absence and open a sick leave case, but now it becomes necessary to determine in a more detailed or even different manner the internal rules related to timely notifying the employer about sick leave and related to going to a physician.
The new Law stipulates that the chosen physician will issue sick leave certificates and reports in electronic form, which will then be automatically forwarded to employers and relevant institutions via the eSick Leave system. Electronic calculation of salary compensation is also envisaged, as well as the possibility to file objections electronically; however, these latter functionalities will be available from April 2026.
The Law does not change anything in relation to the healthcare system or the substantive rights concerning sick leave; it only enables a more efficient exchange of information between the chosen physician and the employer.
We attended the training organised by the Office for Information Technologies and eGovernment last week, and we found the eSick Leave portal very clear and easy to use.
The Office has published a link containing all information related to the “eSick Leave” portal at euprava.gov.rs , as well as a user guide.
In addition to these very clear and detailed guides, we add below the most important information and clarifications we learned at the training:
- For sick leave cases opened under prior regulations, the exchange of documentation in paper form will continue even after 1 January 2026.
- An employer may register, for access to the “eSick Leave - Employer” portal, an individual employed by the employer, as well as any other natural person, for example, an external payroll service provider. It is possible to register multiple individuals for portal access, and they will not have access to the employer’s other data on the eGovernment portal, but only to the “eSick Leave - Employer” section.
- All notifications regarding newly opened sick leave cases and any status changes will be sent daily to the registered email address. The recommendation is that this should not be the employer’s official email address registered with the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR), to ensure that notifications are monitored as efficiently as possible.
- On the “eSick Leave - Employer” portal, employers will not be able to see medical diagnoses unless employees expressly request that they be made visible. The only visible cause of temporary incapacity is categorised as “illness,” “work-related injury,” “absence due to complications related to pregnancy,” “occupational disease,” and similar.
Employers that do not join and use the eSick Leave system will be subject to monetary fines ranging from RSD 200,000 to RSD 500,000 for legal entities and from RSD 5,000 to RSD 50,000 for responsible individuals.
The new “eSick Leave” portal is expected to significantly simplify the process of tracking sick leave, save valuable time for both employers and employees, and increase transparency while improving the efficiency of absence management within companies. At the training organised by the Office for Information Technology and eGovernment, it was mentioned, in response to a question from the audience, that the system will be available in small rural outpatient clinics too, with the caveat that paper documentation may still be issued in exceptional cases, if unexpected issues arise.
