25.03.2025.

Record year for online purchases in Serbia

Online shopping in Serbia performed through card and e-money transactions is becoming a significant segment of the payments market. Namely, the past period saw a sustained increase in online purchases, culminating in record 82.4 mn transactions in 2024. This means that over 225,000 online purchases on average were made every day last year.

Compared to 2023 (59.2 mn), 2024 saw a 39.2% increase in online purchases. Relative to five years prior (2020: 21.2 mn purchases), growth surged by 288.5% (3.9 times).

Of the total number of online purchases made by clients of payment service providers in 2024, more than two thirds (68.5%) were in the domestic currency, while the following currencies also had significant shares in the basket of currencies: the euro (20.0%), the US dollar (9.6%), the pound sterling (0.3%), the Swiss franc (0.1%) and other currencies (1.6%).

At end-2024, the number of domestic online shops reached 4,726, which is a 17.9% increase from 2023 and a 134.8% rise from end-2020. This growth has directly contributed to the rise in online purchases in Serbia. Accordingly, dinar purchases recorded a y-o-y rise of 39.6% in 2024, while the value of these transactions increased by 41.9%. In absolute terms, 56.5 mn transactions worth RSD 162.3 bn were recorded in 2024.

As for foreign online shops, these recorded an increase in the number of euro purchases of 56.6%, rising to 16.5 mn purchases from 10.5 mn in 2023, while their value grew by 40.5%, from EUR 523.2 mn in 2023 to EUR 735.2 mn. US dollar online purchases recorded less intense growth relative to the dinar and the euro (10.4%), from 7.2 mn to 7.9 mn transactions. Their value rose by 24.4%, from USD 174.7 mn in 2023 to USD 217.4 mn in 2024.

We note that the data collected by payment service providers and reported to the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) do not include cash-on-delivery transactions.

A graphical overview of data regarding the provision of payment services and e-money issuance for the 2023–2024 period is available on the NBS website, link Statistics.

Payment System Department