Methodology — Montenegro

Two engines, one shared input shape.

The Montenegro state-fee calculator encodes the Zakon o sudskim taksama and its Taksena tarifa (“Sl. list RCG” 76/2005, 39/2007, 40/2010). The lawyer-fee side encodes the Advokatska tarifaThe lawyers' tariff of the bar association, used in both Serbia and Montenegro. In Serbia it is a point-value (poen) scale (Tarifa o nagradama i naknadama troškova za rad advokata, “Sl. glasnik RS” 43/2023 i 56/2025, čl. 23 Zakona o advokaturi); in Montenegro it is a direct-euro scale (Advokatska tarifa AKCG, “Sl. list CG” 132/2025, čl. 15 st. 2 Zakona o advokaturi). In both it sets reference lawyer fees per procedural action — a semi-binding default, not a mandatory floor.Glossary → Advokatske komore Crne Gore (“Sl. list CG” 132/2025), adopted by the Bar’s Managing Board under čl. 15 st. 2 Zakona o advokaturi with prior Government consent, in force 20 November 2025 and applied from 1 January 2026 (it repealed the 2017 tariff). Montenegro uses the euro unilaterally, so every fee is shown in euros with no conversion. Administrative-procedure fees (Zakon o administrativnim taksama 018/19), notarial tariffs and public-enforcement-officer fees are out of scope — the calculator returns null for those with a pointer to the governing statute.

The lawyer tariff is a semi-binding default scale, not a binding minimumA tariff floor a court could once not go below. Several EU jurisdictions abandoned binding minimums after CJEU rulings; where that has happened, the same figures now serve only as reference values.Glossary →. Courts are bound to apply it when taxing costs (član 1), but a written fee agreement may set the fee as low as 50 % of the tariff or as high as five times it (član 4). Montenegro is an EU candidate, so CJEU bar-tariff jurisprudence (Cipolla C-94/04, Em akademik C-438/22) is persuasive rather than binding. Tarifo presents the amounts as reference valuesA tariff figure that is advisory, not mandatory — a guide to what a fee customarily is, which the lawyer and client remain free to depart from. Every number Tarifo shows is a reference value.Glossary →, not floors.

State court fees fall into four shapes.

Value-banded civil fee

The dominant shape (court_civil, Tar. br. 1 st. 1): €20 up to €500, then €20 + 2 % of the amount over €500 up to €5,000, then €110 + 1 % of the amount over €5,000 — capped at €750 (opšta nadležnost) or €1,500 (privredni sud), minimum €20.

Flat amounts

Non-contentious motions (Tar. br. 4, €10) and the administrative dispute (Tar. br. 16, €10). Fixed tariff amounts under čl. 32, not ad-valorem.

Probate paušalna

Inheritance (Tar. br. 5) reads off its own value scale on the net estate — €20 up to €1,000, then +1 %, then +0.5 % over €5,000 — capped at €300.

Fraction or fixed statutory value

Enforcement and the payment order are ½ of the civil fee (Tar. br. 1 st. 2); divorce is computed on the fixed statutory value of €1,000 (čl. 27), i.e. €30.

State fees: 0 % VAT. Lawyer fees: optional 21 % PDV toggle.

State court fees in Montenegro are not subject to PDV — they are budget revenue under član 7, so the calculator displays them at face value with no VAT line. Lawyer fees are subject to 21 % PDV (član 5) when the advocate is VAT-registered; the result panel exposes this as a toggle so the user can see both the net and the gross figure. The two engines never share a VAT setting. The 25 % incidental lump-sum of Tar. br. 18 is already built into every stated lawyer amount and is never added again.

A standard civil claim, first instance.

Take a standard civil claim with a value of €30,000 (civil_claim_first_instance, first instance, general court, filing only):

The same claim at the appeal stage is the full fee again — €360, not double — under Tar. br. 1 st. 3. An enforcement motion on a €100,000 claim is the capped civil fee (€750) halved to €375 under Tar. br. 1 st. 2. These values are pinned in the engine’s unit tests.

Where the two engines disagree on purpose.

The lawyer-fee and state-fee engines disagree on purpose for several case types. The numbers are on different scales and must not be cross-checked against each other:

A second class of divergence is purely categorical: administrative_procedure is handled as out-of-scope (its fee lives in the Zakon o administrativnim taksama, not the court-fee law), and document_drafting and consultation are no-fee (no court proceeding). The calculator returns null for these with an explanatory note. The state-fee figures derive from a single-source consolidation and should be verified against the Official GazetteThe state journal in which laws and tariffs are officially published. Tarifo cites the gazette reference (e.g. ДВ, Monitorul Oficial, Bundesgesetzblatt) so every figure is traceable.Glossary → before being treated as authoritative.