Data Centers in Serbia

Serbia – Emerging Digital Gateway for Southeast Europe

Executive Summary

Serbia is establishing itself as a strategic digital hub for the Balkans, offering a compelling balance of cost-effectiveness and growing connectivity. This market is ideal for businesses requiring a foothold to serve Southeast Europe, leveraging its developing infrastructure to reduce latency and improve service delivery to the region. The presence of direct cloud access and favorable tax policies for technology investment makes it a strong contender for new deployments.

Serbia: At A Glance

Network & Connectivity Ecosystem

Serbia's connectivity ecosystem is growing, centered around 13 data centers providing access to key European and regional networks.

Carrier Density & Carrier Neutrality: Over 6 network providers operate within the country's data centers as of September 2025. Carrier-neutral facilities are available, offering a choice of local and regional carriers for redundancy and cost management.

Direct Cloud On-Ramps: The market features 1 direct cloud on-ramp, enabling dedicated, low-latency access to 1 Oracle Cloud region as of September 2025. For other hyperscalers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, connectivity is achieved via network extensions from major European hubs like Frankfurt, Vienna, or Milan.

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs): The Serbian Open eXchange (SOX) is the primary IXP, facilitating local traffic peering to improve performance and reduce transit costs for users within the country. Most international peering is handled privately or through regional exchange hubs.

Bare Metal: Bare metal server solutions are available, providing dedicated compute resources for performance-intensive applications. Providers like Hivelocity and phoenixNAP offer deployment options in the region.

Power Analysis

Average Cost Of Power: Industrial electricity costs are estimated between €0.12–€0.15/kWh as of September 2025. This competitive pricing can significantly lower operational expenditures for high-density deployments. The national energy mix is approximately 70% fossil fuels (primarily lignite coal) and 30% renewables, mostly from hydropower.

Power Grid Reliability: The power grid in major commercial centers like Belgrade is well-engineered and supports the uptime requirements of modern data centers. Facilities typically feature multi-substation support and N+1 or 2N redundant power systems to ensure service continuity.

Market Access, Business & Tax Climate

Proximity To Key Business Districts: Data centers in Serbia are concentrated in and around Belgrade, the nation's capital and primary economic engine. This proximity provides low-latency connectivity to the financial services, technology, and media industries headquartered there.

Regional Market Reach: Serbia's central location in the Balkans makes it an effective point of presence for serving neighboring countries, including Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. Deploying here reduces latency for millions of end-users across Southeast Europe.

Tax Advantage For Data Centers: The government offers meaningful tax incentives to encourage technology infrastructure investment. Key programs provide import tariff and VAT exemptions for critical data center equipment, directly reducing the capital expenditure needed for new builds or expansions.

Natural Disaster Risk

Serbia has a moderate overall disaster risk profile, with a rating of 3.4 out of 10 as of September 2025. The risk assessment indicates that while the country is relatively safe from many catastrophic events, specific hazards require careful site selection and facility engineering.

The most significant natural risks include:

• River Flood: Score 7.7
• Earthquake: Score 5.3
• Drought: Score 3.0

Risks from tsunami, tropical cyclones, and coastal floods are negligible due to the country's inland location.