Building on agricultural land in Republika Srpska: conversion fee and exemptions

If you plan to build a house, barn, processing facility or other building on a plot that the cadastre lists as agricultural land, you first have to go through a change of land use. For most buildings this means a one-time fee. Some buildings are exempt. The description follows the Law on Agricultural Land (Zakon o poljoprivrednom zemljištu) with amendments up to and including Službeni glasnik RS no. 106/22. We found no later amendments, but confirm the current text with your municipality before you apply.

In short

• The fee is paid once, for the whole building plot set in the location conditions, not only for the footprint of the building.
• The amount depends on the cadastral class: the cadastral income for the current year multiplied by 500 for class I, 400 for II, 300 for III, 200 for IV and 100 for classes V to VIII.
• The investor obtains the agricultural consent (poljoprivredna saglasnost) before the building permit (Article 34), and the fee is paid before the consent.
• Among other cases, no fee is due for a family house up to 500 m2 on a farm entered in the register, for farm buildings and for production buildings in the processing industry.

Who it applies to

Any investor building on land recorded as agricultural: owner, tenant or other user. This also covers roads, industrial buildings and any permanent works that prevent farming (Article 30). Land of classes I to IV can be converted only under a detailed spatial plan (sprovedbeni dokument prostornog uređenja). Where no such plan has been adopted or is planned for the area, conversion follows the location conditions, and only for three kinds of building: those whose location conditions are issued by the republic ministry for construction, buildings serving agricultural production, and individual houses and ancillary buildings within an agricultural holding (Article 27). For classes V to VIII, planning documents or location conditions apply.

Among other cases, no fee is due for (Article 36):

• building, reconstructing or legalising the residential house of a family farm, up to 500 m2, to improve the household's living conditions, and only in a rural area, meaning outside the urban zone;
• farm buildings: buildings for producing, buying up, finishing, processing and drying farm products, stores for finished farm products, cold stores, livestock sheds, buildings for growing mushrooms, snails and fish;
• production buildings of the processing industry;
• cemeteries and religious buildings, flood defence, drainage and irrigation, field roads, public roads and railways;
• the house of a refugee, displaced person or returnee on land up to 500 m2, if the person had that status when acquiring the land, with a certificate from the competent office;
• the house of the family of a fallen or missing fighter, or of a war invalid of categories I to VI, on land up to 500 m2, if the status was confirmed by the competent office and the family has no other housing solution;
• legalising buildings that count as legally built under the Zakon o legalizaciji bespravno izgrađenih objekata (Law on Legalisation of Unlawfully Built Buildings, Službeni glasnik RS no. 62/18 and 93/22, Article 8). These are buildings put up by the end of 1991, and individual houses and house-and-business buildings with a gross floor area under 400 m2, with their ancillary buildings (garage, summer kitchen, storeroom), except complex buildings, put up by 31 December 2013 and visible on the Republika Srpska digital orthophoto maps of 2012 and 2013. The municipality confirms legality by a decision and obtains the orthophoto proof itself from the Republička uprava za geodetske i imovinsko-pravne poslove (Republic Administration for Geodetic and Property Affairs). That law also exempts the owners of these buildings from the conversion fee (Article 8(8)). For the exemption you need proof from the competent office that the building was put up within that period.

A family farm is one where a farmer and household members carry out production and which is entered in the register of agricultural holdings. Tourist accommodation (apartments, guest rooms) is not named on the exemption list. If you are building accommodation, ask the municipality before you apply whether your building is treated as residential or agricultural, because the fee depends on it.

What to do

1. Get location conditions or urban-technical conditions from the planning department of your municipality.
2. Prepare the documents: possession sheet or land register extract, a copy of the cadastral plan or a current survey, proof of the right to use the land if you are not the owner (for example a lease), and proof of the plot's previous status if it is recorded as non-agricultural. For the family-house exemption, add the planning extract showing the plot is rural and a document showing the farm is in the register.
3. Submit the request for agricultural consent to the municipal body, and a request for the exemption decision if you claim one.
4. The municipality issues a decision on whether you owe the fee and how much. Pay it before the consent is issued.
5. The municipality issues the consent within 30 days of your request (Article 34). You must have the consent before the building permit is issued.

The decision on the fee and the decision on consent can each be appealed to the Ministarstvo poljoprivrede, šumarstva i vodoprivrede (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management).

Deadlines and amounts

• Time limit for the consent decision: 30 days from the request.
• The fee collected is split: 70% goes to the municipality and 30% to the Republika Srpska budget (Article 35(1)). A municipality cannot waive its share of the fee by its own decision (Article 32(3)).
• If the cadastral land type (kultura) of the plot was changed without the conversion procedure, the municipality calculates the fee on the earlier land type and class (Article 29). This applies where the change was made after the cut-off date until which buildings count as legally built under the Law on Legalisation of Unlawfully Built Buildings.
• The fee is also due from anyone legalising an unlawfully built building, and from anyone building on a plot whose use was already changed in the cadastre without the fee being paid (Article 81).
• Do not change the land type of the plot in the cadastre beforehand: the law forbids it without the conversion procedure (Article 28).
• A temporary change of use (Article 30(2) and Article 31, for example mineral extraction or dumping of mining waste) follows a different route: the municipality first obtains guidelines from the Ministry, so the procedure can take longer. If the recultivation project plans to return the land to farming, 50% of the fee is paid (Article 33). This does not normally apply to permanent buildings.
• Only the municipality can tell you the exact amount in KM, because it depends on the cadastral income of your plot.

Where to go

• Municipal or city administration: the agriculture department and the spatial planning department (Trebinje, Bileća, Gacko, Ljubinje, Nevesinje, Berkovići). Under the law, decisions are made by the local self-government body.
• Appeals: Ministarstvo poljoprivrede, šumarstva i vodoprivrede Republike Srpske.

Laws and sources

• Law on Agricultural Land (Zakon o poljoprivrednom zemljištu), Articles 27 to 36 and 81 (Službeni glasnik RS no. 93/06, 86/07, 14/10, 5/12, 58/19, 119/21 and 106/22), gazette texts on the website of the Republička uprava za geodetske i imovinsko-pravne poslove; Article 36(1)(b) was amended by 119/21 and point (k) by 106/22
• Law on Agricultural Land, consolidated working text up to Službeni glasnik RS no. 58/19, Ministarstvo poljoprivrede, šumarstva i vodoprivrede (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management)
• Law on Legalisation of Unlawfully Built Buildings (Zakon o legalizaciji bespravno izgrađenih objekata), Article 8 (Službeni glasnik RS no. 62/18 and 93/22), on the website of the Republička uprava za geodetske i imovinsko-pravne poslove
• Constitutional Court of BiH, decision U 8/19 of 6 February 2020 (Službeni glasnik BiH no. 16/20; annulled Article 53 of the Law, on ownership of agricultural land; it does not affect the conversion fee)