Montenegro Digital Nomad Visa – 2022

The Montenegro Digital Nomad visa is expected to be released in early 2022. This encompasses the plans to start issuing residence permits for freelancers/nomads (“digital nomad visa”).

While the formulations and details are not concrete, the following have been reported to be part of the various ongoing discussions –

1. A digital nomad (freelancer) is a foreign citizen who works via the Internet for foreign companies or for his own legal entity registered in one of the foreign countries. Note neither the company nor the person can be a Montenegrin Citizen or hold any temporary or permanent residency.
2. Digital Nomads post receipt of said visa will not be legally allowed to work in Montenegro (be employed or provide services in the Montenegrin market), and all their earnings must be generated by foreign companies/sources.
3. The visa framework is inspired by the successful Croatian Digital Nomad visa.
4. It is expected that a Digital Nomad Visa applicant will need to prove that his monthly income for the last 3 months before applying is at least 2,500 Euros per month.
5. There is no mention of taxes on the Digital Nomads, and we expect there to be none (except the normal tourist tax).
6. The residence permit for digital nomads should be issued for 1 year and will be possible to extend.
7. The Digital Nomad visa cannot be converted to a residency.
8. There is a question on the banking support that will be available to digital nomads, as local banks are quite tough of opening non-resident accounts, and this is still to be sorted out.
9. There is no mention of a quota for the digital nomad visa, so there should be no restriction on the number of visas available in the year.
10. There is a plan to create an online platform for nomads, where it will be possible to find the necessary information and apply for a digital nomad visa.
11. Montenegro wants to improve its ranking from 50th to 35th on the Nomadlist scale, and they would be actively working towards achieving the same before 2025.

Finally, the most positive aspect is that the govt is looking at Digital Nomads in a very friendly manner, and has action plans in place to make Montenegro an attractive destination for them.