In a joint report with Collective Aid, the GDP has highlighted serious and systemic concerns regarding Serbia’s immigration detention policies and practices–including routine use of arbitrary, ad hoc, detention; inadequate access to justice and assistance; the detention of vulnerable groups; and poor detention conditions. In light of the Committee’s Joint General Recommendation no.39 (/no. 8 with the Committee on Migrant Workers), which includes important guidance on states’ use of migration-related detention, we urge the Committee to call on Serbia to amend its laws and practices to ensure that the rights and dignity of non-nationals are protected.
While Serbia maintains official immigration detention facilities, deprivation of liberty for migration-related reasons extends beyond these formal settings. Migrants and asylum seekers are also routinely held in conditions that amount to de facto detention in informal sites and without legal safeguards. Testimonies from former detainees and NPM reports highlight poor detention conditions in both formal and informal settings, and particular concerns exist regarding detainees’ access to health care. Serbia’s legal and policy frameworks compound these concerns by criminalising irregular entry and stay which the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has concluded is manifestly arbitrary and disproportionate to the aims of immigration enforcement.
Serbia operates three dedicated immigration detention centres–Padinska Skela, Dimitrovgrad, and DC Plandište–which together provide a total capacity of 310 beds. Here, asylum seekers can be detained under the Law on Asylum and Temporary Protection (Article 77(1)) and migrants can be detained under the Law on Foreigners as part of the removal procedure (Articles 86 and 87). Although they are referred to as “Reception Centers for Foreigners,” in practice they are closed detention sites where non-nationals are held.[1] Serbia also operates a detention site within Nikola Tesla Airport’s transit zone.
According to Article 88 of the Law on Foreigners, non-nationals can be detained for up to 180 days (90 days + 90 days). Similarly, Article 78 of the Law on Asylum and Temporary Protection provides that asylum seekers can be detained for up to six months (3 months + 3 months).
Most detainees are held under the Law on Foreigners in the return procedure, however according to the country’s National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), Serbian authorities commonly detain non-nationals for whom there is no prospect of removal. It notes that between January 2024 and 31 January 2025, 77 foreigners were released from Plandište without being forcibly removed, of which 62 had been detained for 90 days and 15 for 180 days. In its recommendations, the NPM noted: “The Ministry of Interior will take the necessary measures to ensure that foreigners for whom there is no sufficient prospect of being forcibly removed are not ordered to stay in the Reception Centers for Foreigners.” Similarly, data from Dimitrovgrad Detention Centre shows that most people detained here are released after 180 days.
Serbia’s legislation also treats irregular entry as a misdemeanour. Article 121 of the Law on Foreigners provides for fines ranging between 50,000 and 150,000 dinars (approximately 420 – 1,270 EUR) and a removal order. Generally, if a person cannot pay a fine it is converted into a short prison term (typically 7 to 10 days). According to Border Violence Monitoring Network, the country regularly prosecutes foreigners–resulting in them serving custodial sentences in prisons and local jails run by the Prison Administration under the Ministry of Justice.
