Do People in Serbia Speak English? Here’s What the Data Shows
Do people in Serbia speak English? According to the
EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) 2025, Serbia ranks #25 out of 123 countries and regions worldwide for English proficiency, with a score of 578. That puts it in the “High proficiency” band — just one tier below “Very high,” which starts around 600. English is strongest in Serbia’s two largest cities, Belgrade and Novi Sad (594 and 580), while scores are somewhat lower in smaller towns and other parts of the country. There’s also a clear generational gap — younger generations have studied English since the first grade of primary school.
If you visit Novi Sad, you’ll certainly meet people on the street who speak and understand enough English to help you out with things like:
- “There’s a good local restaurant on the next street.”
- “The main post office is in the city center and closes at 7 p.m.”
- “You’ll find the best bread in the bakery at Limanska market.”
- “The burek with cheese is the one to try — and you have to taste an Indeks sendvič, you won’t find one this good anywhere else.”
The level varies widely, though — anywhere from basic survival English to genuine fluency.
The general takeaway: people in Serbia get by in English. You won’t struggle to get basic information at restaurants, the post office, shops, the bakery, the hairdresser, or the doctor’s office.
Where English Actually Works Well?
You’ll find the most fluent English in tourism, hospitality, and the IT/tech sector — and in conversation with younger people generally. In practice, that means restaurant menus in Serbia’s larger cities are often available in English, and even where they aren’t, the staff will understand you and take your order just fine.
Booking a place to stay works the same way: listings on Booking.com or Airbnb are in English, and hotel staff in bigger cities will speak it too. Even outside the main cities, there’s usually a younger person nearby who can help.
Where English Quietly Stops Working?
A solid grasp of Serbian becomes necessary — genuinely necessary — in specific situations. Think registering your residence and address at MUP, applying for state health insurance, or enrolling a child in kindergarten or school. Even Russian speakers, whose language is close to Serbian, often hire and pay for a translator for exactly these situations. They’re simply not confident they can handle the administration on their own.
A Story From a School Viber Group
I saw this firsthand with a family I taught, who couldn’t communicate with their child’s class teacher at primary school. The mother tried checking what other parents were writing in the class Viber group through Google Translate. It never gave her an accurate enough picture, so she’d come back to me, again and again, asking me to clarify.
I also found myself acting as a go-between for parents and teachers more than once, because the teachers didn’t speak English well and communication broke down. In those moments, it didn’t matter how strong the parents’ English was — the other side of the conversation simply didn’t speak it.
Knowing Serbian mattered most in actual conflict situations at school, where small nuances decided who the children saw as at fault. A foreign child could easily end up with no one advocating for them. I experienced this directly when I offered to mediate between the class teacher, the other parents, and a student the school was about to punish.
Property, Healthcare, and Official Business
Buying property is another situation where Serbian becomes essential — it’s rare for every party involved to speak English well enough to handle the whole process that way. Agencies usually manage these deals, but even they need you to explain your preferences and options clearly first.
Healthcare is another one. State hospitals and health centers — unlike private clinics — don’t always have English-speaking staff, and in an emergency, there’s no time to wait for a translator.
English tends to fade into the background at meetings and conferences, too, once discussions get heated. People switch to their native language almost automatically, and foreign colleagues lose the thread of what the disagreement was even about.
The same applies to official correspondence with local partners or authorities: small linguistic nuances can leave things ambiguous, or misread entirely.
Life Outside the Expat Bubble
Everyday life outside the expat bubble can get complicated fast, and English alone often isn’t enough. My students have called me more than once, as a friend, to help them out when the plumber or the landlord showed up.
And without the language, any visit to a local community, any encounter with its older members, gets cut short
— you simply can’t hear what they actually think without it. One such moment was when I served as an observer during parliamentary elections, acting as a go-between for national minority representatives and the international institutions monitoring the process. In those situations, it was nearly impossible to get the information we needed using only English.
So Do You Actually Need to Learn Serbian?
The answer depends on your situation — and on your plans for the future. If you intend to live, work, or study in Serbia, knowing Serbian will make your life significantly easier. It’s also a less demanding language than its reputation suggests, as I explain in
Is Serbian Hard to Learn?. If you’re only in Serbia as a tourist or for a short-term stay, an A1/A2 level might be enough.
What Level of Serbian Is Actually Enough?
It depends on which of those situations from the section above actually apply to you. Greeting your neighbours, ordering at the bakery, or handling everyday tasks rarely requires more than A1/A2. Dealing with MUP, schools, healthcare, or your child’s teacher is a different story. That calls for something closer to B1 or above — enough to actually follow a conversation without translating in your head.
If you want to know roughly how many hours that takes at each level, I’ve broken it down by CEFR level in
How Long Does It Take to Learn Serbian?
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are the questions I get asked most often about English and Serbian, side by side.
Can I live in Serbia without speaking Serbian?
Yes, if your stay is temporary. It gets considerably harder if you plan to stay long-term — see the situations above for exactly where and why.
Do young people in Serbia speak English?
Yes, the majority of young Serbians speak English well. Most grew up watching Netflix in English, gaming, and searching online in English — the language became part of daily life outside the classroom, not just a school subject.
Is English enough for business in Serbia?
No — you still have to handle a lot of the administrative and legislative side of doing business in Serbian. Contracts, official correspondence, and dealings with local authorities are where English alone tends to fall short.
Do government offices in Serbia speak English?
Not all of them. It depends partly on whether you’re in a bigger city or elsewhere in Serbia. But even in Belgrade or Novi Sad, there’s no guarantee the official you end up with will speak enough English to get you through.
Ready to Start Learning Serbian?
By now you know where English gets you in Serbia — and exactly where it quietly stops working. If your life here is heading past restaurant menus and into MUP appointments, school meetings, or contracts, that’s precisely the gap
Serbian Lessons for International Professionals closes.
Lessons are available online worldwide and in person in Novi Sad.
