Hiring a web studio in Serbia: the contract, payment and IP questions US companies ask
Working with a studio in Serbia is contractually simple when the basics are written down: a services agreement that assigns all intellectual property to you on payment, an NDA if you need one, a clear scope with milestones, and invoicing that matches how you pay vendors. A foreign company typically provides a W-8BEN-E form instead of a W-9, and services performed outside the US are generally not subject to 1099 reporting, but confirm with your accountant. Start with a small, fixed-scope project before committing to anything large.
US companies considering a studio outside the country tend to ask the same questions, usually in the same order. Here are straight answers, including where your own accountant or counsel should have the last word.
Is Serbia a normal place to buy design work from?
Yes. Belgrade has a large, mature tech sector, with offices of international software companies and a deep pool of designers and developers who have worked for clients in the US and Western Europe for years. English is the default working language in the industry.
Pricing sits below US and Western European rates because of cost of living, not because of a different standard of work. The skill to judge is the specific studio, not the country.
Who owns the work?
This is the first thing to get in writing. The services agreement should assign all intellectual property in the deliverables to you once paid: designs, code, copy, source files.
Watch for two things:
- Retained rights. Some contracts let the vendor reuse “general components” or keep ownership of a framework. Make sure your site doesn’t depend on something you don’t own.
- Third-party licenses. Fonts, stock images and plugins remain under their own licenses. A good vendor lists them and buys them in your name where needed.
How do invoicing and taxes usually work?
Typical setup, to confirm with your accountant:
- The vendor invoices as a foreign company, often in euros, paid by international wire. Services like Wise make transfers inexpensive.
- Instead of a W-9, a foreign company provides a W-8BEN-E, which documents its foreign status.
- Services performed entirely outside the US by a foreign company are generally not subject to 1099 reporting or US withholding.
We invoice in euros, by bank transfer, from our European company.
What should an NDA cover?
If you are an agency, the NDA usually covers your client’s identity and materials, and a non-solicitation clause that stops the vendor from approaching your client directly. If you are a direct client, it covers your business information and unreleased plans.
For white label work, anonymity matters as much as confidentiality: the vendor’s name should not appear in code comments, file metadata, commit history or anywhere your client might see.
How do time zones work in practice?
Belgrade is six hours ahead of New York and nine ahead of Los Angeles. For the East Coast, there is a two- to three-hour overlap in your morning for live calls, and work progresses while you sleep. We wrote about the practical rhythm in working with a studio six hours ahead.
How do disputes get handled?
Cross-border litigation is slow and expensive for both sides, so the realistic protection is structural:
- Milestones paid on delivery, not large upfront payments.
- Your accounts and repositories from day one. Domain, hosting, code repository, analytics, all in your name.
- A small first project. A landing page or a single template before a full site.
Set up that way, the most you can lose is one milestone, and you keep everything produced so far.
What to check before you sign
- Live sites in their portfolio that still work and look like the screenshots.
- A reference call with a past client, ideally from your market.
- A written scope with deliverables, revisions and timeline.
- IP assignment and an NDA if needed.
- Who you will actually talk to, and when.
If you are comparing Eastern Europe with offshore or local options more broadly, see nearshore, offshore or local.
Common questions
Who owns the code and design?
You should, and the contract should say so: full assignment of intellectual property to the client on payment, including source files, with no license-back restrictions. We work this way. Third-party components such as fonts or plugins remain under their own licenses, which should be listed.
How do you invoice US clients?
We invoice in euros, by bank transfer, from our European company. Wire transfers from the US are routine, and services like Wise make the conversion inexpensive.
What happens if something goes wrong?
The best protection is structural: milestones paid on delivery, work in your own repositories and accounts from day one, and a small first project. That way you are never more than one milestone exposed, and you always have the work.
