Montenegro’s New Global Minimum Tax Law

Montenegro has enacted the Law on the Global Minimum Tax on Corporate Profits (Zakon o globalnom minimalnom porezu na dobit pravnih lica). The law was published in the Official Gazette of Montenegro, No. 33/2026, on March 10, 2026 and entered into force on publication.

The Law is Montenegro’s Pillar Two implementation of a domestic top-up tax and does not create separate Montenegro charging provisions for an income inclusion rule or an undertaxed profits rule.

Scope

The scope follows the standard OECD/GloBE architecture. Montenegro applies the regime to constituent entities of multinational enterprise groups and to large domestic groups where consolidated revenue of the ultimate parent reaches at least EUR 750 million in at least two of the four fiscal years immediately preceding the tested year, with proportional adjustment for non-12-month years.

The law also adopts the standard catalogue of excluded entities, including governmental entities, international organisations, non-profits, pension funds, qualifying investment funds and certain holding vehicles. That threshold mirrors Article 1.1 of the GloBE Model Rules, and OECD administrative guidance expressly accepts that a qualified domestic minimum top-up tax may extend beyond cross-border groups to purely domestic groups without losing functional equivalence, so long as the GloBE outcomes are preserved.

A domestic top-up tax, not a full IIR/UTPR enactment

Article 3 fixes the minimum rate at 15%, and Article 5 imposes a domestic top-up tax on in-scope constituent entities located in Montenegro whose effective tax rate falls below that minimum. This is materially aligned with the OECD conception of a Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax (QDMTT): a domestic minimum tax that computes domestic excess profits in a manner equivalent to the GloBE Rules, raises tax on domestic excess profits to the minimum rate, and is implemented consistently with GloBE outcomes without conferring related benefits (however see below for comments on Mandatory deviations required to be a QDMTT). 

Computation

Articles 6 through 19 reproduce the core GloBE computational logic. The regime begins with financial accounting net income or loss and then moves through the familiar adjustments for taxes, excluded dividends, excluded equity gains or losses, revaluation, non-deductible expenses, prior-period corrections, pension items, permanent establishments and covered taxes. Effective tax rate and top-up tax are then computed on a jurisdictional basis; excess profit is net income less the substance-based exclusion; and additional current top-up tax is brought in through later recalculations. The law also contains the expected specialist rules for international shipping income, minority-owned constituent entities, stateless entities, investment entities, and tax-neutral or distribution regimes. Montenegro has therefore not invented a separate domestic minimum-tax methodology; it has substantially translated the OECD computational framework into domestic law.

Filing and payment: close to the GIR model, but more generous on time

The compliance provisions are also close to the OECD design. Article 28 requires a top-up tax information return containing constituent-entity identification data, group structure, jurisdictional effective tax rate and top-up tax data, elections, and other information drawn from the Global Implementation Framework. That tracks the role of the GloBE Information Return. Montenegro also adopts the standard relief from local filing where the return is filed by the ultimate parent or another designated filing entity in a jurisdiction that has a qualifying competent authority agreement with Montenegro; this closely follows the Article 8.1.2 model.

However, Montenegro gives taxpayers 18 months after fiscal year-end to file the information return, and the same 18-month deadline applies to the domestic top-up tax return and payment. By contrast, the OECD commentary describes a 15-month baseline filing deadline for the GloBE Information Return, while the Model Rules extend that to 18 months for the transitional year. Montenegro has therefore opted,  for an 18-month timetable across the board. At the same time, Article 35 leaves important operational detail to future ministry forms and regulations to be issued within one year.

Application of OECD Guidance

There are no aspects of the OECD Administrative Guidance specifically included in the Law. However, Article 36 is a dynamic-reference clause that directs the Montenegrin tax administration to apply the global rule in line with all agreed administrative guidance and clarifications developed within the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework. As such, advisors will need to monitor not only the enacted statute and local secondary rules, but also later OECD materials such as the 2025 Consolidated Commentary, the 2025 GIR package, and the January 2026 Side-by-Side package introducing the Simplified ETR Safe Harbour, the extension of the Transitional CbCR Safe Harbour, the Substance-based Tax Incentive Safe Harbour and the Side-by-Side System.

That same point is important  for safe harbours and qualified status. Article 22 allows Montenegrin top-up tax to be reduced to nil where a qualified international safe-harbour arrangement applies. But whether a domestic minimum tax is recognised as a Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax, and whether the QDMTT Safe Harbour is available, is not decided unilaterally by the state that enacted the law. Under OECD guidance and the central-record mechanism, qualified status and related safe-harbour recognition are mediated through Inclusive Framework processes. The central record also expressly notes that absence from the record does not itself prove a regime is unqualified; it may simply mean the relevant process has not yet been initiated or completed. For Montenegro, enactment is therefore only the first step. Multilateral recognition will matter greatly for the interaction between Montenegro’s domestic top-up tax and foreign IIR/UTPR regimes.

Elections in the OECD Model Rules

A number of the elections included in the OECD Model Rules are provided in the Law, including:

• Excluded Entity Election (Article 2(4));
• Election to use the Realization Method (Article 7(8));
• Consolidation Election (Article 7(14));
• Unclaimed Accrual Election (Article 13(1)(2));
• GloBE Loss Election (Article 14);
• Prior Year Adjustment Election (Article 15(4));
• De minimis Election (Article 20);
• Substance-Based Income Exclusion Election (Article 18(2));
• Tax transparency Election (Article 27); and
• Safe Harbour Elections (Article 22)
• Deemed Disposal of Assets Election (Article 25(6))

The following are not included: