Working with a software team in Bosnia and Herzegovina: what to check

I have worked remotely from Sarajevo since 2020, for clients in the US, Germany, Sweden and West Africa. Before work starts, a company hiring a team in another country has questions that aren't about code: which hours the team works, which law the contract follows, who owns the work, what happens to personal data and how invoices get paid.

This is the list I would want if I were on the other side, with the source for each point. It has no prices in it, because prices depend on the team and say little about the country. It isn't legal advice either: where a point is about law, have your lawyer read the contract.

Sarajevo keeps the same time as Berlin all year. Bosnia and Herzegovina uses CET in winter and CEST in summer, and changes the clocks on the EU dates.

For a working day of 9 to 18 in Sarajevo, the overlap with a client's 9-to-18 day is:

The US changes its clocks a few weeks earlier in spring and a week later in autumn, so for two to three weeks in March and one week around the start of November the gap with the US is an hour smaller.

What to check: which hours the team actually works, and whether it moves them. We count our four hours with New York as 8 to 12 there, and when a project needs it we work on the client's hours, for either US coast.

Bosnia and Herzegovina still applies the 1982 act on conflict of laws, and under it the parties to a contract can choose the governing law. Without a choice, a contract for services falls under the law of the contractor's seat, which here means Bosnian law.

A foreign court judgment is recognised in Bosnia and Herzegovina only where there is reciprocity. Arbitration avoids that question: the country is a party to the New York Convention, so an award made in another member country is enforced under it.

What to check: the governing law and the place for disputes are written into the contract, not left to the default.

Under the Bosnian copyright law, when a program is written under a contract for a commissioned work, its economic rights pass to the client unless the contract says otherwise. Transfers of rights have to be in writing, and moral rights, such as being named as the author, stay with the people who wrote it and cannot be transferred.

What to check: the contract assigns the code and the rights to use, change, sell and sublicense it to you, in writing. Where the work is done by a company, it should also state that the rights of its employees and subcontractors have passed to the company first.

Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted a new personal data protection law in 2025, written to align with the GDPR. It has applied since October 2025, and businesses already processing data have until early 2027 to comply.

The country has no EU adequacy decision, so for an EU company, giving a contractor in Sarajevo access to personal data is a transfer under Chapter V of the GDPR. The usual tool is the EU's standard contractual clauses (module 2 when the contractor processes data on your behalf), together with a transfer impact assessment.

What to check: whether the team needs personal data at all. Most development work doesn't, and a team that works without production data has nothing to transfer. Where it does need it, sign the clauses before access is given.

Invoices in euros or US dollars are normal, and business accounts in foreign currency are a standard bank product. The local currency, the convertible mark, has been fixed to the euro by law since 2001.

For consulting, engineering and data processing services, and for licensing software, supplied to a customer based outside the country, Bosnian VAT law puts the place of supply where the customer is. The invoice carries no Bosnian VAT, and a client in the EU accounts for VAT itself under the reverse charge.

Payments arrive as international SWIFT transfers. Bosnia and Herzegovina is not in SEPA yet: its central bank applied in August 2026, and the first SEPA payments can come no earlier than six months after admission.

What to check: the invoice states the service clearly enough to show where it is taxed, and you know which bank details to pay to.

In the EF English Proficiency Index for 2025, Bosnia and Herzegovina ranks 21st of 123 countries, in the "high proficiency" band, which is about level B2. The index is built from people who chose to take the test, so it describes them better than it describes everyone.

What to check: talk to the people who will do the work, not only to whoever sells it.

There is no single national holiday law. Each of the two entities sets its own. Sarajevo is in the Federation, where the non-working days are 1 and 2 January, 1 March, 1 and 2 May and 25 November. Religious holidays are taken individually, up to four days a year per person, so a team doesn't close on them as a whole. Republika Srpska has a different list.

What to check: ask for the team's holiday calendar at the start, the same way you would for a team in another EU country.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has been an EU candidate since December 2022, and in March 2024 the European Council decided to open accession negotiations. The negotiations have not formally started. EU law therefore doesn't apply in the country, which is why the contract and data points above matter.

I can't give you a reliable number. Figures between 8,500 and 20,000 software developers circulate, and I couldn't trace any of them to a primary source. The statistics agency counts about 30,000 people employed in information and communication, but that section also includes telecoms, publishing and broadcasting.

What to check: don't choose a country by its headcount. Check the team you would actually work with: who will write your code, what they have built before, and whether you can speak to someone they built it for.

For how we work with teams in the US and Europe, see nearshore software development from Sarajevo.

• Time: EU Directive 2000/84/EC on summer time, US 15 U.S.C. §260a
• Copyright: Law on Copyright and Related Rights, Articles 79, 80 and 103
• Personal data: Law on Personal Data Protection (Official Gazette of BiH 12/25), EU adequacy decisions, EU standard contractual clauses
• Contracts: New York Convention status
• VAT: Law on VAT, Article 15
• Currency and payments: Central Bank of BiH, SEPA application, August 2026
• English: EF English Proficiency Index
• Holidays: Federation non-working days, 2026
• EU status: EEAS key dates
• Employment: Agency for Statistics of BiH, June 2026