Is smoking allowed in cafés in Belgrade?

Often, yes. Serbia’s 2010 tobacco law bans smoking in enclosed workplaces and public spaces but exempts places serving food and drink. A café of up to 80 m² chooses to be wholly smoking or wholly non-smoking, and larger cafés that allow smoking must keep at least half their tables non-smoking.

How do you tell if a café in Belgrade is smoke-free?

Check the entrance. A café of up to 80 m² must post a sign on its door saying whether smoking is allowed, and in larger cafés that split the room, every table and bar carries a smoking or no-smoking sign. A smoking room, if there is one, serves no food or drink.

Where are the smoke-free cafés in Belgrade?

Dorćol has the most, especially on Gospodar Jevremova, where Valentina i Karanfil, Bloom and june are. Vračar comes next, with Templess on Makenzijeva, Blanca on Politova and the specialty bars 7AM, Koppa and Dusha. Savamala’s Bulevar Vudroa Vilsona has a strip of smoke-free breakfast cafés.

Smoke-Free Cafés in Belgrade: Nepušački Kafići and the Law

Smoking is banned in enclosed workplaces and public spaces in Serbia, but the 2010 law on tobacco smoke makes an exception for places that serve food and drink. A café of up to 80 m² can declare itself wholly smoking or wholly non-smoking, with a sign on the entrance door.¹ A nepušački kafić (non-smoking café) is therefore the owner’s choice.

Dorćol has the most smoke-free cafés, ahead of Vračar and the Terazije streets, and in Dorćol, Skadarlija and Savamala roughly a third or more of cafés keep smoke out of their rooms. Serbia’s health minister called it a disgrace in March 2023 that the country was the only one in the region still allowing smoking in cafés.²

Local tip: Look at the entrance before you sit down: a café of up to 80 m² must post a sign on its door saying whether smoking is allowed inside.¹

Where these cafés are: Dorćol (33), Vračar (25), Terazije & Kralja Milana (16), Skadarlija & Bajloni (12), New Belgrade (12), Knez Mihailova & Kosančićev Venac (10), Savamala (9), Zemun (6), Voždovac (5), Palilula & Tašmajdan (5), Senjak & Dedinje (3), Zvezdara (1).

At a glance

137Cafés listed

107With opening hours

07:00Earliest opening

01:00Latest closing

Opens earliest: 7AM Specialty coffee shop, from 07:00 (Daily 07:00–18:00).

Closes latest: Anticafe Beograd, until 01:00 (Mon–Thu 12:00–00:00 · Fri–Sat 12:00–01:00 · Sun 12:00–00:00).

Most common features: outdoor seating (37%), open late (28%), wi-fi (19%).

The 80 m² rule and smoking rooms

A café larger than 80 m² that still allows smoking must make at least half of its tables, counters and bars non-smoking, grouped together. If the room can’t be split evenly, the larger part goes non-smoking and has to sit by the entrance, and every table and bar carries a sign saying which it is.¹

The other option is a separate smoking room. No food or drink may be served in it, it needs self-closing sliding doors and its own ventilation venting outdoors, and a sign must show how many people it can hold.¹ A café inside a smoke-free building, such as a shopping center, has to ban smoking outright.¹

Attempts at a full ban

The 2009 draft of the law proposed a complete ban, but parliament changed it, and a later draft from the national tobacco-control commission stalled at the Ministry of Health.³ Further attempts in 2015 and 2021 failed for lack of public support and political will, according to Goran Zarić of Oxigen Srbija.²

In March 2023 Health Minister Danica Grujičić said amendments to the law were finished and promised strict fines.² The tobacco-control expert Srmena Krstev argues that after bans elsewhere, more non-smokers started going out.³

Dorćol and Vračar

Gospodar Jevremova in Dorćol has several: Valentina i Karanfil at No. 6, open until 23:00 on Fridays and Saturdays, Bloom at No. 23, and june at No. 25, open daily 09:00–22:00. Black Cat on Braće Baruh serves until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and takes cash only. Gradska Pržionica on Dunavski kej roasts its own coffee and opens 09:00–17:00.⁴

In Vračar, Templess at Makenzijeva 35 opens daily 08:00–21:00, and Blanca, a café-bakery at Politova 12, is open until 20:00. Oat Bar on Lamartinova runs until 22:00, and the specialty bars 7AM, Koppa and Dusha are smoke-free too.

Bookshops, board games and roasters

Some smoke-free cafés sit inside other businesses. The café at Knjižara Akademija, a bookshop at Kneza Mihaila 35, opens daily 09:00–22:00, and Booka store on Cara Lazara and Štrik kafe knjižara on Vlajkovićeva also mix books with coffee. Anticafe Beograd on Svetogorska opens at noon and closes at 01:00 on Fridays and Saturdays; Jonny Deck Board Game & Cafe on Makedonska runs until 23:00.

Kafograf, a few steps from the Jevremovac Botanical Garden on Bulevar despota Stefana, roasts in small batches and opens Monday to Saturday from 07:30.⁵ In Savamala, Bulevar Vudroa Vilsona has a run of them: Eggz at No. 6, Brekky at No. 10, Caffè Chiara and Kakadu at No. 12, and Dolly Bell Cafe at No. 14.

Smoke-free cafés in Belgrade

At a glance

7AM Roasters

7AM Specialty coffee shop

Adore

Ama Vietnamese Coffee

Anticafe Beograd

Artist

Artist Specialty Coffee

Auditoria

Badem

Baristro

BASIC coffee & breakfast

Belgrade Roasting Company

Black Cat

Black Milk

Blanca

Blokić kafe

Bonjour Motherf*ckrs

Booka store

Brekky

Bunny Cafe

ca.ca.fe

Cafeteria Gardoš

Caffe All'angolo

Ciklo Bar

Coffee Pass

Cvet

Delicent

Denada

Dorcol Store

Dreamy Can

Dusha Specialty Coffee

Dusha Specialty Coffee

Efi

Eklektika 40

Evergreen coffee

Filiale

The 80 m² rule and smoking rooms

Attempts at a full ban

Dorćol and Vračar

Bookshops, board games and roasters

Sources

Other ways to browse Belgrade

Specialty coffee

Outdoor seating

Open late

Wi-Fi

Smoke-free cafés in Belgrade: questions

Is smoking allowed in cafés in Belgrade?

How do you tell if a café in Belgrade is smoke-free?

Where are the smoke-free cafés in Belgrade?

Your café deserves better than a pin someone else dropped