As of 3 April 2018, persons who do not possess the citizenship of the Republic of Serbia but have the citizenship of one of the former republics of the SFRY or SFRY citizenship will have the opportunity to be admitted to the citizenship of the Republic of Serbia under simplified conditions.  The condition prescribed for admission to citizenship (naturalisation) is that the applicant had the permanent residence registered in the territory of Serbia both on 31 December 2016 and at the time of submitting an application. The application deadline is 3 April 2019.

This option was provided by the Law on Amendments to the Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Serbia to ensure easier access to the citizenship of the Republic of Serbia for persons who have had permanent residence and ID cards issued in Serbia for many years, most often even for many decades.  These are mainly elderly people who upon expiry of their old ID cards realised that their ID cards were not permanently valid, and that due to not having the citizenship of the Republic of Serbia they were unable to obtain biometric ID cards.
  
Besides, the Law stipulates that the records on the citizens of the Republic of Serbia will be established in the electronic format at the latest by 30 June 2018, and that it will be possible to issue citizenship certificates to citizens regardless of where the fact of citizenship was recorded in the relevant registries.