Serbia – Kosovo border and passport stamp

As you may know, even though Kosovo looks like any other country and is recognized by France, it is not officially recognized by the UN or the European Union. And definitely not by neighboring Serbia, which considers Kosovo to be a region that belongs to it!

In any case, between Serbia and Kosovo, there is a border crossing, just like any border between two countries (outside the Schengen area, of course, but we find the absence of borders normal, which is an anomaly everywhere else in the world).

For context, we had planned to travel from Serbia to Kosovo and then return to Serbia to catch a flight from Belgrade.

When researching the entry requirements for Kosovo, two points caught my attention:

• The first concerned Covid. In March 2023, it is still officially mandatory to present a negative PCR test or proof of full vaccination (2 or 3 doses depending on the vaccine). So we dug out our vaccination certificates, but no one asked for them. In any case, during our bus journey from Serbia, it might be different for arrivals by plane.

• The second, which I had not anticipated at all before reading it: if you want to enter Serbia from Kosovo and you have a Kosovo stamp on your passport. Well… you cannot enter Serbia!

As globetrotters since 2016, we are minimalists; we never buy physical souvenirs, but if there is one thing we cherish, it’s the stamps on our passport!

Since it is possible to enter Kosovo and Serbia with a French ID card, the easy solution is to never present your passport.

In our case, we decided to enter Kosovo with our passport (a stamp!).

EDIT April 15, 2023

No difficulty for the reverse journey.

Since we had entered Kosovo with our passport, we presented it again when leaving Kosovo (although there was no exit stamp).

A few meters later, when entering Serbia, we presented our ID card. No issues!