Specialised Expo 2027 Belgrade has a fixed date: 15 May to 15 August 2027, 93 days, under the theme "Play for Humanity: Sport and Music for All". The date is certain. What it means for your hotel, restaurant or shop is not, and nobody can promise you that.
Search for "EXPO 2027 suppliers" and you get tenders, contractor lists and partnership pages mixed together. They answer three different questions. Work out which one is yours first, because the rules and deadlines are different.
Three readers, three routes
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| Who you are | What you need | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| A company that wants to sell to the organiser | A public call, a bid, a contract | The Serbian Public Procurement Portal and the organiser's supplier registration |
| A company that wants to sell EXPO souvenirs | The right to use the logo and mascots | Written authorisation from the organiser only |
| A hotel, restaurant, apartment owner or shop | Goods for your own premises or shelves by early May | This guide, from the backward plan onwards |
Selling to the organiser
The organiser, EXPO 2027 d.o.o., buys through public procedures. The Serbian Public Procurement Portal has a separate list for EXPO: jnportal.ujn.gov.rs/postupci-svi-expo. Each procedure page shows the bid deadline and the status. The portal is in Serbian and the list changes, so check it regularly.
Several large procurements are already closed:
- Exhibition pavilions: bids for designing, building and maintaining eight clusters of collective pavilions and 13 individual pavilions were due by 3 July 2026.
- Branded products: procedure 16/26, covering procurement, transport, logistics and distribution of Expo 2027 Belgrade branded products, closed for bids on 27 April 2026 at 10:00.
- Uniforms for staff and volunteers: the organiser announced on 7 August 2026 that the framework agreement was awarded to a group of bidders made up of LUSS TEXTILE DOO Draganići and Modni atelje Biljana Tipsarević d.o.o.
On 17 September 2026 the organiser and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia launched a business platform to connect domestic companies with the international participants. The announcement says entrepreneurs and companies from Serbia can register via the official website and present their products, services and capacities. Separately, the organiser runs a company registration page at supplier.expobelgrade2027.org/register, which says an administrator reviews each registration. If you are based outside Serbia, ask the organiser before assuming you can register. Registering is not an order.
The partner and sponsor invitation is a third, separate route. The organiser states that it "shall not constitute a public call" under Serbian procurement law.
If you win a contract and part of the goods come from China, the dates in your contract matter more than the opening day. The handover of pavilion keys to international participants, for example, is planned by 1 December 2026.
Official merchandise and anything with the EXPO logo
Official products are already on sale. The first pop-up shop opened on 18 September 2026 in Knez Mihailova Street in Belgrade, followed by Niš on 23 September and Novi Sad on 25 September. The organiser lists more than 200 products, including the mascots Rastko and Milica.
The organiser's website does not list a public licensing programme open to applications. Do not order goods with the EXPO logo, mascots or name from a Chinese factory without written authorisation from the organiser. A factory may well make them, but paying the factory does not give you the right to sell them.
Products about sport, music or Belgrade under your own brand are a different matter.
Hotels, restaurants, apartments and shops: what EXPO actually means for you
On its About page the organiser expects more than four million visitors from Serbia and abroad. That is the organiser's forecast. The Participants page says 140+ international participants have confirmed (as shown on 3 October 2026). The organiser has also said that the hospitality sector is building, expanding and refurbishing ahead of the event.
For your purchasing, this means:
- Plan to your own date. If you are refitting rooms, opening a venue or stocking a shop, set the day the goods must be usable on site. For the EXPO season that is realistically early May 2027, not 15 May.
- Do not buy speculative stock on a forecast. Order what you will also use after the summer.
- The tax relief is probably not for you. The Serbian VAT and excise exemption in Official Gazette 14/2026 is for exhibition participants, not for a hotel or shop expecting more guests. Ask your forwarder or tax adviser about your own case.
Typical China orders for projects like this: tableware and kitchen items, room textiles, decor, lighting, takeaway packaging, shelving and small fittings. See home goods from China, LED lighting and electrical goods and packaging and plastics.
Work back from early May 2027
The hard constraint in this plan is Chinese New Year. Lunar New Year's Day is 6 February 2027. China's official 2027 holiday schedule had not been published by 3 October 2026. In its guide to the 2026 holiday, the carrier Maersk says factories typically reduce output two to three weeks before the holiday and may not resume full capacity until mid-March. If your goods are not finished before the holiday, expect to wait until after it.
Then the arithmetic. Take 75 days from 1 May and you land on 15 February. Take 90 days and you land on 31 January. That period starts once the goods are ready in China. Production comes before it, and installation and the on-site check come after it. So the goods need to be finished in China before the holiday.
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| When | What you do |
|---|---|
| October 2026 | List of items, quantities, room or shelf measurements, target price per item. The date the goods must be on site. |
| November 2026 | Factory offers, samples, supplier checks. If you are choosing many small items, a Yiwu trip after 8 October or in November. |
| December 2026 | Samples approved, specification signed, order placed with an agreed completion date. |
| January 2027 | Production finished, goods checked with a photo and video report, loaded before the holiday. |
| February to April 2027 | Goods in transit. Chinese New Year falls on 6 February. |
| April 2027 | Arrival at the customs warehouse, clearance by your forwarder, delivery, installation and a check on site. |
| Early May 2027 | Goods in use. |
Once the goods are ready in China, allow 60 to 75 days via Suez or 70 to 90 days around Africa. Transit times are approximate. We confirm the exact time and route for each shipment, based on the current situation on the sea lanes. Production comes before this period, and the factory gives the production time for your product.
For how the holiday affects factories and ports, read Chinese New Year 2027 shipping. For the transport leg itself, see China to Balkans transit times.
Avoid buying trips around Chinese New Year and from 1 to 8 October for China's National Day holiday (Golden Week). Plan production and shipping around both holidays. In 2026 that means the first good window for a trip to Yiwu opens after 8 October.
Finding the goods: sourcing agent or Yiwu trip
Remote sourcing suits specific products with clear specifications, say 200 identical terrace chairs or 5,000 identical mugs. Factory offers for that product are collected and compared. The service is described on the China sourcing agent page.
If you are fitting out a whole venue and choosing 100 different small items, come on the Yiwu buying trip. You get a personal market agent and order from several suppliers, and we record the supplier, product, quantity, price and specification of every item. You approve one consolidated order file before shipment. We collect the goods in our Yiwu warehouse and check quantity, condition and specifications against the order. Items not found in the market are sourced across China.
In our warehouse in China we collect and check the goods, which matters when you buy from several suppliers. We document every goods check with photos and video. More on the quality checks and our warehouse page. Before the first payment, read how to pay a Chinese supplier safely.
Route to Belgrade and customs
Serbia port options include Thessaloniki, Bar and Piraeus. The direct truck leg from Thessaloniki to Belgrade follows Corridor X past Skopje, without a Skopje stop, unloading, storage, consolidation or clearance. The route is covered in more detail in shipping from China to Serbia.
We deliver to the customs warehouse and prepare export documents and documents needed for clearance. Your own or a recommended forwarder handles clearance, duty and VAT. Many clients already have their own forwarder. Ask your forwarder about duty and VAT before you order. For smaller volumes, compare LCL and FCL.
What to send us
- the opening date, or the day the goods must be on site;
- the item list with quantities, plus photos, measurements or links where you have them;
- whether you already have a supplier or need us to find one;
- the delivery city and whether you have your own forwarder;
- an approximate volume if you know it. Work it out with the CBM calculator.
Next step
Send your opening date and item list through the contact form. With that we can check together whether early May is realistic and what has to be settled before Chinese New Year. If you only need a factory found for one product, start with the China sourcing agent service.
This guide is not published by the EXPO 2027 organiser. It is written for businesses importing their own goods from China.
