North Macedonia wrote a genuinely quick route for rooftop solar and then bolted it to the network. Article 73 of the Law on Construction takes rooftop photovoltaic plants, underground wells and septic tanks off the building-approval list altogether.
Article 78-v then puts prosumer arrays on a simple notification and closes with a notarised installer’s statement certifying that the plant is connected to the electricity infrastructure. An isolated array has to go the long way round.
Key number
26 Oct 2022
The date article 78-v of the Law on Construction entered into force, creating the notification route for prosumer rooftop arrays. It ends with a notarised installer’s statement, given under full criminal and material liability, confirming among other things that the plant is connected to the electricity infrastructure — which is exactly why the fast route does not fit an isolated system.
Can you legally build and live off-grid here
The gate is the plan rather than the permit. Under article 47 of the Law on Construction the osnoven proekt, the basic design, is drawn on an extract from a detailed urban plan, an out-of-settlement urban plan, a village urban plan, or state or local urban planning documentation. On rural land carrying none of those, the local urban planning documentation has to be produced first, and that is the long pole in a Macedonian project.
Article 73 then lists what needs no building approval at all.
Three items matter to an off-grid buyer: point 13, auxiliary structures serving a dwelling on the same urban parcel, naming a garage up to 50 square metres gross, a store and a septic tank; point 28, rooftop photovoltaic plants and their electricity storage; and point 34, underground wells together with the linear systems serving them.
The well, the tank and the array are outside the approval regime. The house is not.
Source: Law on Construction (North Macedonia), consolidated text May 2025, articles 47 and 73, read August 2026
The sign-off a stand-alone array still needs
Article 78-v, in force since 26 October 2022, sets the prosumer route.
Before installing, the owner files a notification with the local self-government unit, attaching an identity or company-register extract, the property sheet for the building, the owner’s written consent where the building is not theirs, and a basic design containing an architectural design and a design for the electrical installation and equipment.
That design must be drawn by a legal person holding design licence A or B, and revision of the design is expressly not mandatory. Installation is by a legal person holding contractor licence A or B.
The plant is put into use on the strength of a notarised statement by the installer, given under full criminal and material liability, confirming that it matches the basic design, that its capacity is within the limit set by the Energy Law and the renewables rulebook, that it is connected to the electricity infrastructure, and that it may be put into use.
A copy goes to the municipality and to the Energy Agency. That is the whole document trail, and it is written around a grid connection.
Source: Law on Construction (North Macedonia), article 78-v, in force 26 October 2022, read August 2026
The sun you actually get
PVGIS puts a 1 kWp array at optimum tilt — 35 degrees, facing south — at Skopje at 1,345 kWh a year from 1,735 kWh per square metre of in-plane irradiation, which is 4.75 peak sun hours a day on annual average. December delivers 2.35 peak sun hours and 61 kWh for the month, against 6.21 and 139 kWh in June.
For a 10 kWh-a-day house at a 0.75 derate that is about 2.8 kWp sized on the annual average and about 5.7 kWp sized on December. Steepening to 60 degrees raises December to 2.62 peak sun hours for about 7% of the year. Skopje sits in a basin, so mountain sites differ on the horizon term rather than on latitude.
Source: PVGIS 5.3 (PVGIS-SARAH3, 2005–2023), Skopje (42.00N, 21.43E), read August 2026
What a build costs, and what is not published
There is no published North Macedonian cost band for a complete off-grid system, and no way to construct one that would survive contact with a real quote. The domestic market grew quickly after the 2022 prosumer rules, but the prices that exist are for grid-connected rooftop arrays inside that scheme.
What is published is the tariff you would be displacing: €0.1161 per kWh including all taxes in the second half of 2025, second lowest of the nine countries in this set and about 40% of the Europe-27 average of €0.2896. Against that, an island build here is justified by distance from a line.
Source: Eurostat household electricity prices for the second half of 2025, read August 2026
Water and sanitation
Both sit on the same list as the array. Article 73 point 34 takes underground wells, together with the linear systems that serve them, out of the building-approval regime, and point 13 does the same for a septic tank as an auxiliary structure serving a dwelling on the same urban parcel.
That is permissive by regional standards and it is not a free pass. The design for the dwelling those services attach to still has to rest on a plan extract under article 47, so on land with no urban plan the water and sanitation are the easy part and the parcel itself is the problem.
Source: Law on Construction (North Macedonia), article 73 points 13 and 34, and article 47, read August 2026
The catch: the fast route certifies a grid connection
The two provisions do not quite line up. Article 73 point 28 puts rooftop photovoltaic plants outside the building-approval regime whatever they are wired to.
Article 78-v, the route municipalities actually process, is written for consumers-producers who use their output themselves and hand the surplus to the distribution network, and it ends in a notarised installer’s statement asserting that the plant is connected to the electricity infrastructure.
An installer cannot honestly sign that statement about an island system, so an off-grid array either relies on article 73 point 28 alone or goes through the ordinary approval route under article 74. Those are two different answers and municipalities do not all give the same one. Get the municipality’s position in writing before the panels are ordered.
Source: Law on Construction (North Macedonia), article 73 point 28 read against article 78-v paragraphs 5 to 9, read August 2026
Common questions
Do I need a building approval for a rooftop array in North Macedonia?
No. Article 73 of the Law on Construction lists rooftop photovoltaic plants and their electricity storage among the structures for which no building approval is required, along with underground wells and, as auxiliary structures on the same urban parcel, septic tanks and a garage up to 50 square metres. What the array does need is the article 78-v notification route, which is written for prosumers.
Why does the notification route not fit an off-grid system?
Because of how it closes. Article 78-v, in force since 26 October 2022, puts the plant into use on a notarised statement from the installer, given under full criminal and material liability, confirming among other things that the plant is connected to the electricity infrastructure. An installer cannot sign that about an island system, so an off-grid array falls back on article 73 or on the ordinary approval route under article 74.
What about a well and a septic tank?
Both are outside the building-approval regime. Article 73 point 34 covers underground wells with the linear systems serving them, and point 13 covers auxiliary structures serving a dwelling on the same urban parcel, naming the septic tank explicitly. The dwelling they serve still needs its basic design drawn on a plan extract under article 47.
Where these figures come from
- Law on Construction (Закон за градење), consolidated text May 2025 — article 47 basic design and plan extracts, article 73 structures needing no building approval, article 78-v prosumer photovoltaic notification route — read August 2026
- Ministry of Transport and Communications of North Macedonia — construction regulation index — read August 2026
- PVGIS 5.3 / JRC (PVGIS-SARAH3 database, 2005–2023), 1 kWp crystalline-silicon array, 14% system loss, optimum fixed tilt facing south — read August 2026
- Eurostat nrg_pc_204 — household electricity prices, consumption band DC (2,500–4,999 kWh a year), all taxes and levies included, second half of 2025 — read August 2026
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