Why the day count is the weakest test
Ask a founder how Romanian tax residency works and the answer is almost always " days". It is the test people know, the one they can put in a spreadsheet, and the least reliable of the four. Romanian residency is determined by a set of tests under the Codul Fiscal — Law 227/2015 — and the presence count is only one of them. Domicile, a permanent home available in Romania, and the centre of vital interests each stand on their own, and each can make a person Romanian-resident regardless of the day count, or fail to, regardless of it.
The reason the day count disappoints is that it is easy to satisfy and easy to lose on the same facts. A founder can spend days in Romania and still be treated as resident elsewhere because their home, family, and economic life never moved. Another can spend fewer than days and be caught anyway because their centre of vital interests is unambiguously Romanian. Presence is evidence of residency, not a definition of it.
Day-counting is the test you can lose while winning. You hit days and still lose the residency argument because everything that anchors your life stayed at home.
This guide is the analytical companion to our tax residency certificate guide — the certificate only evidences the residency this analysis establishes. For founders relocating a company, the residency determination is the hinge on which the whole restructuring turns.
The four statutory tests
The Codul Fiscal defines a Romanian tax resident in Article and sets the scope of taxation in the personal-income provisions. A natural person is resident if they meet any one of the following:
- They have their domicile (domiciliu) in Romania.
- Their centre of vital interests (centrul intereselor vitale) is located in Romania.
- They are present in Romania for more than days in any period of consecutive months ending in the calendar year concerned.
- They are a Romanian citizen working abroad as an official or civil servant of the Romanian state.
The tests are disjunctive — satisfying one is enough. A person with a Romanian domiciliu is resident even if they spend most of the year abroad; a person whose family, home, and business are in Romania is resident on the centre-of-vital-interests test even below days. The framework mirrors the residency article of the OECD Model Convention, which is deliberate: Romania built its domestic definition to line up with the treaties it has signed, so that the domestic test and the treaty tie-breaker use compatible language.
Two consequences follow. First, you cannot plan residency on the day count alone — the other three tests have to be analysed and, where relocation is the goal, positively satisfied. Second, the tests interact with the scope of Romanian taxation: a person who is resident and has their domicile or centre of vital interests in Romania is taxed on worldwide income, whereas certain residents are taxed only on Romanian-source income until the fuller connection is established.
Domicile
Domicile (domiciliu) is the strongest and most formal of the tests. For Romanian nationals it is the registered domicile recorded on the identity document; for foreign nationals it maps to legal residence established under immigration law. A person with a Romanian domiciliu is Romanian-resident as a matter of course, and Romanian nationals carry a presumption of continuing residency that is not shed simply by leaving — the departure procedure, below, exists precisely because the state does not treat a Romanian's residency as ending the moment they cross the border.
For an inbound founder, domicile is rarely the operative test at the outset — they arrive on a residence permit rather than with a registered domiciliu. It becomes relevant later, as the relocation matures and formal domicile follows the permanent home. The interaction between the residence permit and tax residency is set out in our Schengen accession guide: the permit confers the right to be in Romania; it does not, by itself, make you tax-resident.
Permanent home available
A permanent home available to the taxpayer is the first tie-breaker in the treaties and a practical component of the Romanian analysis. The concept is not ownership — a long-term lease or a contract de comodat satisfies it as readily as a title deed. What matters is that a dwelling is continuously available to the person for their use, arranged and retained for permanent use rather than for a stay of short duration.
The permanent-home test is where relocations are most often quietly undone. A founder who retains a home in the origin country — kept "just in case", available year-round — has a permanent home available there as well as in Romania, and the analysis collapses back into the centre-of-vital-interests test with two homes in play. The clean position is a single permanent home, in Romania, with the origin-country dwelling genuinely given up, let on a long lease to a third party, or otherwise removed from the founder's availability.
Keeping the old house available "just in case" is the most expensive insurance policy in relocation. It reopens the residency question you thought you had closed.
Centre of vital interests
The centre of vital interests is the test that decides the hard cases, and the one founders most underestimate. It asks where the person's personal and economic relations are closest — a factual, cumulative assessment that looks at the whole of a person's life rather than any single connection. ANAF and treaty partners weigh, among other things:
- Family — where the spouse and dependent children live, attend school, and are registered.
- Home — where the settled, permanent dwelling is, as distinct from where the person happens to sleep on a given night.
- Economic activity — where the business is managed, where employment is exercised, where directorships are performed and contracts negotiated and signed.
- Banking and finance — where the operating accounts sit, where income is received, where wealth is administered.
- Social and administrative ties — healthcare registration, social-security affiliation, membership of professional and civic bodies, the country a person treats as home for correspondence.
No single factor decides it. A founder who moves their company to a Romanian SRL but leaves their family, home, and healthcare in the origin country has not moved their centre of vital interests, whatever the day count says. The test rewards a coherent relocation — the home, the family, the business, and the administrative footprint moving together — and punishes a paper transfer. This is exactly the substance bar that foreign authorities apply on the way out, as covered for the Dutch case in our Netherlands BV relocation guide.
The -day presence test
The -day test counts physical presence in Romania across any consecutive months ending in the calendar year concerned — not the calendar year in isolation. This rolling window catches arrivals that straddle a year-end: a founder present from September to the following July can cross days within a -month window even though neither calendar year, taken alone, contains days.
Counting conventions matter and are frequently misapplied:
- Part-days count. A day of arrival and a day of departure each generally count as a day of presence in Romania.
- The window is any consecutive months, assessed on a rolling basis — not a fixed January-to-December period.
- Presence is a question of fact, evidenced by travel records, card and phone data, leases, and utility usage. A founder claiming presence they cannot document is exposed; a founder disclaiming presence the data contradicts is worse off.
Where the -day test is met, the person becomes Romanian-resident and, on the standard analysis, is taxed from the first day of arrival. But meeting the day count does not, by itself, resolve a competing claim from another state — that is what the tie-breakers are for. The day count opens the Romanian residency; it does not close the residency question globally.
The arrival and departure questionnaires
Romanian residency is not self-executing. ANAF operates two questionnaires that formalise entry into and exit from Romanian residency, and filing them correctly is part of making the residency hold.
On arrival
An individual arriving in Romania who intends to stay, or who crosses the -day threshold, files the arrival questionnaire — Chestionar pentru stabilirea rezidenței fiscale a persoanei fizice la sosirea în România — with the competent tax office, generally within days of the relevant threshold. ANAF then reviews the questionnaire and supporting documents and notifies the person within days whether they are subject to full liability on worldwide income or limited liability on Romanian-source income only. Late filing is a contravention carrying a modest fine, but the real exposure is retroactive assessment — ANAF can set the correct liability for the period, with interest and penalties, once the facts are established.
On departure
A resident leaving Romania for a period exceeding days files the departure questionnaire — la plecarea din România — generally days before departure. This is not a formality. Romania does not treat residency as ending merely because a person leaves: a Romanian tax resident who departs for a state with which Romania has no double-taxation treaty can remain subject to Romanian tax on worldwide income for the following three fiscal years unless they establish residency elsewhere and evidence it. For a departing founder, filing the questionnaire and obtaining a foreign residency certificate is how the Romanian liability is brought to a clean close.
Residency has a front door and a back door, and both have paperwork. Walk out without filing the departure questionnaire and Romania may keep taxing you for three more years.
Treaty tie-breakers and dual residency
Because each state applies its own domestic residency tests, two states can both conclude that a person is resident. A founder who has moved to Romania but retained a home and family connections in the origin country can be domestically resident in both at the same time. The domestic tests do not resolve this — the double-taxation treaty does, through a tie-breaker cascade modelled on Article 4(2) of the OECD Model:
- Permanent home — the person is treated as resident in the state where a permanent home is available to them. If a home is available in both, proceed.
- Centre of vital interests — resident where personal and economic relations are closer.
- Habitual abode — if the centre of vital interests cannot be determined, resident where the person habitually stays.
- Nationality — if habitual abode is in both or neither, resident of the state of nationality.
- Mutual agreement — failing all else, the two competent authorities settle it between them.
The cascade is applied in order, stopping at the first test that produces an answer. Its practical lesson is that the day count sits low in the hierarchy — habitual abode only comes into play after the permanent-home and centre-of-vital-interests tests have failed to decide. A founder who has built a genuine single permanent home in Romania and moved their centre of vital interests there wins the tie-breaker at the first or second step and never reaches the day count. A founder relying on presence alone is arguing the weakest rung of the ladder.
Building a residency that holds
The risk the tests are really guarding against is unintentional dual residency — a founder who believes they have relocated, has stopped worrying about the origin country, and is quietly still resident there under its domestic law. The consequences are expensive: worldwide income potentially taxed in two states, treaty relief contingent on winning a tie-breaker the founder has not prepared for, and, in the origin country, exit-tax or continued-liability exposure that a clean departure would have avoided.
A defensible Romanian residency is built, not counted. In practice that means:
- A single permanent home in Romania, on a long lease or title, with the origin-country dwelling genuinely relinquished.
- The centre of vital interests actually moved — family, schooling, healthcare, banking, and the management of the business all pointing to Romania.
- The arrival questionnaire filed, ANAF's full-liability confirmation obtained, and the departure questionnaire filed in the origin country where its rules require one.
- Documented presence that comfortably clears days in the relevant window, as corroboration rather than as the sole argument.
- A home-state residency certificate surrendered or a Romanian one obtained, so that no state is left with an unrebutted domestic claim.
Done in that order, the day count becomes what it should be — the easy part, corroborating a residency that the stronger tests have already established. Done as day-counting alone, it is the part most likely to fail.
Frequently asked questions
Is days in Romania enough to make me tax resident?
Presence of more than days in any consecutive months makes you Romanian-resident under one of the four tests, and you are generally taxed from your first day of arrival. But it does not resolve a competing claim from another state — that is settled by the treaty tie-breaker, where the day count ranks below the permanent-home and centre-of-vital-interests tests.
Can I be tax resident in Romania below days?
Yes. Domicile, a permanent home available in Romania, and the centre of vital interests each make you resident independently of the day count. A founder whose family, home, and business are in Romania can be resident well below days. The tests are disjunctive — meeting any one is sufficient.
What is the centre of vital interests test?
It asks where your personal and economic relations are closest — family location, permanent home, where the business is managed, banking, healthcare, and social ties, assessed cumulatively. No single factor decides it. It is the test that decides hard cases and the one a paper relocation fails, because moving only the company does not move the centre of vital interests.
What happens if I leave Romania without filing the departure questionnaire?
Romania does not treat residency as ending simply because you leave. A resident departing for a state with no double-taxation treaty can remain liable to Romanian tax on worldwide income for the following three fiscal years unless they establish and evidence residency elsewhere. Filing the departure questionnaire and obtaining a foreign residency certificate closes the liability cleanly.
How does dual residency get resolved?
Through the treaty tie-breaker, applied in order: permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality, then mutual agreement between the two authorities. It stops at the first test that gives an answer. The day count only enters at the habitual-abode step, after the stronger tests have failed to decide — which is why presence alone is a weak position.
Do arrival and departure days count towards the ?
Yes. On the standard convention a day of arrival and a day of departure each count as a day of presence in Romania. The window is any consecutive months ending in the calendar year, assessed on a rolling basis rather than a fixed January-to-December period, which catches stays that straddle a year-end.
Talk to us
Getting Romanian residency right is the difference between a relocation that holds and one that unravels at audit two years later. We establish the residency properly — the permanent home, the centre-of-vital-interests evidence, the ANAF questionnaires, and the certificate — and coordinate with your home-jurisdiction counsel on the departure side. See our tax and residency service, review the pricing, and book a discovery call so we can tell you whether your situation gives a clean single residency or a dual-residency problem to solve first.
Related guides
- The Romanian tax residency certificate: how to obtain it — evidencing the residency this analysis establishes
- Moving a Dutch BV to a Romanian SRL — the residency tests applied to a Dutch exit
- Exit taxation from Germany to Romania: the sequenced playbook — the substance bar a foreign authority applies
- Romanian Schengen accession in 2025 for non-EU founders — why a residence permit is not tax residency
- Romanian SRL formation: the complete 2026 guide — the corporate half of a relocation