Romanian VAT registration 2026: thresholds and rates

When registration becomes mandatory

Romanian VAT is governed by Title VII of Law 227/2015 — the Codul Fiscal — which transposes the EU VAT Directive 2006/112/EC. A resident SRL operates under the special exemption regime for small undertakings in Article until its turnover crosses the registration threshold. Below that line, the company charges no VAT, reclaims no input VAT, and files no VAT return.

The threshold is RON ,ANAF, raised from RON ,ANAF on September . Registration is triggered the moment cumulative turnover in a calendar year reaches or exceeds that figure. Under Article (), the company must request registration no later than the date the threshold is crossed, and the standard taxation regime applies from the transaction that breaches it — not from the date ANAF issues its decision. There is no grace band: the invoice that tips turnover over RON ,ANAF is itself a taxable, VAT-bearing supply.

This matters for cash flow and pricing. A founder who invoices to the threshold without registering does not escape the liability — ANAF assesses the VAT retrospectively on supplies made after the breach, whether or not it was charged to the customer. Registration is by declaration, filed on form through the Spațiul Privat Virtual (SPV), and the resulting cod de TVA is the domestic VAT identification number.

The invoice that breaches RON , is not the last exempt supply. It is the first taxable one.

Non-resident businesses face a different rule entirely: there is no registration threshold for a company without a Romanian establishment making taxable supplies here. The RON , line is a resident concession, not a universal exemption. A foreign-owned SRL is a Romanian resident and enjoys it; the foreign parent making direct supplies into Romania does not.

Why the threshold is set in RON

The registration threshold is fixed in lei, not euro. This is a deliberate change of character. The old EUR , figure floated with the exchange rate; the current RON , is a hard nominal number that only moves when Parliament moves it. For a founder modelling the point of registration, this removes currency drift from the calculation but introduces a different risk — the threshold does not rise with inflation, so real turnover headroom shrinks each year until the next statutory revision.

Do not confuse the RON ,the 1% microenterprise rate registration threshold with the separate EUR ,the 1% microenterprise rate turnover ceiling that governs microenterprise eligibility, or with the EUR ,the 1% microenterprise rate distance-selling threshold for cross-border BC. These are three different numbers, in two different currencies, doing three different jobs. Conflating them is the most common modelling error we see in founder spreadsheets. The registration threshold is a VAT concept; the EUR ,the 1% microenterprise rate ceiling is a corporate-income-tax concept, covered in our note on the 1% microenterprise rate.

One practical consequence: because the threshold is a fixed leu figure, the conversion a non-resident founder does in their head — "roughly EUR ,BNR" — will drift as the BNR reference rate moves. Always model the leu number. At an indicative RON/EUR of about ., RON ,BNR is close to EUR ,BNR, but the euro figure is display-only and never the operative test.

The % and % rate structure

The rate architecture changed fundamentally on August under Law 141/2025. The standard rate rose from % to %. The two former reduced rates of % and % were collapsed into a single reduced rate of %. The old three-tier structure — % / % / % — no longer exists. Any pricing model, invoicing template, or accounting mapping built before August is wrong and must be re-based.

The % reduced rate now covers most of what previously sat at %: food for human and animal consumption (with carve-outs for products with added sugar of at least g per g, and for alcoholic and certain non-alcoholic beverages), medicines, hotel and short-stay accommodation, and restaurant and catering services excluding alcohol. Books with a valid ISBN, ISMN, or ISSN and not principally advertising also fall in the % band. The detail sits in Law 141/2025 and the implementing norms in HG /.

Everything else is %. Note the housing transition: certain residential deliveries retained a legacy % treatment on a temporary basis, but the direction of travel is unambiguous — the reduced categories are narrowing, not widening. When you assign a VAT rate to a supply, verify the current category against the statute rather than institutional memory. A supply taxed at % in July may be at % or % today, and the % / % / % structure is dead — every rate mapping predating August is a liability until re-based.

Voluntary registration and the input-VAT case

Registration below the threshold is available on request. Voluntary registration makes sense where the company incurs material input VAT it would rather reclaim than absorb. A business buying equipment, software, professional services, or stock at % but selling to VAT-registered customers — domestic or intra-EU — generally benefits: it recovers input VAT immediately and its customers reclaim the output VAT charged, so the tax is neutral through the chain.

The calculation inverts for BC sellers below the threshold. If your customers are consumers who cannot reclaim, registering adds % to your prices or % to your margin. Here the exemption regime is the advantage, and voluntary registration destroys it. The decision is therefore a function of who your customers are, not of turnover.

Register voluntarily where you sell BB, incur significant input VAT, or need a VAT number to invoice EU business customers cleanly.
Stay exempt where you sell BC below the threshold and input VAT is modest — the exemption is a genuine pricing edge.
Watch the pre-registration capex — input VAT on assets bought before registration can sometimes be adjusted into the regime, but the rules are narrow. Time large purchases with the registration date in mind.

Voluntary registration also carries an obligation cost: once registered, the full VAT compliance apparatus applies — periodic returns, the D decont, the D informative declaration, and RO e-Factura discipline. Registration is not a switch you flick for one transaction and forget.

The cod de TVA versus the intra-community number

This is the single most misunderstood point in Romanian VAT, and it costs founders real money in blocked EU invoicing. A Romanian company can hold a valid domestic cod de TVA under Article and still not have a VAT number valid for intra-community trade in VIES. The two are related but not identical, and the distinction turns on how the company registered.

A company registered normally under Article — because it crossed the threshold or opted in — receives a cod de TVA that, since the abolition of the Registrul Operatorilor Intracomunitari on January by OUG 84/2016, is valid in VIES by default. The separate registration in the operators' register that used to gate intra-community trade no longer exists; a normally registered VAT number is automatically live in VIES.

The trap sits with the special registration under Article 317. A company below the domestic threshold that makes intra-community acquisitions, or receives services from EU suppliers, must obtain a special VAT code for those transactions. That code lets it account for reverse-charge VAT and validate in VIES for the specific operations — but it does not make the company a normally registered VAT payer. It cannot use that code to charge domestic VAT, and it does not confer full recovery rights. A founder who sees "valid in VIES" and assumes full VAT registration has misread their own status.

A valid domestic cod de TVA and a VIES-active number are not the same registration. Confirm which one you actually hold before invoicing an EU business.

The practical test before you issue a cross-border BB invoice: check both parties' numbers in VIES. If your Romanian number does not validate there, your EU customer cannot apply the reverse charge, and the transaction breaks — they will refuse the invoice or demand local VAT. Establish your VIES status at registration, not at the first EU sale.

OSS for BC digital supplies

Selling digital services, or goods at a distance, to consumers in other EU member states engages a different regime again. Once cross-border BC supplies exceed the EUR ,ANAF annual threshold, the place of supply shifts to the customer's member state and local VAT is due there. Rather than register in every country, a Romanian SRL uses the One Stop Shop (OSS), administered through ANAF, to declare and remit that VAT via a single quarterly return.

Union scheme — for intra-EU BC supplies of services and distance sales of goods dispatched from Romania.
Non-Union scheme — for certain services supplied by operators without an EU establishment.
Import scheme (IOSS) — for distance sales of imported goods with a consignment value up to EUR .

One structural constraint catches small sellers: a company below the RON , threshold with no domestic VAT code cannot register for OSS, because OSS is built on an existing Romanian VAT identity. A micro-scale digital seller who crosses the EUR , distance-selling line but sits below the domestic registration threshold must therefore register for VAT first. Model the EUR , line and the RON , line together, not separately.

Filing frequency and returns

The default VAT period is the calendar month. A registered company can file quarterly only if its prior-year turnover was below the leu equivalent of EUR , and it made no intra-community acquisitions of goods in the period. The moment it makes a single intra-community acquisition — of any value — the period switches to monthly, and a form notification is due within five working days of the month-end in which the acquisition became chargeable. The fiscal period is set at the start of the year and does not change mid-year except on that acquisition trigger.

The core return is the D decont de TVA, due by the th of the month following the period. Alongside it, VAT payers file the D informative declaration of domestic transactions and, where they trade intra-EU, the D recapitulative statement (VIES declaration). Add RO e-Factura submission for every invoice and, for larger files, the D (SAF-T) — the compliance load of a VAT-registered SRL is materially heavier than that of an exempt one, and is best mapped before you register. The full calendar sits in our guide to SRL accounting obligations.

VAT and the microenterprise regime

Founders routinely assume that registering for VAT ejects a company from the % microenterprise regime. It does not. The two regimes are independent. VAT is a transaction tax on turnover; the microenterprise regime is a corporate-income-tax treatment under Title III of Law 227/2015. A company can be VAT-registered and still pay % CIT on turnover, provided it meets the microenterprise conditions.

Those conditions are separate: turnover below EUR ,the 1% microenterprise rate, at least one full-time employee as an eligibility condition (not a rate selector — a company without one falls to % CIT, it does not pay a higher micro rate), and an activity not on the Article exclusion list. Note that consultancy and management are no longer excluded — the old %-of-revenue cap was repealed with effect from CAEN codes and tax regime January by GO /. Crossing the RON ,the 1% microenterprise rate VAT threshold has no bearing on any of this. The mechanics are set out in the 1% microenterprise rate and in our note on CAEN codes and tax regime.

VAT registration and microenterprise status live in different parts of the code. One does not switch off the other.

Frequently asked questions

What is the VAT registration threshold in Romania for ?

The threshold is RON ,, raised from RON , on September . It is set in lei, not euro. A resident SRL must request registration no later than the date cumulative annual turnover reaches or exceeds that figure, and the standard VAT regime applies from the transaction that breaches it. Non-resident businesses making taxable supplies in Romania have no threshold at all.

What are the current Romanian VAT rates?

Since August , the standard rate is % and there is a single reduced rate of %. The former % and % reduced rates were merged into %, and the old % standard rate no longer applies. The % band covers most food, medicines, accommodation, restaurant and catering services, and qualifying books. Everything else is taxed at %.

Can a Romanian VAT number be invalid in VIES?

Yes. A company registered normally under Article has a number valid in VIES by default since the operators’ register was abolished in . But a company registered specially under Article — because it is below the threshold yet makes intra-community acquisitions — holds a code valid only for those operations. Always check both parties in VIES before issuing a cross-border BB invoice.

Does registering for VAT end my % microenterprise status?

No. VAT registration and the microenterprise regime are independent. VAT is a turnover transaction tax; the % regime is a corporate-income-tax treatment. A company can be VAT-registered and still pay % on turnover, provided it stays below EUR ,, keeps at least one full-time employee, and is not on the Article exclusion list.

Should I register for VAT voluntarily?

It depends on your customers. If you sell BB, incur significant input VAT, or need a clean VAT number to invoice EU businesses, voluntary registration is usually beneficial because the tax stays neutral through the chain. If you sell BC below the threshold and input VAT is modest, staying exempt is a genuine pricing advantage — registering would add % to your prices or your margin.

When do I have to file monthly rather than quarterly VAT returns?

Quarterly filing is available only if prior-year turnover was below the leu equivalent of EUR , and you made no intra-community acquisitions of goods. A single intra-community acquisition of any value switches you to monthly filing, with a form notification due within five working days of the relevant month-end. Otherwise the default period is the calendar month, with the D due by the th.

Talk to us

VAT registration timing, the VIES distinction, and OSS all reward getting the structure right before the first cross-border invoice, not after ANAF raises a query. We advise founders on when to register, how to keep microenterprise status intact, and how to set up invoicing that validates cleanly across the EU. Talk to us about your situation, or review our pricing for formation and ongoing compliance support.

Related guides

RO e-Factura: mandatory electronic invoicing — the invoicing system every VAT-registered SRL must use
SRL accounting obligations and the filing calendar — where the D, D and D sit in the year
The 1% microenterprise rate — why VAT registration leaves it untouched
CAEN codes and tax regime — how activity codes drive VAT and micro eligibility
Romanian SRL formation: the complete 2026 guide — the pillar that frames the whole compliance picture

Romanian VAT registration in 2026: thresholds, rates, and the VIES trap