Romanian business bank account comparison 2026

The market you are actually choosing from

The question founders ask is "which is the best Romanian bank for a non-resident company". The honest answer is that there is no single best bank — there is a best fit for a given activity, shareholder nationality, and expected transaction geography. What matters far more than any headline fee is whether a particular bank's compliance function has appetite for your file. That appetite is not published, and it has been moving.

The market itself has narrowed. Two large mergers reshaped the landscape in : Banca Transilvania completed its absorption of OTP Bank Romania in early , taking the OTP brand off the market entirely, and UniCredit Bank Romania completed its merger with Alpha Bank Romania in August to become the country's third-largest banking group. A founder reading a guide written in will find two of the banks it names no longer exist as separate institutions. This piece is the counterpart to our EUR account pillar for non-resident founders; read that first for the dossier mechanics.

Every institution named below is licensed and supervised by the National Bank of Romania (BNR), which maintains the public register of credit institutions. Naming a bank here is a factual description of the market, not a recommendation or a claim of any working relationship. The point of the comparison is to help you narrow the field before you apply, because applying broadly and hoping is the single most expensive mistake a non-resident founder makes — every declined application makes the next one harder, so the choice of where to apply is worth getting right the first time.

The high-street banks and how their appetite differs

Seven names cover the realistic field for a foreign-owned SRL. They differ less on price than on how their AML functions treat a non-resident beneficial owner:

Banca Transilvania — the largest bank by assets after the OTP integration, with the widest branch network and the most developed digital onboarding. Generally the most pragmatic of the large banks on straightforward non-resident files in technology, e-commerce, consulting, and trade.
Banca Comercială Română (BCR) — part of Austria's Erste Group. Large, capable, and process-heavy; non-resident files tend to move slowly rather than being refused outright.
BRD — Groupe Société Générale — majority-owned by France's Société Générale. Conventional corporate banking; comfortable with EU-connected shareholders, more cautious with novel activity profiles.
Raiffeisen Bank Romania — Austrian-owned, with a group risk culture that recognises statements and references from sister banks. A natural fit for relocators from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland who can evidence an origin-bank relationship.
ING Bank Romania — Dutch-owned, strong on multi-currency rails and digital operation, and a comfortable choice for founders arriving from the Netherlands or Belgium. Tight, rules-driven AML.
UniCredit Bank Romania — now the third-largest group after the Alpha Bank merger, with the international-network advantages of an Italian parent for founders operating across several EU markets.
Libra Internet Bank — smaller and digital-first, with a documented appetite for professional, agricultural, and technology clients and a faster process for a genuinely clean dossier. The niche option rather than a universal one.

Two further names sit outside the mainstream shortlist but are worth knowing. CEC Bank is state-owned, with a domestic focus and a conservative stance on foreign shareholders. EximBank is a specialist trade and export-finance institution rather than a general operating bank. Neither is a default choice for a newly formed foreign-owned SRL.

Between two Romanian banks with near-identical price lists, the one whose compliance team has appetite for your activity is the only one that matters.

What actually varies between banks

Founders over-index on fees and under-index on the two variables that decide whether an account opens at all:

Activity appetite. A payments-adjacent, crypto-adjacent, gaming-adjacent, or high-cash business is a different conversation at every bank. The larger the institution's cross-border correspondent exposure, the more conservative it tends to be on anything that could complicate that network.
Shareholder-nationality comfort. Banks calibrate against their group's existing footprint. An Austrian-owned bank is more comfortable with an Austrian relocator; a bank with limited Middle East correspondent relationships will apply heavier scrutiny to a UAE-resident beneficial owner regardless of how clean the file is.

Fees do vary, but within a narrow band by EU standards, and they are secondary to acceptance. We do not publish per-bank fee figures or account-opening times in this guide, because they change frequently, are negotiated at the corporate desk, and depend on the package and balance. Treat any single-number claim — "account X costs €Y a month, opens in Z days" — with suspicion, including from banks' own call centres, until it is confirmed in writing for your specific file. The structural pattern is what generalises: monthly maintenance is modest, opening a business account carries a one-off fee, some banks expect a minimum operating balance and others do not, and multi-currency is standard rather than premium.

A third variable rewards attention: the quality of the corporate relationship. Larger banks assign a relationship manager to a business client, and an English-speaking manager who understands non-resident files can be worth more than a marginally cheaper tariff, because that person shepherds the file through the AML review rather than leaving it to a generic queue. The correspondent-banking dimension matters too — a bank with deep euro correspondent relationships clears cross-border euro flows more smoothly, which is precisely why such banks are also the most conservative on activities that could strain those relationships. Weigh the relationship and the rails, not just the price list.

Why a genuine Romanian IBAN is no longer optional

This is the single most important change for , and most older banking guides predate it. Under Law 239/2025, in force from ANAF January , a company that does not hold a payment account opened in Romania — with a credit institution or the State Treasury — can be declared fiscally inactive by ANAF. Fiscal inactivity is not a paperwork nuisance: an entity that remains inactive and is not reactivated within one year faces dissolution.

The practical consequence is blunt. A foreign-owned SRL cannot be run indefinitely on a foreign EUR IBAN or an e-money wallet alone. It needs a real Romanian payment account to satisfy this test, to settle VAT and other liabilities with ANAF, and to hold the cont curent that Romanian counterparties and the Trade Register (ONRC) expect. This is why the choice of Romanian bank is a formation-stage decision, not something to defer.

None of this overrides EU payment law. Under Article of Regulation (EU) No 260/2012 — the SEPA Regulation — a Romanian counterparty may not refuse a valid EUR SEPA IBAN from another member state purely because it is foreign; so-called IBAN discrimination is unlawful. But that is a rule about accepting inbound and outbound euro transfers, not a substitute for the domestic-account requirement Law / now imposes on the company itself.

EMIs: what they solve and what they do not

Electronic money institutions and payment institutions — Wise, Revolut Business, Payoneer and their peers — are supervised firms and genuinely useful for cross-border collection, currency conversion, and card spend. They are not Romanian banks, and the distinction is legal, not a matter of brand preference:

They cannot, on their own, discharge the Law / requirement for a payment account opened in Romania. A foreign-issued EMI IBAN does not make the company fiscally active in the eyes of ANAF.
They are not the natural home for the capital-deposit step at formation, which Romanian notaries and banks expect to run through a Romanian credit institution.
Their appetite for the same elevated-risk activities that trouble the banks is often narrower, not wider — an EMI that freezes a business account mid-flow is a common and costly failure mode.

The defensible model for most foreign-owned SRLs is a primary Romanian bank account plus an EMI layer for multi-currency collection and treasury convenience — never the EMI alone. Where a founder genuinely cannot obtain a high-street account, the EMI route is covered honestly in our companion guide on opening a Romanian account remotely.

Multi-currency, SEPA, and the instant-payments deadline

Romania uses the leu (RON) and has not adopted the euro, but every licensed bank offers EUR and multi-currency accounts as standard, and all participate in SEPA for euro credit transfers and direct debits. For a services-export or e-commerce SRL invoicing in euro, this is routine rather than a premium feature.

One forward-looking point matters for treasury planning. The Instant Payments Regulation (EU) 2024/886 phases in ten-second euro credit transfers across the EU. Because Romania is a non-euro member state, its banks face later deadlines than the eurozone: January to receive instant euro payments and July to send them, with payment and e-money institutions on a April timeline. Until those dates, expect standard SEPA timing rather than instant settlement on euro flows through Romanian banks.

A decision framework

Work the choice in this order rather than starting from the fee table:

Screen the activity first. If the business touches crypto, gambling, retail forex, high-cash trades, or heavily sanctioned-adjacent geographies, the field narrows to a handful of banks before nationality or price enters the conversation. Our guide on why banks refuse business accounts sets out how those profiles are read.
Match the bank to the shareholder's origin. An Austrian-, German-, or Swiss-connected founder is usually strongest at Raiffeisen; a Dutch- or Belgian-connected one at ING; a founder needing a broad EU network at UniCredit; a straightforward technology or trading SRL at Banca Transilvania; a clean, fast-moving professional file at Libra.
Confirm the Romanian-account requirement is met. Whichever bank you choose, the account must be a genuine Romanian one to satisfy Law /. This is not negotiable and rules the EMI-only approach out for the operating account.
Prepare one strong file and submit once. A rejection can be visible to other banks' screening and makes each subsequent attempt harder. Choosing the right bank for the activity and submitting a complete dossier the first time beats applying broadly and hoping.
Treat fees as a tie-breaker, not a driver. Where two banks both have appetite, price and digital experience decide. Where only one has appetite, price is irrelevant.

Sequencing: capital deposit versus operating account

There are two distinct banking moments in a Romanian formation, and confusing them causes avoidable delay. The share-capital deposit is a formality tied to incorporation. Since Law 223/2020, proof of the paid-up capital no longer has to be filed with the ONRC registration dossier for an SRL — the capital can be deposited after the registration certificate is issued, which decoupled formation from the slower operating-account process.

The operating account is the real banking relationship: the multi-currency cont curent through which the company trades, settles VAT, and satisfies the Law / domestic-account test. It carries the full AML review. In practice the capital-deposit step is quick and mechanical; the operating account is where appetite, dossier quality, and bank choice actually bite.

Note the interaction with the new capital rules. Law / raised the SRL minimum from the old RON remote formation guide to RON for newly formed companies, with RON ,SRL formation guide required for existing SRLs whose prior-year net turnover exceeds RON ,SRL formation guide (a two-year transition to December ). Budget the deposit accordingly; the SRL formation guide and the remote formation guide cover the mechanics.

Frequently asked questions

Which Romanian bank is best for a foreign-owned company?

There is no universal best. The right bank depends on your activity, your shareholder nationality, and your transaction geography. Banca Transilvania suits straightforward technology and trading files, Raiffeisen suits German-speaking relocators, ING suits Dutch and Belgian founders, and Libra suits clean professional files that value speed. Match the bank to the file rather than to a ranking.

Do OTP Bank and Alpha Bank still exist in Romania?

No, not as standalone banks. Banca Transilvania completed its merger with OTP Bank Romania in early , and UniCredit Bank Romania completed its merger with Alpha Bank Romania in August . Any guide naming them as separate options for opening an account is out of date.

Can I run my Romanian company on Wise or Revolut instead of a bank?

Not as the operating account. Under Law /, from January a company without a payment account opened in Romania can be declared fiscally inactive and, if not reactivated within a year, dissolved. EMIs are useful as a multi-currency layer alongside a Romanian bank account, not as a replacement for it.

How much does a Romanian business account cost?

Fees are modest by EU standards but vary by bank, package, and balance, and are often set at the corporate desk. We deliberately avoid quoting single figures, which change frequently and mislead. The structural pattern is a small monthly maintenance fee, a one-off opening fee, sometimes a minimum balance, and multi-currency included as standard.

Does Romania have instant euro payments?

Not universally yet. As a non-euro member state, Romanian banks must be able to receive instant euro payments by January and send them by July under Regulation (EU) /, with payment and e-money institutions on a April timeline. Until then, expect standard SEPA timing on euro transfers.

Can a Romanian company legally refuse my foreign EUR IBAN?

For euro SEPA transfers, no. Article of Regulation (EU) No / prohibits IBAN discrimination, so a valid EUR IBAN from another SEPA country must be accepted. That is separate from your own company needing a Romanian payment account to remain fiscally active under Law /.

Talk to us

Choosing the wrong bank for your activity is the most common reason a Romanian account application stalls. Before any work begins, we screen your activity, shareholder profile, and transaction geography against the realistic shortlist and tell you which bank your file is most likely to clear. Book a call or see the bank account opening service and pricing — the account application is handled end to end as part of formation.

Related guides

EUR bank accounts in Romania for non-resident founders — the pillar: dossier, activity codes, and rejection reasons
Opening a Romanian bank account remotely — what can and cannot be done without travelling
Why Romanian banks refuse business accounts — the AML profiles that narrow your shortlist
Romanian SRL formation: the complete 2026 guide — where the account fits in the formation sequence
100% remote SRL formation — the capital-deposit and operating-account steps

Choosing a Romanian business bank for a foreign-owned SRL