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Taxation 6 min read

Cost breakdown: what you actually pay to form a Romanian SRL

The headline price for forming a Romanian SRL is €600 at Incorpore. The all-in cost — state fees, registered address, banking, accounting, optional add-ons — is closer to €1,500–€2,500 in year one. An honest line-by-line breakdown of every fee a founder will see.

By
Incorpore Advisory
Role
Senior Advisor, Incorpore
Published
2 May 2026

The headline price (and what it covers)

Incorpore's three formation tiers, all-in service fees:

  • Essential — €600 (excl. VAT, one-time). Trade Register filing, articles of association, registered address for 12 months, CUI issuance, e-signature coordination.
  • Standard — €900 (incl. VAT, one-time). Everything in Essential plus VAT registration where applicable, EUR bank account application, first-month accounting setup, priority response within 24 hours.
  • Bespoke — from €1,500 (scope-dependent). Complex structures, ASF/ONJN licensing, residency support, multi-jurisdiction restructurings.

The headline price is service fees only. Romanian state fees and third-party costs are charged separately, at cost, and listed in the written quote before any work begins. The lines below set out everything else a founder will see in year one.

State fees at the Trade Register

The ONRC charges fixed statutory fees for incorporation. They are publicly listed and not negotiable. For a standard SRL formation in 2026:

  • Trade Register filing fee — approximately €30.
  • Publication in the Monitorul Oficial (Official Gazette) — approximately €20.
  • Notary fees for specimen signatures and shareholder declarations — approximately €40–€80 depending on number of signatories.
  • Apostille fees in the founder's home country — typically €20–€50 per document, paid to the home-country notary or apostille office, not to ONRC.
  • Translation fees for non-Romanian documents — approximately €30–€80 depending on volume.

Total typical state-fees envelope: €80–€150 for a standard formation. €150–€250 for formations involving non-EU shareholders or unusual document chains.

Registered address — the recurring cost

Every Romanian SRL must have a registered office (sediu social) on Romanian territory. The first 12 months of registered address are included in all three Incorpore formation tiers. After year one:

  • Renewal cost — typically €180–€360 per year depending on the address class (residential vs commercial, central vs peripheral).
  • Mail forwarding is included in most renewal contracts — Romanian-language correspondence from ANAF, ONRC, courts, and banks is scanned and forwarded to the founder weekly.
  • Address upgrade to a commercial-zone address — typically €500–€1,200 per year. Required only for activities where ANAF or sectoral regulators expect a non-residential principal place of business.

Founders usually stay on the included residential class until ANAF or a customer requests otherwise. The upgrade is fast and requires no Trade Register filing.

Banking fees and account minimums

Romanian commercial banks charge competitive but non-zero account fees. For a non-resident-owned SRL with a typical EUR operating account:

  • Banca Transilvania — monthly account fee €8–€12, no minimum balance, no opening fee.
  • Libra Internet Bank — monthly account fee €10–€15, no minimum balance, €50 opening fee for non-residents.
  • Raiffeisen Bank Romania — monthly account fee €12–€18, €500–€1,000 minimum balance typical.
  • ING Bank Romania — monthly account fee €10, no minimum balance, €100 opening fee.
  • Wire transfers — typically €2–€10 per outgoing SEPA, free incoming. SWIFT non-EUR transfers €15–€40.

The all-in banking cost in year one is roughly €100–€250 including monthly fees, opening fees, and a dozen typical SEPA transfers. AML scrutiny is a separate question, covered in the non-resident banking guide.

Accounting and ongoing compliance

Romanian accounting law requires monthly bookkeeping. Mandatory ongoing filings include D112 (monthly social-security and salary report when an employee is on payroll), D300 (monthly or quarterly VAT return), D394 (semi-annual VAT recap statement), and annual financial statements at ANAF.

Realistic ongoing cost from a CECCAR-registered accountant:

  • Microenterprise SRL with no employee — monthly bookkeeping €80–€150. Annual envelope: €1,000–€1,800.
  • Microenterprise SRL with one employee — monthly bookkeeping €140–€220, plus payroll processing. Annual envelope: €1,800–€2,800.
  • Standard CIT SRL above €100K turnover — monthly bookkeeping €220–€380, annual financial statements €400–€800. Annual envelope: €3,000–€5,000.

The first month of accounting setup is included in the Standard formation tier. After that, founders contract directly with the accountant — Incorpore does not bundle ongoing accounting into the formation fee.

Year-2 to year-5 cost projections

The first-year envelope is the easy part to communicate. Founders planning multi-year stays in Romania should model years 2–5 explicitly because the cost profile shifts. The recurring envelope after year one — without any formation fee — depends on whether the SRL has grown beyond the microenterprise threshold (covered here).

Year-2 baseline (microenterprise SRL, one employee, single bank, residential registered address):

  • Registered address renewal€180–€360.
  • Banking fees (BT or Libra typical) — €100–€180 annual.
  • Accounting€1,800–€2,800 annual for one-employee SRL.
  • Annual financial statements filing at ANAF and the Trade Register — typically included by the accountant; otherwise €100–€250 as standalone.
  • Beneficial-ownership refresh under AMLD6 — typically free at the Trade Register; €40–€80 if filed via a service provider.
  • Year-2 envelope: €2,200–€3,700.

Years 3–4 generally track year 2 with modest inflation adjustments (Romanian wages, accountant fees, and state fees rise in the 3–7% range annually). Founders crossing the €100,000 microenterprise threshold during this window see two cost shifts: accounting fees climb to €3,000–€5,000 as the SRL transitions to standard 16% CIT compliance; VAT registration becomes mandatory if not already in place. Bank fees often increase modestly as transaction volume grows. Expect the year-3 envelope to land around €2,400–€4,200 for microenterprise SRLs and €3,500–€6,500 for standard-CIT SRLs.

Year 5 is structurally significant for founders who relocated as part of a residency strategy — eligibility for Romanian permanent residency (covered in the Schengen piece) opens, removing annual permit-renewal fees and simplifying the compliance picture. For pure operating-company founders without residency ambitions, year 5 looks like year 3 plus inflation. Five-year cumulative envelope for a microenterprise SRL: €11,000–€18,000, fully transparent and largely linear.

Hidden costs founders typically underestimate

Across hundreds of formations since 2020, the recurring "we hadn't budgeted for this" line items cluster into five categories:

e-Factura compliance overhead

The Romanian Ministry of Finance e-Factura system has been mandatory for B2B transactions since 1 January 2024. While submitting through e-Factura is free at the state level, the integration cost into the founder's invoicing software is real: SAP, QuickBooks, Xero, and most international accounting platforms do not natively integrate with e-Factura, and the typical workaround is a Romanian middleware service charging €20–€60/month. Founders running 5–50 invoices per month rarely budget this upfront; founders running higher volumes need a more substantial integration costing €500–€1,500 as a one-time setup.

Translation costs that recur

The first-month translation envelope (apostilled passport, articles of association, registered-address documentation) is anticipated. What founders miss is the recurring translation cost for ongoing compliance: every director declaration filed at ONRC, every shareholder resolution that requires Trade Register filing, and any bank-required document drafted in a non-Romanian language adds €30–€100 per filing. Across the first three years, this typically totals €200–€600 that did not appear in the initial quote.

CAS/CASS adjustments on dividends

The Personal income tax piece covers the rules in detail, but the cost surprise for many founders is the CASS (health contribution) on dividends above the 6-minimum-wage threshold. For an owner-manager taking €50,000–€80,000 in dividends, this typically adds €1,500–€2,000 per year of personal tax that was not in the headline 8%-dividend-tax projection. CASS is capped at the 24-minimum-wage ceiling (~€1,800 cap), so the ceiling is reached quickly — but it is a real out-of-pocket cost for the first ~€18,000 of dividends above the threshold.

Sectoral inspections and compliance audits

SRLs in regulated activities — e-commerce above certain thresholds, healthcare-adjacent services, financial services under ASF supervision — are subject to periodic compliance inspections. The state inspection itself is free; the legal/accounting time to prepare for and respond to inspections is not. Budget €300–€800 per inspection-prep cycle for SRLs in lightly regulated sectors and €1,500–€5,000 for SRLs in actively regulated sectors. Most founders see one such cycle per year by year 3.

Currency-conversion and SEPA-Instant fees

Banca Transilvania, Raiffeisen, ING and the other Romanian banks publish standard SEPA fees, but non-EUR transfers and FX conversions carry margins of 0.4–1.2% that are easy to miss in the headline pricing. For founders invoicing primarily in USD or GBP rather than EUR, the annual FX overhead can run 1.5–4% of revenue — a real cost line that the non-resident banking guide covers in more detail.

The €600 service fee is the easy line item to communicate. The other €1,400–€2,200 in year-one cost is what we walk founders through during the discovery call.

Optional add-ons

The most common scoped add-ons in 2026:

  • VAT registration — included in the Standard tier; €150 as an add-on to Essential.
  • Bank account application at additional banks beyond the primary — €200–€400 per additional bank.
  • Residence permit support€800–€1,500 depending on jurisdiction and route.
  • ANAF liaison and tax registration filings€100–€300 for non-standard registrations (e.g. e-Factura early adopter, Intrastat, special VAT schemes).
  • Apostille and translation services done by Incorpore on the founder's behalf — €40–€100 per document, plus the underlying state fees at cost.
  • Sectoral licensing scope (ASF, ONJN, BNR) — quoted separately, from €1,500.

The all-in cost for a typical non-resident founder forming a microenterprise SRL with one bank account, one employee, and one year of accounting: €2,000–€2,800 in year one. €1,400–€2,200 in subsequent years (no formation fee, just registered-address renewal, banking, and accounting).

Frequently asked questions

Are state fees included in the €600 Essential price?

No. The €600 is a service fee — Romanian state fees, notary fees, and apostille costs are charged separately at cost and listed line-by-line in the written quote. State fees typically run €80–€150 for a standard formation and are paid to ONRC, the notary, and the home-country apostille office, not to Incorpore.

How much does the registered address cost annually after year one?

Typically €180–€360 per year for a residential-class address, including weekly mail forwarding. Commercial-zone addresses run €500–€1,200 per year and are required only where ANAF or sectoral regulators expect a non-residential principal place of business — most founders never need the upgrade.

What does monthly accounting cost in 2026?

For a microenterprise SRL with no employee: €80–€150 per month. With one employee on payroll: €140–€220. For SRLs above the €100,000 threshold paying standard 16% CIT: €220–€380. Annual envelopes typically run €1,000–€5,000 depending on size and complexity.

Is there a minimum balance requirement at Romanian banks?

Banca Transilvania, Libra, and ING have no minimum balance for non-resident-owned SRLs. Raiffeisen typically expects €500–€1,000 maintained. None of the six main banks require pre-funding before account opening — capital deposit goes into a separate temporary account that converts to the operating account post-formation.

Can I get a refund if formation fails at the Trade Register?

Yes for service fees, prorated against work completed. Romanian state fees and third-party notary/apostille fees already paid are non-refundable, as they are charged by ONRC and the notary, not by Incorpore. Failure rates on clean dossiers we file are below 5%; the most common rejection reason — mismatched apostilled translations — is recoverable in 3–7 working days, not a hard failure.

Does the price change for non-EU shareholders?

The service fee is the same. The third-party costs go up modestly — apostille and translation costs scale with document chains, and AML diligence at the bank typically requires an additional document or two. Realistic delta for a non-EU founder vs an EU founder: €100–€250 in additional state and translation costs. Banking AML expectations are detailed in the non-resident banking guide.

Talk to us

Pricing is fixed in writing before any work begins. No scope creep, no hidden fees, no surprises mid-formation. We will scope the right tier (Essential €600, Standard €900, or Bespoke from €1,500) against your situation, list every state fee and third-party cost line by line, and confirm the all-in envelope on the discovery call. Book a 30-minute call — and see the pricing page for tier details.

Related guides

References

Published 2 May 2026

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