Accounting guide for Romanian companies and sole traders

This guide covers the day-to-day accounting and tax obligations of a Romanian company or sole trader: which registers to keep, which returns are due and when, which VAT rates apply from 2026, and what changes when you hire your first employee.

The figures are those in force in 2026 and were verified against the statutes rather than lifted from articles. Several changed recently and still circulate in their old form: the VAT rates, the exemption threshold, the registration deadline on crossing it, and the contribution base for part-time contracts.

Each section links to a dedicated page answering one question in detail.

How to organise a company's accounting, step by step

The order below is the one that avoids the most later corrections: settle the legal form and the VAT regime before issuing the first invoice, not after.

Decide the legal form: sole trader on single-entry bookkeeping, or a company on double-entry. That choice determines the registers, the returns, and whether you may keep the books yourself.
Check the VAT regime. Below 395,000 lei of annual turnover you may stay unregistered; if you will buy services from the EU, you need the special art. 317 code before the first purchase.
Open the registers your form requires and separate the business bank account from the personal one. Without that separation the cash journal cannot be reconstructed.
Set up invoicing with the rates in force — 21% standard, 11% reduced — and with transmission to RO e-Factura for invoices issued to other taxable persons.
Build your own filing calendar: monthly or quarterly VAT returns, D112 if you have employees, D406 SAF-T if you are on double-entry, plus the annual return and the accounts.
Track cumulative turnover since 1 January each month, so crossing the VAT threshold does not catch you unprepared — the registration request is due the day it is crossed.
Archive supporting documents and registers for 5 years, in a form that can be produced at an audit.

Mandatory registers and records

A single-entry sole trader keeps three registers, not one: the journal of receipts and payments and the inventory register, from Order 170/2015, plus the fiscal record register, which has a separate legal basis in art. 68 para. (8) of the Fiscal Code. The third is the one most often missing at audits, precisely because it is not listed in the order governing the first two.

A company keeps double-entry books, with a trial balance and annual financial statements. This is where art. 10 of Law 82/1991 applies: the accounts may be kept only by someone with an economics degree, or under a contract with a chartered accountant. The requirement does not depend on company size.

Supporting documents and registers are archived for 5 years.
Registers may be kept electronically, with no obligation to register them with ANAF.
A VAT-registered sole trader also keeps the sales and purchase ledgers.

VAT: rates, threshold and when to register

Since 1 August 2025 the standard VAT rate is 21% and the reduced rate 11%, under Law 141/2025. The former 9% and 5% rates were merged into the 11% rate, and a transitional 9% still applies to certain housing supplies contracted earlier. Any source quoting 19%, 9% and 5% predates that law.

The exemption threshold is 395,000 lei, computed on turnover since the start of the calendar year. The registration request is due on the day the threshold is reached or exceeded, under art. 310 para. (6) — not within ten days of month-end, which is the repealed rule most articles still repeat.

VAT rates applicable in 2026

Rate	Main supplies
21%	The general rule: professional services, IT, construction, non-food retail
11%	Food, medicines, water, accommodation, restaurant and catering, books and textbooks
9% transitional	Certain housing supplies already under way when the rates changed

Payroll: what changes with the first employee

Contributions are 25% pension, 10% health and 10% income tax withheld from the employee, plus a 2.25% employer work-insurance levy, payable by the 25th of the following month. The gross minimum wage is 4,050 lei in the first half of 2026 and 4,325 lei from 1 July.

On part-time contracts, contributions are computed on a minimum base — and this is the single most-often-mistaken figure in Romanian payroll: it is not the gross minimum wage but the minimum wage less the non-taxable amount, i.e. 3,750 lei from January to June 2026 and 4,125 lei from July. The base comes from OUG 89/2025 art. III para. (5), by derogation from the Fiscal Code.

A minimum-wage increase does not apply itself: every contract below the new level needs an addendum, and the change is reported in REGES-ONLINE within 20 working days, on pain of a 5,000 to 8,000 lei fine.

Sole traders: contributions and the single return

A sole trader owes 10% health contribution on net income, with a minimum base of six minimum wages and a cap of 72, raised from 60 by Law 239/2025. The pension contribution is banded: nothing below twelve minimum wages, then a twelve-wage base between twelve and twenty-four, and a twenty-four-wage base above that.

Mind the reference wage: the thresholds are pegged to the minimum wage as at 1 January, i.e. 4,050 lei, not to the July increase. So six minimum wages means 24,300 lei and 72 means 291,600 lei. Any page using 4,325 lei for these thresholds gives wrong figures.

Minimum health contribution at six wages: 10% of 24,300 lei, i.e. 2,430 lei.
Maximum health contribution at 72 wages: 10% of 291,600 lei, i.e. 29,160 lei.
Pension base at the twelve-wage band: 24,300 lei; at the twenty-four-wage band, 48,600 lei.
The single return for 2025 income was due by 25 May 2026.

e-Factura and SAF-T

Invoices issued to other taxable persons must go through RO e-Factura within 5 working days of issue — working days, not calendar days, following the amendment in OUG 89/2025. The penalty for non-transmission has two cumulative components: the fine for your taxpayer category and 15% of the invoice value, and the usual 50% early-payment reduction does not apply.

For invoices issued to private individuals the transmission obligation was removed by Law 88/2026, published on 29 May 2026; the system is optional for them from 1 June 2026. This is a recent change, and articles written before that date describe a rule that no longer exists.

The D406 SAF-T return is filed by taxpayers on double-entry bookkeeping, small ones included, in scope since 1 January 2025. A single-entry sole trader does not file D406. For quarterly filing, the 2026 deadlines are 30 April, 31 July, 31 October 2026 and 31 January 2027.

What changed in 2026

Dividends distributed on 2025 interim financial statements stay taxed at 10%, with no recalculation at the new rate. The tax is paid by the 25th of the month following payment, or by 25 January of the following year for dividends declared but not paid.

Changes now in force, with the previous values for comparison

What	2026 value	Previously
Standard VAT rate	21%	19%
Reduced VAT rate	11%	9% and 5%
VAT exemption threshold	395,000 lei	300,000 lei
Dividend tax	16%	10%
Micro-enterprise threshold	100,000 €, single 1% rate	250,000 €, 1% and 3% rates
e-Factura deadline	5 working days	5 calendar days
Sole trader health-contribution cap	72 minimum wages	60 minimum wages

How 4conta helps

4conta is online accounting for Romanian companies and sole traders: documents arrive by upload or straight from e-Factura, the registers and ledgers fill themselves from those documents, and the filing calendar is built from the company's actual tax regime rather than a generic template.

The values that change by statute — VAT rates, thresholds, minimum contribution bases — are updated centrally, once, and invoicing, payroll and the returns pick up the new figures. Filing to ANAF runs through the private-space integration, with a confirmed status on every document.

Frequently asked questions

Each question has its own answer page, with the legal basis and worked examples.

Sole traders and companies

VAT

Payroll

e-Factura and SAF-T

Costs