Taxation in Romania, what’s next? (P)

What are the fiscal measures announced by the Government through the government program and what is the national and European context? What impact will they have on the business environment and how can we prepare for a more resilient business?

The euphoria of the presidential election result has passed and, after 6 weeks of intense discussions, we have a new Government installed at the Victoria Palace, and we have a governing program that contains a consistent list of measures in the field of taxes and fees.

Of course, it worths remembering that these measures come in the context in which Romania’s budget deficit in 2024 was 9.6% (while the EU average was 3.2%) and the current account deficit was 8.5%. In this context, the need to reduce public spending, to increase the absorption capacity of European funds, to increase the collection rate and to reduce the tax gap (the difference between the theoretical level of taxes and how much is actually collected) was intensely discussed, but also the impossibility of avoiding the tax raise,  to ensure compliance with the budget deficit targets agreed with the European Commission.

On June 27, 2026, Nadia Oanea, founder of Tax & Training, a tax advisory and professional training boutique firm, participated as a speaker in the event “Solutions for SMEs: Social Dialogue, Taxation and Digitalization” organized by the Bucharest-Ilfov SME Employers’ Association at the Capitol Hotel, the topic being the impact of the new tax measures proposed by the government program. You may read below a summary of such measures and an assessment of the expected impact on the business environment.

Two of the general principles for state reform and good governance on which the governing program is built refer to: increasing revenues to the state budget and combating tax evasion and fiscal consolidation.

Measures proposed to combat tax evasion:

• ANAF, Anti-Fraud, VAMA placed outside the political algorithm and subjected to reorganization, performance indicators. Completion of digitization. Tax audits based on risk analyses;
• Tightening the legislation on tax evasion and enforcement – criminalizing tax evasion;
• Partnership with citizens to combat tax evasion;
• Amended Insolvency Law – tightening the regime and avoiding cascading insolvencies;
• Combating tax evasion with priority on: the oil sector, the import of vegetables and fruits, imports in relation to Asia (Port of Constanta, Customs);
• Combating tax evasion in the services industry.

Measures to increase revenues to the state budget

• Additional taxation of gambling, betting and related banking transactions. Decentralization of authorization and taxation to local authorities;
• Taxation of cryptocurrency and capital gains;
• Short-term property rental taxation;  
• Taxation of income of influencers from social media platforms;
• Elimination of VAT facilities on real estate transactions;
• Mandatory taxation of all activities benefiting from government support programs;
• Analysis of tax exceptions and their correction;
• Fiscal headquarters in Romania for companies in e-commerce, airline;
• Taxation of banks’ excessive profits for a limited period;
• Reducing the deductibility for categories of expenses that facilitate the decrease of profit (e.g.: consulting expenses from parent companies for subsidiaries, etc.).

Considering that Romania has one of the largest “VAT compliance gap” in EU (30,6%), i.e. the difference between the theoretically calculated VAT and the VAT actually collected, caused by fraud, declaration errors and bankruptcies, it is logical that the measures to combat tax evasion were placed on top of the list of measures to increase the fiscal revenues.

The Government aims to analyze the tax exceptions and to correct them. This should mean adopting legislative measures to increase tax rates (e.g. on capital gains, now taxed at 1% or 3%, depending on the holding period, if the transaction is made through an intermediary), or to eliminate exemptions and broaden the tax base (as is the case with the CASS to large pensions). Thus, the “tax policy gap” will be reduced, i.e. the difference between the taxes theoretically to be collected and those actually collected, caused by tax policy decisions consisting of reduced tax rates or exemptions / exceptions.

With regard to capital gains tax, according to the current legal provisions, the investors with such gains had double advantage: they were taxed at low tax rates, and they were not even obliged to file the single return except in certain situations. However, a potential increase of the capital gain tax to 10% or more, combined with the proposed increase in dividends income tax to 16% would probably reduce the appetite for investments on the stock exchange.

a.      The measures proposed for fiscal consolidation refer to:

1. Readjustment of VAT to only two tax rates – in their public statements, the officials discussed about the elimination of the 5% rate, the application of the reduced 9% rate only for energy, firewood, food, medicines, and the application of the generalized rate of 19% to the other supplies of goods / services; thus, the “VAT policy gap” will be greatly reduced.
2. Increase in excise duties;
3. CASS taxation on large pensions
4. Increase on dividends tax rate – here the public statements referred to the quota of 16% dividends tax, starting with dividends distributed after 1 January 2026 inclusive. The immediate impact on Romanian entrepreneurs (because the subsidiaries of multinationals will most likely not be affected, as they benefit from the dividend tax exemption, according to the European Parent-Subsidiary Directive) will be to distribute more interim dividends during 2025, taxed at 10%. However, a wiser decision would be to consider implementing a holding structure, to take advantage of the domestic participation exemption provisions included in the Tax Code.
5. Property tax correlated with the market value of the buildings and plots of land (PNRR milestone) – here we are waiting for the implementation of the system RO e-Property, and the amendment of the legislation in the sense of increasing the taxable value of real estate to its market value, an amendment announced some years ago and postponed to 2026.
6. Ecological (environmental) tax (PNRR milestone);
7. Updated vignette fee

b.     Other measures proposed by the Ministry of Finance

A beneficial measure is to strengthen the role of the Fiscal Council and introduce an extended public dialogue mechanism before the adoption of major tax measures, including by requesting the point of view of the Chamber of Tax Consultants in the spirit of transparency and democratic accountability.

The Government included also in its program measures aiming for reorganization of National Agency for Tax Administration (NATA), especially focused on centralized tax audits plan, which must be conducted based on a tax risk analysis. Interesting measures are also included in the reform to increase taxpayers’ trust in the public tax services (e.g. bodycam and integrity tests for anti-fraud and customs inspectors), but also digitization / debureaucratization measures, which refer to the extensive implementation of SAFT reporting, RO e-invoice and RO e-Cash registers, respectively the limitation of counterfeiting and associated evasion for products at risk of counterfeiting through the intervention of the population,  which will be able to report these cases.

Other ministries proposed also measures that will have a fiscal impact, such as the measures to enlarge the taxpayers base for the mandatory health insurance contributions, or the measures to combat the undeclared / gray work.

Recently, the European Commission launched the “Annual Taxation Report 2025“, in which it analyzes the tax systems of EU member states, the trends and challenges faced by member states in the context of developments in economic growth, social cohesion and environmental sustainability.

The report is relevant to understand how we stand in terms of tax revenues compared to other EU member states. Two indicators are analysed in the report, at the level of each Member State, and as an EU27 average: tax revenues (in total and by types of taxes and duties) as a percentage of GDP, and respectively types of tax revenues, as a percentage of total tax revenues.

The report shows that in 2023, the EU’s tax-to-GDP ratio fell to 39.0%, the lowest level since 2011, due to lower revenues from environmental and property taxes, and high inflation that drove up nominal GDP. France, Denmark and Austria had the highest tax burdens (over 43% of GDP), while Ireland, Romania and Malta had the lowest (below 27% of GDP). Thus, Romania ranks 26th out of 27 member states.

In this context, it is essential for companies to answer two essential questions:

• What exactly will the tax changes look like and from when will they be in force?
• How do we manage business impact?