You might have heard that the Romanian government has frozen the rise in minimum wage for 2026. Some businesses apparently asked for that.
Things are getting tight for everyone, taxes are rising, and it will also be more difficult for businesses.
Some minor changes.
Minimum social capital will be 400 lei
The minimum capital needed to start a business will be 400 lei. Not too long ago, it was common to start a business with 200 lei (in fact, many large businesses allegedly only have 200 lei social capital.) This is of course ridiculous, as businesses were required to have accountants, and there are few accounting firms that you can hire for 200 lei per year. (Most businesses don’t make a profit their first year, you figure it out.)
But, this means existing businesses will also have to change their capital. More paperwork for accountants to deal with. More angry overworked accountants is not a good thing for your business.
Meanwhile, in other European countries, the minimum required social capital has dropped.
POS required
You will also need POS (point of sale) if you accept card payments. You can ask your bank about the necessary equipment and you can look up online what POS is. Basically, it is a more secure way to pay, but it may cost businesses a little more to set up.
The rule before 2026 apparently was that you could get around the POS requirement if you sold under a certain amount.
More requirements and time limits
Anaf, or some other government body, can close your business if you don’t find a bank within the first two months. Haha, easy peasy, you say if you are from Western Europe. Sure, in Western Europe business bank accounts are relatively easy to open, but in Cluj? We had one bank take a full year to get back to us, and only after we visited every day. Others are quicker. The banks just played you around…
There are other time limits. ANAF can close you down for not filing on time. Well, they can do it a little quicker now.
PFA’s continue to get thrashed
The advantage of having a PFA over being self employed? None really. Some bankers will not open an account for a PFA unless you have a contract with a Romanian business. A PFA is basically an employee without any rights and without any guaranteed salary.
But, recently, the government has guaranteed that you will be taxed. (or, more politically correct terms, obliged to contribute). Even if you don’t earn a red cent, you will have to pay more to ANAF for the priveledge of having a PFA in 2026 than you do for the priveledge of losing money in 2025.
The good news is, that it is tied to minimum wage. (No, you don’t get paid minimum wage, that would imply having a salary and workers rights. But… your minimum contributions are tied to it.)
Maximum meal ticket raised
If you are lucky enough, or successful enough, to have employees, and you give them meal tickets, you can claim a few more lei as an expense. That is, if you raise their allowance. Employees reading this: Your employer isn’t obliged to raise anything.
But it is good news for those who have lots of employees that use the meal ticket scheme, and who wish to reward those employees with a slightly higher meal ticket amount. Some work-at-home call center jobs have meal ticket allowances advertised.
ANAF creates the evil robot, ANA
Yes, anaf will have its own disfunctional AI chatbot, called ANA. We apologize on behalf of humanity to all Ana’s in the world. Why? Because we expect to be saying very bad things about ANA in the near future. Chatbots in general suck, but imagine if one was commissioned by ANAF, or the Romanian parleament. No, don’t imagine it, that will give you nightmares.
Conclusion
We at Hey Cluj have a very pessimistic outlook on government changes for the new year. They say every cloud has a silver lining, and we expect that perhaps protests will change things.
Regulation can sometimes help protect consumers or the environment, but these changes appear to be the parlement just proving that they know nothing about how to run a business or how to encourage production and economic growth. Maybe they will learn.
Source
We found a lot of this information from Startco. But, Startco isn’t really Startco. Nobody goes by their real name in Romania, at least most companies don’t. Just check your bank tally. Almost every food stand, every market stall, every accountant, book printer, even Romanian language teachers use different names in their trading than they do in their billing.