Sending a truck to Romania from October 2026: TollRo, the UIT code and VAT

What changed on 1 October 2026

Until 30 September 2026, a truck paid for Romania’s national roads through the vignette (rovinietă): a time-based charge, regardless of the kilometres driven. Since 1 October 2026, goods vehicles with a maximum authorised mass above 3.5 tonnes pay TollRo, a charge per kilometre, collected through the electronic road charging system (STRR) run by the national road company, CNAIR.

The legal basis is Law 226/2023. Article 12(1) applies TollRo to all registered vehicles “designed and built for the carriage of goods with a maximum authorised mass (MTMA) greater than 3.5 tonnes”, and treats mixed-use vehicles as goods vehicles. The system was put into operation on 31 August 2026 (Law 170/2026), with September as a test month, and charging started on 1 October (article 29(1), a date fixed by Law 103/2026).

Three immediate consequences:

• Vignettes bought for trucks over 3.5 t stopped being valid on 1 October 2026 (article 24(2)), even if they had months left. Cars and goods vehicles of up to 3.5 t stay on the vignette.
• Payment goes only through the new system: the etoll.ro portal and the TollRo app. In its press release of 1 October 2026, CNAIR asked users not to pay in response to requests received through any other channel.
• Charging covers national roads, motorways and express roads, excluding the sections of national road inside municipalities (article 2(c)). County and local roads are outside TollRo.

For a company sending goods to Romania or collecting goods from here, TollRo is not the only obligation on the route. The UIT code from RO e-Transport, GPS position reporting and the VAT rules for transport are older and still apply. We put them on one list because, at a roadside check, they come up together.

Who pays and how much

The obligation to pay falls on the user: the driver of the vehicle or the holder named in the registration certificate (article 2(z), article 17(1)). In practice the carrier pays, for its own vehicles, whoever the consignor or consignee of the goods may be. A shipper pays TollRo only when it carries goods with its own trucks.

The amount is simple: the unit rate multiplied by the distance driven, in whole kilometres, for each road type (article 12(2)–(3)). The unit rate comes from the annex to Order 1925/2025 of the Ministry of Transport and is expressed in lei, VAT included:

The rules behind the table: the Euro V–IV rate is the Euro VI rate plus 15%, the Euro III–0 rate is Euro VI plus 30%; national roads cost half the motorway rate. A vehicle whose registration certificate does not state the Euro class is charged as Euro 0 (article 17(2)), so check the certificate before enrolling. The rate is indexed every December with the consumer price index and applies from 1 January, so the figures above hold until 31 December 2026.

How to pay

The law gives three routes (article 12(7)), of which two work in October 2026:

1. Route ticket, bought before the trip for a declared itinerary: date, origin, intermediate points and destination. The trip must be made within 72 hours of the declared date; after that the ticket expires (article 17(3)(c)). This is the option for an occasional run.
2. Charging session in CNAIR’s TollRo app: the phone transmits its position by GPS and the charge is taken from the credit loaded on the account. It needs mobile data and location switched on for the whole route.
3. Contract with a SETRo provider, with an on-board unit (OBE) that reports the distance by itself. CNAIR has announced that this route opens on 15 January 2027, together with interoperability with the European toll service providers (article 11(2)). Until then, the European toll box in the cab does not cover Romania.

The steps CNAIR published on 30 September 2026: an account on portal.etoll.ro or in the app, with e-mail validation; the company profile; vehicle enrolment with the plate number, country of registration, category, maximum authorised mass and Euro class; choice of service; billing details; card payment. The document issued appears in the account’s transaction history, and the invoice is sent to the account’s e-mail address. That invoice is the document your accountant needs, because the charge includes VAT.

CNAIR confirmed in its press release of 1 October 2026 that the platform had problems at launch (card payments rejected, confirmation e-mails delayed) and that users who could not pay because of those faults are not sanctioned, on the basis of article 9(4) of the law’s implementing rules. The charge does not go away: the amount for active sessions and valid tickets is settled later, at no extra cost. Keep the proof of payment (bank statement, screenshot) until the reconciliation is done.

What happens on non-payment

Checks are made in two ways (article 19(1)): automatically, through the cameras on the network, or by stopping the vehicle and querying the system, by CNAIR staff at border crossings, by the inspectors of the State Inspectorate for Road Transport Control (ISCTR) and by traffic or border police (paragraph (2)).

The 2,000 lei for an unknown distance is the charge, not the fine; the 5,000 lei fine comes on top. Non-payment is not a continuing offence (article 19(16)): each detection is a new one.

Example: a 40-tonne truck, Nădlac to Bucharest

A Polish haulier delivers goods to a warehouse in Bucharest with a 40-tonne Euro VI articulated truck. For the example we assume the route has 500 km of motorway and express road and 100 km of national road; the actual distance is established by the app, section by section.

The same route costs 303 lei with a Euro V or IV truck (500 × 0.55 + 100 × 0.28) and 341 lei with Euro III or older (500 × 0.62 + 100 × 0.31). At 20 trips a month, the company pays 5,280 lei with Euro VI, of which 916 lei is VAT. The VAT section below shows how that money comes back.

If the truck enters the country with no ticket and no active session, and the cameras establish the distance, the company owes the 264 lei plus a fine between 2,640 and 5,280 lei. If the distance cannot be established, it owes 2,000 lei in charge and 5,000 lei in fine. An unpaid trip therefore costs 10 to 25 times more than a paid one.

The UIT code and GPS: the obligations that have not changed

TollRo is a road charge. The goods in the truck carry a separate, older obligation towards ANAF: the declaration in RO e-Transport and the UIT code. For an international transport of goods the obligation applies whatever the goods are, when the vehicle has a mass of at least 2.5 tonnes and a consignment exceeds 500 kg or 10,000 lei (article 1(4) of the joint order of ANAF and the customs authority no. 1337/1268/2024).

Who does what on a truck entering Romania (Emergency Ordinance 41/2022):

The code is valid for 5 calendar days from the declared start date of the transport, or 15 days for intra-EU acquisitions (article 11(2)). The fines in article 13^1: between 5,000 and 10,000 lei for a driver who does not switch the device on or does not present the code (paragraph (1)(d), paragraph (4)); between 10,000 and 50,000 lei, or between 20,000 and 100,000 lei, for a transport operator that does not ensure position reporting (paragraph (1)(e), paragraph (3)). The GPS sanctions were suspended by Emergency Ordinance 29/2025 until 31 December 2025; since 2026 they apply.

A foreign carrier has no access to ANAF’s Virtual Private Space (SPV) and cannot declare the transport itself. It has to ask the Romanian partner for the UIT code before loading, not at the border. The declaration rules for each type of operation, with the routes drawn, are on the page about the RO e-Transport declaration rules, and the code itself, step by step, in the article on the UIT code. For the clients whose e-Transport compliance we handle, we generate the codes with our own tool, UITdesk, or give the dispatcher direct access to issue them.

VAT: the transport service, TollRo and fuel

This is where foreign companies ask most questions, because TollRo includes 21% VAT and is paid in Romania.

The transport service. The transport of goods supplied to a taxable person is located where the customer is established (article 278(2) of the Tax Code). A Polish haulier invoicing a Romanian customer charges no Polish VAT and does not register in Romania: the Romanian customer accounts for the tax under the reverse charge (article 307(2)). If the customer is a German company, the operation has nothing to do with Romanian VAT, even though the road runs through the country. The haulier does not need a Romanian VAT registration for the transport; it needs one only if it also carries out other taxable operations here, for example selling goods from a Romanian warehouse.

TollRo, fuel, bridge tolls. These are purchases made in Romania, with Romanian VAT, by a company that has no Romanian VAT number. The VAT comes back through the refund claim filed in the state of establishment under Directive 2008/9/EC (article 302(1)(a) of the Tax Code), by 30 September of the following year (point 73(11) of the implementing rules). The conditions: the company had no fixed establishment in Romania and carried out no operations here for which it should have registered; transport services with the reverse charge at the customer are expressly allowed (point 74(1)(b)(2)). Companies from outside the EU use the same route if their state grants reciprocity to Romanian businesses (article 302(1)(b)). In the example above, the 916 lei of monthly VAT on TollRo comes back through this claim, and the CNAIR invoice received by e-mail is the supporting document.

A Romanian haulier, or a foreign company with a Romanian VAT number. The VAT on the CNAIR invoice is deducted in full through the D300 VAT return. The 50% limit in article 298(1) does not apply to vehicles with a maximum authorised mass above 3,500 kg (paragraph (2)), so for trucks the general deduction rule in article 297 applies. The TollRo expense is deductible for corporate income tax like any other transport cost.

Passing it on. A haulier that wants to recover TollRo from the customer puts it in the transport price, like fuel: on the transport invoice, with the VAT treatment of the transport. There is no separate “re-invoicing of the charge”, because TollRo is the haulier’s cost, not the customer’s.

Pre-departure checklist

1. The vehicle is enrolled on etoll.ro with the maximum authorised mass and the Euro class from the registration certificate. Without the Euro class in the certificate, the rate is the Euro 0 one.
2. Route ticket bought or credit loaded for the in-app session. The ticket must be used within 72 hours of the declared date.
3. The driver’s phone has mobile data and location on for the whole route, if the charging session is used.
4. The UIT code is with the driver, received from the Romanian partner, not “sorted out at the border”. The code is valid for 5 days from the declared start date, 15 for intra-EU acquisitions.
5. The e-Transport GPS device is switched on before the transport starts on Romanian territory and off after delivery or after leaving the country.
6. The CNAIR invoice is saved from the account’s e-mail, for deduction or for the refund claim.
7. The transport contract says who declares in e-Transport and how TollRo enters the price.

Calendar

For foreign companies with goods in Romania, TollRo adds to the monthly obligations we describe on the tax compliance hub: the VAT return, the D390, SAF-T, e-Factura, e-Transport. A company bringing goods for its own stock in a Romanian warehouse finds the full route, from registration to the first month of filings, in the guide to selling from a Romanian warehouse.