ViDA 2028: will you still need a Romanian VAT number?

What changes on 1 July 2028

Council Directive (EU) 2025/516, adopted on 11 March 2025 and published in the Official Journal on 25 March 2025, amends the VAT Directive in three waves. The one that matters for a foreign company with goods in Romania is article 3 of the directive, which applies from 1 July 2028 (article 6(3)). It contains three measures.

A fourth change arrives in two steps. Article 17a on call-off stock is amended from 1 January 2027 so that it covers only goods dispatched “on or before 30 June 2028”, and the article “shall cease to apply on 30 June 2029” (article 17a(2)(a) and (8)).

Nothing in Romanian law has changed yet. Article 6(3) of the directive gives member states until 30 June 2028 to adopt the rules, and the Tax Code still contains the current text of articles 273, 307 and 316. Until the transposing law is published, the obligations described on our VAT registration page for non-residents apply in full.

Why Romania is a special case: the reverse charge already exists

Most summaries of ViDA lead with the mandatory reverse charge. In Romania that is the smallest of the three changes. Article 307(6) of the Tax Code already provides that, when goods or services are supplied by a taxable person “not established in Romania” and “not registered in Romania under article 316”, the person liable for the VAT is the Romanian customer, whether or not that customer is registered for VAT, or a non-resident customer registered here. Romania therefore applied the option in the old article 194 years ago, and applied it more widely than the directive’s new minimum, which only covers customers identified for VAT. The directive lets Romania keep the wider rule (article 194(1), second subparagraph).

What forces a foreign company to register today is not the sale but what happens before it:

• bringing its own stock into Romania from another member state is treated as an intra-Community acquisition (article 273(2)(a)), and a non-established company must register before the first such acquisition (article 316(6)(a));
• selling that stock to consumers in Romania, or installing goods for a private customer, is a taxable operation here for which the customer cannot account (article 316(4), article 275(1)(b)).

Both grounds are exactly what the 2028 package removes. That is why the question “do I still need a Romanian VAT number?” has a different answer for each business model.

Four business models, before and after

Model A is the e-commerce case: an EU seller keeps stock in a fulfilment warehouse near Bucharest and ships to Romanian consumers. Today the transfer of the stock creates the registration, and every sale to a Romanian consumer is a local supply with Romanian VAT in the D300, because the goods do not cross a border on the way to the customer. From 1 July 2028 the transfer is reported in the own-goods scheme, and the local sales fall under article 369b(e): goods supplied “without dispatch or transport or where the dispatch or transport begins and ends in the same member state” to non-taxable persons, by a supplier not established there. Both go through the one-stop shop at home. Sales shipped from the Romanian warehouse to consumers in Hungary or Bulgaria were already in the Union OSS. The OSS threshold calculator shows which sales count towards the EUR 10,000 threshold today.

Model B is the distributor: stock in Romania, customers that are Romanian companies with a VAT number. Here ViDA has a twist. Today the company is registered because of the transfer, and a registered supplier charges Romanian VAT on its sales; article 307(6) does not apply to a supplier “registered in Romania under article 316”. From 1 July 2028 the transfer no longer needs a number, and article 194 makes the customer liable as long as the supplier is “not identified for VAT purposes” in Romania. Keeping the number out of habit would therefore keep the obligation to charge VAT. Dropping it moves the VAT to the customer’s return. The decision has to be taken for the whole activity: the own-goods scheme covers “all transfers of own goods” by a registered person (article 369xb), and the Union OSS covers all eligible supplies (article 369b, last paragraph).

Model C is the project business: a German manufacturer delivers a production line and installs it in a Romanian factory, or a kitchen company fits kitchens for private customers. The place of supply is where the installation takes place (article 275(1)(b)). For the factory, the Romanian customer already pays the VAT under article 307(6), so no number is needed today. For the private customer, today’s registration disappears on 1 July 2028, when supplies of installed goods to non-taxable persons by a non-established supplier enter the Union OSS (article 369b(d)).

Model D is the call-off stock arrangement: goods sent to the premises of one known customer who takes them out of stock as needed. Article 270^1 of the Tax Code lets the supplier avoid a Romanian registration as long as the customer is identified for VAT here, the goods are listed in the register of article 321(6) and ownership passes within 12 months. Under the amended article 17a, this only works for goods dispatched on or before 30 June 2028, and the arrangement ends on 30 June 2029. Stock sent in June 2028 keeps its 12 months. Stock sent in July 2028 is a transfer of own goods, reported in the new scheme, followed by a local sale on which the customer pays the VAT. The register of article 321(6) is replaced by the records of article 369xk, kept for 10 years.

If your flow does not match any of the four, the two-question check on the registration page gives today’s answer, and we can map the 2028 position in a written opinion.

A worked example: an online seller with stock in Romania

A company established in Germany sells household goods to Romanian consumers from a fulfilment warehouse in Ilfov county. In a year it moves stock worth EUR 400,000 from Germany, sells EUR 500,000 net to Romanian consumers and buys warehouse and handling services in Romania for EUR 40,000 plus 21% VAT, EUR 8,400.

Until 30 June 2028. The company is registered for VAT in Romania before the first truck, under article 316(6)(a). Every month it files the D300, in which the transfers are reported as intra-Community acquisitions under the reverse charge, the sales carry Romanian VAT of 21% and the input VAT on the warehouse services is deducted. On EUR 500,000 of sales the output VAT is EUR 105,000; after deducting EUR 8,400 the company pays EUR 96,600 to ANAF over the year, in monthly instalments. Alongside the D300 it files the D390 for the months with transfers, the D394 when it buys from Romanian VAT-registered suppliers, the SAF-T file D406 every month, and it obtains a UIT code in RO e-Transport for each truck above the thresholds. The routine is described in the guide to selling from a Romanian warehouse.

From 1 July 2028. The transfers of EUR 400,000 go into the own-goods scheme return filed in Germany, month by month, by the end of the following month (article 369xf). The sales of EUR 500,000 go into the German Union OSS return at the Romanian rate of 21%; the EUR 105,000 reaches Romania through the OSS. The company files no Romanian return. The EUR 8,400 of Romanian input VAT can no longer be deducted anywhere: article 369xj excludes it from the special-scheme return, so it is claimed back through the refund procedure for businesses established in another member state (Directive 2008/9/EC, article 302(1)(a) of the Tax Code). The company gives up its Romanian number, and with it the D300, D390, D394 and D406.

Two figures change in the opposite direction. The VAT paid stays EUR 105,000 either way. The EUR 8,400, however, moves from a monthly deduction to a refund claim filed after the year, so the money is tied up longer, and the trucks still need a declarant in RO e-Transport, which we come to next.

What does not go away

RO e-Transport. The UIT code obligation in Government Emergency Ordinance 41/2022 follows the international road transport of goods above the thresholds of the joint order 1,337/1,268/2024, whatever the VAT status of the owner. For a transfer into a Romanian warehouse, the ordinance expects the Romanian consignee to declare, which today is the foreign company under its Romanian number. ViDA does not touch this, and Romania has not yet said how a company without a number will declare its own stock after 2028. Until it does, the e-Transport obligation is one of the two practical reasons to keep the number.

Import VAT. Goods brought into Romania from outside the EU are cleared here, and the importer pays the VAT at customs (article 309). A company with a Romanian number deducts it in the D300. A company without one depends on the refund procedure, which for non-EU businesses requires reciprocity with the country of establishment (article 302(1)(b)). A seller that imports directly into Romania and then sells from the warehouse will usually keep its number for that reason alone, whatever the OSS allows for the sales.

A fixed establishment. Every one of the 2028 simplifications applies to a supplier “not established” in Romania. Under article 266(2)(b) a company is established here when it has “sufficient technical and human resources to carry out regularly” taxable supplies. A warehouse operated by a third-party logistics provider does not create one; own staff and own premises can. A company with a fixed establishment stays in the ordinary Romanian system, with all its filings.

Non-EU businesses. Today they register through a fiscal representative, mandatory under articles 307(7)(b) and 316(7). The own-goods scheme is open to them too: for a company with no establishment in the EU, the member state of identification is the one “in which the dispatch or transport of the goods begins” (article 369xa(2)). A seller shipping from a Polish or German warehouse into Romania can therefore use it from there. A seller importing into Romania first cannot, because the import is not a transfer between member states.

Everything you owe while the number exists. Deregistration is a request, not an automatic effect of the directive. Until ANAF cancels the number, the D300 is due every period, with or without transactions, and so are the D390, D394 and SAF-T. The tax deadlines calendar lists them for your profile.

The timeline

The 2030 step is worth a note. Romania already runs RO e-Factura for domestic invoices, and the article on e-Factura for non-resident companies explains what a foreign company reports today. From 1 July 2030 the directive adds a separate, EU-wide reporting of cross-border B2B supplies by the supplier and the customer. A company that has left the Romanian system by then will report those transactions at home.

When deregistration makes sense, and what to check first

For models A, B, C and D the answer in July 2028 is “no number needed”, provided three conditions hold: no fixed establishment in Romania, no imports cleared in Romania, and a solution for RO e-Transport. Before asking ANAF to cancel the registration, check:

1. The flows. List every type of transaction under the Romanian number for the last 12 months: transfers in, local B2B sales, local B2C sales, distance sales out, imports, purchases with Romanian VAT. Each one has a 2028 destination in the table above, or none.
2. The contracts. A fulfilment provider that moves your stock between its own warehouses in different member states on your behalf must tell you about each transfer at the latest when the goods leave, unless you asked for it explicitly (article 242b). Put it in the contract now.
3. The customers in model B. Their invoices change from “21% VAT” to “reverse charge, article 194”; your invoicing system and their accounts payable both need the switch on the same day.
4. The input VAT. Estimate the Romanian VAT you will pay each year on warehouse, handling and transport services, and decide whether the refund procedure is acceptable or whether the deduction in a Romanian return is worth keeping the number for.
5. The last return. The final D300 and SAF-T file close the registration; a number cancelled with a return missing stays open on ANAF’s side.

We prepare this mapping as a written position under our tax opinions service, and we keep the Romanian filings running for as long as the number exists. The directive is published, the Romanian law is not; the companies that gain from 2028 are the ones that know their flows before the law arrives.