E-commerce VAT in Romania starts with one physical fact
E-commerce VAT in Romania is decided by where the goods are at the moment of sale, not by where the seller is, where the website is hosted, or where the payment is processed. Everything else — the one-stop shop, marketplace rules, registration obligations, reporting — follows from that.
Two configurations, two entirely different sets of obligations:
- Goods shipped from another member state to a Romanian consumer. This is a distance sale. Romanian VAT is due at the Romanian rate, but it can be declared through the one-stop shop in your own country. No Romanian VAT number is needed for those sales.
- Goods already in Romania when the sale happens. This is a local supply. It requires a Romanian VAT number, Romanian invoicing, and the full Romanian filing set. The one-stop shop does not reach it.
Sellers rarely choose between these deliberately. They drift from the first into the second the day they enrol in a fulfilment programme that positions stock in Romania.
Distance sales and the EUR 10,000 threshold
There is no Romania-specific distance selling threshold. Since the 2021 EU VAT e-commerce package there is a single EU-wide threshold of EUR 10,000, calculated on the combined value of cross-border distance sales of goods and of telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services to consumers in all other member states together.
| Position | VAT treatment |
|---|---|
| Total cross-border B2C sales below EUR 10,000 in the year | VAT of the member state of departure may be applied |
| Above EUR 10,000, or on election | VAT of the customer’s member state — 21% or 11% for Romanian customers |
| Above the threshold, declared centrally | One-stop shop return in the member state of identification |
| Above the threshold, declared locally | Registration in each member state of consumption |
The threshold is cumulative across countries, not per country, and it is crossed by the transaction that takes the total over the line — not at the start of the following period. Once exceeded, it stays exceeded for the current and the following calendar year. The Commission’s reference material on the scheme is published by the European Commission.
Crossing the threshold: a worked example
A German seller ships from Leipzig to consumers across the EU. By the end of June 2026 it has EUR 7,400 of cross-border B2C sales into Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria combined, still under the threshold and still carrying German VAT. In July a single Romanian order of EUR 3,200 excluding VAT takes the running total to EUR 10,600.
That order is the one that crosses the line, so it is taxed in Romania. At the standard rate of 21% the seller charges EUR 672 of Romanian VAT and declares it in the OSS return for the third quarter. The earlier orders keep German VAT and are not restated. Every cross-border B2C sale after that point — into Romania and into every other member state — follows the customer’s country, for the rest of 2026 and for the whole of 2027.
Two details decide whether this is a filing or a problem. The checkout has to apply the Romanian rate from that order onwards, which means the rate table has to be live rather than annual. And the running total has to be visible before the order is taken, not reconstructed at the quarter end.
The one-stop shop, and what it does not cover
The Union scheme of the one-stop shop lets a seller declare all cross-border B2C distance sales into other member states in a single quarterly return, filed in the member state of identification, with one payment. For a seller shipping from Germany or Poland into Romania, this is the whole Romanian VAT compliance obligation: Romanian VAT rates applied at checkout, Romanian sales reported in the OSS return.
What it does not cover is the part that catches people:
- Local supplies. A sale from Romanian stock to a Romanian customer is not a distance sale. It is domestic, and it needs a Romanian VAT number.
- B2B sales. Business customers are outside the scheme entirely.
- Movements of your own goods between member states. Transfers of own stock are separate transactions with their own reporting.
- Input VAT recovery. OSS is a declaration and payment mechanism; Romanian input VAT is recovered through the ordinary refund procedure or, if you are registered, through the Romanian return.
That last point is often the deciding factor for sellers with meaningful Romanian costs, such as returns handling or local marketing.
IOSS: imports up to EUR 150
For goods imported from outside the EU and sold to consumers in consignments with an intrinsic value up to EUR 150, the import one-stop shop allows the VAT to be charged at the point of sale and declared in a monthly return, rather than being collected from the customer at the border. The customs treatment on arrival is simplified accordingly.
Two boundaries matter. Above EUR 150, IOSS is not available and the ordinary import rules apply, with VAT and duty at importation. And IOSS is a scheme for the seller — where a marketplace is the deemed supplier for the same sale, it is the marketplace’s IOSS number that is used, not the seller’s.
Stock in a Romanian warehouse changes everything
The moment goods are stored in Romania, three things happen at once.
Registration becomes compulsory, before the first local sale, with no threshold available to a non-established company. Registration runs through form 015 and, for companies established outside the EU, through a fiscal representative; the procedure is set out on the page about VAT registration for non-residents.
The stock movement itself is a taxable transaction. Moving your own goods from another member state into Romania is a transfer: an exempt intra-Community supply in the country of departure and an intra-Community acquisition in Romania, made by the same legal entity under two VAT numbers. It is self-invoiced, declared in the Romanian VAT return, and reported in the EC Sales List on both sides. No third party is involved and no money moves, which is exactly why it gets missed.
The full filing set starts. Not phased in, not deferred:
| Filing | Covers | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| VAT return D300 | Local sales, acquisitions, input VAT | 25th of the month following |
| EC Sales List D390 | Intra-Community supplies, acquisitions and own stock transfers | 25th of the month following |
| Domestic transactions report D394 | Supplies and purchases in Romania with Romanian VAT-registered businesses, only where they exist | 30th of the month following |
| SAF-T D406 | Simplified file for non-residents, since 1 January 2025 | Last calendar day of the month following |
| Intrastat | Physical movements above one million lei per flow | 15th of the month following |
Marketplaces: what eMAG and Amazon do and do not take over
Marketplaces occupy two different roles depending on the transaction, and sellers routinely assume the wrong one.
Deemed supplier. Under the EU rules, the platform is treated as having bought the goods from the seller and sold them to the consumer in defined cases: distance sales of imported goods in consignments up to EUR 150, and supplies of goods already within the EU made through the platform by a seller established outside the EU. In those cases the platform accounts for the VAT on the sale to the consumer, and the seller’s supply to the platform is treated separately.
Ordinary intermediary. Everywhere else — most notably an EU-established seller selling goods located in the EU — the platform is a channel, not a taxpayer. The seller charges and declares the VAT, and the platform’s obligation is to keep and, where required, transmit records of the transactions.
Two practical consequences for sellers on eMAG, the largest Romanian marketplace, and on international platforms such as Amazon:
- Fulfilment programmes move stock. Enrolling in a service that stores your goods in a Romanian warehouse creates a Romanian registration obligation regardless of your sales volume, and regardless of who accounts for the VAT on the final sale.
- Platform reports are not tax returns. A marketplace report is an aggregated commercial extract. D394 and SAF-T need document-level detail with counterparty identification, and agreeing the export granularity with the platform is the first technical step of any Romanian onboarding.
Since 1 January 2025, invoices to individuals also fall within RO e-Factura, under GEO 138/2024 — an obligation for sellers established in Romania, including fixed establishments, rather than for a company holding only a Romanian VAT number. Such a company has no B2C obligation; it keeps invoicing under its ordinary rules and transmits only its B2B invoices to the system, for reporting. From 1 January 2026 the transmission term for those who are obliged is five working days from issue, under GEO 89/2025.
Scenario table: what you actually file
| Scenario | Romanian VAT number | Where the sale is declared | Additional Romanian filings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shipping from another member state, below EUR 10,000 total | No | Home-country return | None |
| Shipping from another member state, above EUR 10,000, using OSS | No | OSS quarterly return | None |
| Shipping from another member state, above EUR 10,000, no OSS | Yes | Romanian VAT return | D300, SAF-T; D394 only for transactions with Romanian VAT-registered businesses |
| Stock held in a Romanian warehouse | Yes | Romanian VAT return | D300, D390, SAF-T, Intrastat if above threshold; D394 only for transactions with Romanian VAT-registered businesses |
| Imports up to EUR 150 sold to Romanian consumers, using IOSS | No | IOSS monthly return | None, unless stock is held here |
| Non-EU seller on a marketplace, goods already in the EU | Usually yes, if stock is here | Platform accounts for the sale to the consumer | D300, D390, SAF-T; D394 only for transactions with Romanian VAT-registered businesses |
| B2B sales to Romanian businesses, goods from abroad | Usually no | Customer accounts under reverse charge | None |
The errors we see most often
- Believing OSS covers Romanian stock. It covers distance sales. A local sale from a Romanian warehouse is outside it.
- Missing the own-stock transfer. Moving goods into Romania is a reportable transaction even though nothing is sold and nobody is invoiced.
- Registering after the goods arrive. The obligation attaches to the stock, and the pallets are usually already on the road when the question is asked.
- Applying 19% VAT. Romanian rates have been 21% and 11% since 1 August 2025.
- Treating the EUR 10,000 threshold as per country. It is a single EU-wide total.
- Assuming the marketplace is always the deemed supplier. It is only in defined cases, and an EU-established seller with EU stock is usually not one of them.
- Filing D394 from an aggregated platform report, which cannot reconcile against the counterparty’s own report.
- Ignoring Intrastat. Cross-border fulfilment moves large volumes quickly, and the one million lei per flow threshold is reached sooner than expected.
How we help
We start with the map: where your stock sits, which sales are distance sales and which are local, and whether the one-stop shop is enough or a Romanian registration is unavoidable. From there we handle VAT registration for non-residents including form 015 and fiscal representation, and then the recurring set — D390, Intrastat, D300, D394 and SAF-T — built directly from your platform and ERP exports with our own mapping and validation tools, so a marketplace report becomes a filing that reconciles. For the broader framework, see the guide to VAT in Romania for foreign companies.
