Which case is yours? Company established outside the EU → fiscal representation · EU company that only needs a Romanian VAT number → VAT registration · Romanian subsidiary or branch → accounting
What tax compliance in Romania actually covers
Romania asks a VAT-registered business for nine recurring things. Five sit on the VAT side: the registration itself, fiscal representation where it is required, the VAT return, the domestic transactions report and the EC Sales List. Four are digital reporting duties added on top of VAT over the last four years: SAF-T, RO e-Factura, RO e-Transport and Intrastat.
They are not nine separate errands. ANAF reads them against each other. The VAT return has to agree with the transaction listing, the listing with what your counterparties reported, and SAF-T holds the ledger that produced both. An inconsistency between two of these files is, increasingly, how a Romanian tax inspection begins. Treating the nine as one system — same source data, same mapping, same monthly close — is the only way to keep them consistent.
Non-established or fixed establishment: the line that decides your obligations
One question comes before all the others: is your company established in Romania for VAT purposes?
A company incorporated abroad can hold a Romanian VAT number with no presence here — no office, no staff, no equipment. In Romanian VAT terms it is non-established but registered. Once it has a sufficient degree of permanence in Romania, together with human and technical resources, it has a fixed establishment, and a longer list of obligations follows. A Romanian subsidiary is a Romanian taxable person from day one.
| Obligation | Non-established, Romanian VAT number only | Fixed establishment or Romanian company |
|---|---|---|
| VAT return (D300) | Yes | Yes |
| EC Sales List (D390) | Yes, for intra-Community flows | Yes |
| Intrastat | Yes, above the threshold | Yes, above the threshold |
| SAF-T (D406) | Yes, simplified version since 1 January 2025 | Yes, full file |
| RO e-Factura — issuing through the system | No, ordinary invoicing continues | Yes, B2B and B2C |
| RO e-Factura — reporting | Yes, B2B invoices only, in parallel with ordinary invoicing; no B2C obligation | Covered by issuing through the system |
| RO e-Factura — receiving | Yes, suppliers report their invoices to the system | Yes |
| RO e-Transport | Yes, for movements in scope | Yes |
| Fiscal representative | Mandatory when established outside the EU | Not applicable |
The domestic transactions report covers supplies and acquisitions with Romanian counterparties and follows the VAT return; a non-established company files it only where it transacts in Romania with persons registered for Romanian VAT. Getting the establishment analysis right at the start avoids the two most expensive mistakes we see: a foreign company that files nothing because it assumed a VAT number carries no duties, and a foreign company that builds a full Romanian accounting function it never needed.
The two situations we work with
A foreign group with a Romanian subsidiary. The group controller owns the numbers, the local entity owes the filings, and the reporting calendar is Romanian while the closing calendar is the group’s. We work to your close, not to ours: you send the trial balance and journals in the format you already produce, and we turn them into Romanian returns.
A foreign company with only a Romanian VAT number. Marketplace sellers holding stock in a Romanian warehouse, distance sellers past the point where the one-stop shop stops working, contractors on a local project, groups moving goods through Romania. Here the source data sits in a foreign ERP that knows nothing about the Romanian chart of accounts, and most of the work is translation. It starts with VAT registration in Romania for non-residents and, for companies established outside the EU, with fiscal representation.
- 15IntrastatFiled with the National Institute of Statistics, not with ANAF, once the annual threshold of RON 1,000,000 per flow is passed.
- 25D300 · D390 · D112 · D100The busiest day: the returns are filed and the amounts they produce are paid.
- 30D394The information return for domestic transactions. In February, the last day of the month.
- last daySAF-T (D406)The standard audit file, for the period that closed.
A deadline falling on a non-working day moves to the first working day that follows (art. 75 of the Fiscal Procedure Code), and the 25 December due date moves back to 21 December (art. 155 (2)). Build your company’s calendar, with exact dates.
The VAT block
Registration comes first, and for non-established companies there is no turnover threshold — the obligation is triggered by the transaction, not by the volume. Companies established outside the European Union appoint a Romanian fiscal representative, who then files the VAT returns and pays the VAT due on the operations it is mandated for. EU companies may register directly.
After registration the cycle begins: the VAT return monthly or quarterly, the EC Sales List by the 25th for intra-Community flows, the domestic transactions report by the 30th where there are domestic transactions with Romanian VAT-registered persons, and Intrastat by the 15th to the National Institute of Statistics once arrivals or dispatches pass one million lei on a flow. Standard VAT is 21% and the reduced rate 11% since 1 August 2025 — a good number of English-language sources still quote the old 19%.
The digital block
SAF-T reporting through the D406 file is the heaviest of the four: a full XML picture of the accounting records, due monthly or quarterly, and mandatory for non-residents in a simplified form since 1 January 2025. RO e-Factura governs invoice issuance for companies established in Romania, B2C invoices included since 1 January 2025, and the reporting of B2B invoices by non-established companies, alongside their ordinary invoicing. RO e-Transport covers the physical movement of goods and requires a UIT code before the vehicle leaves. Intrastat sits slightly apart — statistics rather than tax — but it is reconciled against the EC Sales List all the same.
How we run compliance
We work fully online: nothing in the process needs a courier or a signature in Bucharest. We prepare and file every return through the Virtual Private Space with our qualified digital certificate, under a written mandate, and send you the ANAF receipt. Your team does not need to learn the Romanian specifications or file anything itself.
The work runs on tools we built ourselves, because off-the-shelf Romanian software assumes a Romanian source system: a SAF-T mapping and validation engine, a generator that produces declarations directly from Excel, and UITdesk for e-Transport codes. You send an ERP export or an Excel file; we convert it into the Romanian formats and check it before anything is filed. If your team wants to stay hands-on with day-to-day operations, it can have its own access to issue UIT codes in e-Transport through UITdesk and to issue and follow invoices in RO e-Factura.
A fixed monthly fee covers the agreed set of filings. Communication is in English, Italian or Romanian, with a partner-led team — every filing reviewed and signed by a licensed tax consultant and a chartered accountant — rather than a ticket queue. For the deadline map, see the Romanian tax calendar; for the mechanics underneath, the guide to VAT in Romania for foreign companies.
What the first month looks like
Onboarding has four steps. We confirm the establishment analysis and the list of filings you owe. We register the mandate and the digital certificate with ANAF. We map your chart of accounts, VAT codes and document types once, then reuse that mapping every period. Then we run one period in parallel with what you do today and switch over.
If earlier periods were missed, we quantify the exposure first and correct in a controlled order. Voluntary correction is treated very differently from a finding raised during an inspection.
