What the Romanian VAT return covers
The Romanian VAT return is form D300, the decont de taxă pe valoarea adăugată. It is the filing that turns a period’s transactions into a single number: VAT to pay, or VAT to recover. Almost everything else in the Romanian VAT system — the domestic transactions report, the EC Sales List, SAF-T — exists partly so that ANAF can test whether that number is right.
The legal basis is art. 323 of the Fiscal Code (Law 227/2015), and the form itself is approved by ANAF order and reissued whenever the structure changes. The return is submitted electronically through the Virtual Private Space, the channel every taxpayer uses to reach ANAF.
What goes into it: output VAT on supplies of goods and services, VAT collected under the domestic reverse charge, intra-Community acquisitions of goods and services with self-assessment, imports, input VAT with the right of deduction, adjustments, and the balance carried forward from the previous period. Since 1 August 2025 the standard rate is 21% and the reduced rate 11% — see the note on the Romanian VAT rates of 21% and 11% if your systems still carry the old values.
Who has to file
The obligation follows the registration, not the activity. Anyone registered for VAT purposes in Romania under art. 316 files a D300 for every fiscal period, including a period with no transactions at all.
| Taxpayer | Files the D300 | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Romanian company registered for VAT | Yes | Monthly or quarterly, per the fiscal period |
| Romanian subsidiary of a foreign group | Yes | Same rules as any Romanian company |
| Non-established company with a Romanian VAT number | Yes | Registered directly or through a fiscal representative |
| Fixed establishment of a foreign company | Yes | Full obligations, including e-invoicing |
| Person registered only under the special registration in art. 317 | No | Reports the transactions in scope on a separate return |
| Business below the registration threshold, not registered | No | No VAT return until registration |
A company established outside the European Union registers through a Romanian fiscal representative, which files a separate D300 for the represented operations under the VAT code attributed through it and pays the VAT due on them. An EU company may register directly; the mechanics are on the page about VAT registration in Romania for non-residents.
Monthly or quarterly: how the fiscal period is set
The default fiscal period is the calendar month. The calendar quarter applies only where two conditions hold together for the previous calendar year: turnover stayed under the threshold set in the Fiscal Code, and the taxable person made no intra-Community acquisition of goods.
Two consequences catch companies out.
- A single intra-Community acquisition of goods during a quarter ends the quarterly period. The company moves to monthly filing and notifies ANAF of the change.
- A newly registered company is, in practice, placed on a monthly period to begin with, and can move to quarterly filing only from a following year, if the conditions are met.
The fiscal period also drives the SAF-T rhythm: a monthly VAT period means a monthly D406 SAF-T file, a quarterly period means a quarterly one.
- 01The VAT journalsThe month’s sales and purchases, with the rate and the counterparty, from the books.
- 02D300The return, on the 25thOutput VAT, input VAT and the balance payable or refundable.
- 03D394The listing, on the 30thThe same domestic invoices, reported counterparty by counterparty.
- 04D406SAF-T, last dayThe same documents in detail, together with the general ledger for the period.
ANAF matches the four sources automatically, plus the invoices in e-Factura. Differences generate notices, and unexplained notices end up, over time, as audits. That is why the cross-check happens before filing, not after.
Deadlines
The return is due by the 25th of the month following the fiscal period, inclusive. The payment deadline for VAT due is the same date. When the 25th falls on a Saturday, a Sunday or a public holiday, the deadline moves to the next working day.
Around the same date sit the EC Sales List (D390), also due by the 25th, and, a few days later, the D394 domestic transactions return, due by the 30th. The full map of monthly deadlines is in the Romanian tax calendar.
VAT refunds
A period can close with a negative balance — more input than output VAT. Exporters, companies making intra-Community supplies and companies in an investment phase are in that position routinely.
Two options exist for each period. The balance is carried forward to the next return, or it is claimed as a refund by ticking the refund option in the D300. Once the refund option is used, ANAF handles the claim under a risk-based procedure: part of the claims are settled with the audit performed afterwards, part trigger a documentary check, part an anticipated inspection. In practice the route depends on the taxpayer’s risk profile, on the amount and on how complete the supporting file is.
Our approach is to assemble the refund file at the same time as the return rather than after ANAF asks: invoices, transport documents proving the goods left Romania, customs declarations, contracts. A claim supported from day one is settled in a fraction of the time of one documented reactively.
Penalties
Two different exposures apply, and they are often confused.
Late or missing filing. The Fiscal Procedure Code (Law 207/2015) sanctions failure to submit tax returns within the deadline with a fine, set in bands according to the taxpayer’s category. The consolidated text is published by ANAF.
Late payment. Where VAT is actually due, interest and late-payment penalties run per day of delay from the payment deadline until the amount is settled. These are the amounts that grow, and they are not limited by the size of the fine.
There is a third, less visible cost. A taxpayer that files late repeatedly moves up the risk list, and an inconsistency between the D300, the D394 and SAF-T for the same period is one of the clearest triggers for a Romanian tax inspection.
How we prepare and file your D300
The monthly cycle is short because the preparation work is done once, at onboarding.
- You send the period’s data in the format you already produce: an ERP export, a trial balance with journals, or invoice listings in Excel. We do not ask you to change your systems.
- We generate the return with our own tool, which produces Romanian declarations directly from structured data rather than from a Romanian accounting package. New VAT codes, new document types and new partners are flagged before generation rather than after rejection.
- We reconcile before filing. Output VAT against the sales listing, input VAT against the purchase listing, intra-Community lines against the D390, domestic lines against the D394, and the whole against the SAF-T file for the same period. Differences are cleared with you, not smoothed over.
- We file through the Virtual Private Space with our qualified digital certificate, under a written mandate, and send you the ANAF receipt plus a one-page summary of the period: the balance, what drove it, what to watch next month.
The return is prepared and filed by us every period; your team only supplies the data. The fee is a fixed monthly amount for the agreed set of filings, and the conversation is in English, Italian or Romanian, with a partner-led team — every return reviewed and signed by a licensed tax consultant and a chartered accountant.
Specific situations
Marketplace sellers holding stock in Romania. Sales data arrives from the platform, often aggregated by day rather than by invoice, while the D300 needs rate-level detail and the D394 needs counterparty-level detail. Agreeing the export granularity once, at the start, solves both. The mechanics are covered in the guide to e-commerce VAT in Romania.
Companies applying the domestic reverse charge. Certain domestic supplies between VAT-registered persons carry the reverse charge, so the buyer self-assesses. The amounts appear on both sides of the return and net to zero, but they still have to sit in the right boxes — a frequent source of formal errors that produce no tax effect and still attract questions.
Dormant registrations. A VAT number kept alive for a future project still generates a nil return every period. It costs almost nothing to file and a great deal to explain later.
Registrations cancelled by ANAF. Where the VAT code is cancelled by the authority, the obligations do not simply stop: tax collected while the code was invalid is reported separately, and re-registration follows its own procedure. This is a situation to handle with advice rather than by improvisation.
The errors we see most often
- Old VAT rates still hard-coded in a foreign ERP after the August 2025 change, producing 19% lines that no longer reconcile with anything.
- Nil periods skipped because there was no activity, which is precisely when a fine is cheapest for ANAF to issue.
- Intra-Community acquisitions of goods made during a quarter without switching to a monthly period and notifying the change.
- Reverse-charge transactions reported on one side only, so the return balances by accident rather than by construction.
- Refund claims filed without the supporting file, which turns a short process into a long one.
- The D300 and the D394 built from different extracts, taken at different moments, so the two never quite agree.
Each of these is checked before the return is submitted, and the reconciliation summary is part of what you receive every period.
