In brief
- The Financial Supervisory Authority has published Regulation no. 6/2026, which rewrites eight points of the basic regulation on alternative investment funds. The rules take effect on the day of publication, 7 September 2026, with a single exception postponed to 16 April 2027.
- Alternative funds at last receive an express legal basis to grant loans, and the delegation of management to a third-party firm moves from prior approval by the ASF to a simple notification, with half of the documents required until now.
- Managers have 60 days, that is until 6 November 2026, to send the ASF the data on the costs borne by investors, and until 16 April 2027 for the documentation on liquidity management tools.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 758 of 7 September 2026
In force from: 7 September 2026, except for one provision that applies from 16 April 2027
Alternative investment funds in Romania received, on 7 September 2026, the implementing rules they had been missing for almost five months. The Financial Supervisory Authority, the same institution that in August 2026 set out who will pay the second pillar pensions, has published Regulation no. 6/2026, bringing up to date its own 2015 regulation on the management of these funds. The act contains eight amending points and two compliance deadlines, and behind it stands a European directive that Romania transposed at the end of 2025.
An alternative investment fund, AIF for short, is a fund that raises money from several investors and places it according to a strategy announced in advance, without following the strict rules applicable to classic open-ended funds. The difference the investor feels is simple. From an ordinary open-ended fund you can get out practically whenever you want, at the unit value calculated daily. From an alternative fund you usually get out by selling on the stock exchange or only at the fund’s maturity, because your money sits in assets that cannot be sold in a day: holdings in unlisted companies, buildings, infrastructure projects and, from now on, loans granted directly by the fund. In exchange, the fund can use more borrowing and can aim at higher returns. The former SIFs listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, real estate funds and private equity funds fall into this category. The company that manages them is called an AIFM, an alternative investment fund manager. Three days later, ASF again widened the list of activities allowed on the capital market: ASF Regulation no. 7/2026 lets brokerage firms hold in custody the assets invested through crowdfunding platforms.
The 2015 regulation had been written for a law that has changed a great deal since. Law no. 243/2025, published on 30 December 2025, transposed into Romanian law Directive (EU) 2024/927, known in the market as AIFMD II, and amended Law no. 74/2015 on alternative investment fund managers. The new law applies from 16 April 2026 and introduced a whole chapter on lending by funds, a European list of liquidity management tools and new obligations on cost transparency. The same law set the ASF a deadline: the implementing rules had to be issued by 16 October 2026.
The ASF board deliberated on 26 August 2026, the chairman Alexandru Petrescu signed the regulation on 28 August, and the text appeared in the Official Gazette of Romania on 7 September. The institution thus met the deadline, 39 days before the limit, but 144 days after the law it implements had become binding on managers.
The most visible novelty is a new section of the regulation, numbered 4^1 and entitled „Acordarea de împrumuturi de către A.F.I.A. în numele F.I.A.”, the granting of loans by the AIFM on behalf of the AIF. It contains a single article, 15^1, which says that an authorised manager may grant loans under the conditions laid down in a list of articles of Law no. 74/2015. The rules themselves, the ceilings and the prohibitions, are in the law, not in the regulation. As a rule, a fund that lends must be closed-ended; it may not lend more than 20% of its capital to a single borrower where that borrower is a financial company, another alternative fund or a classic open-ended fund; leverage may not exceed 175% for open-ended funds and 300% for closed-ended ones; and if it sells on a loan it has granted, it must retain 5% of its value. Loans to consumers, that is to individuals, are prohibited. Before signing a credit agreement, the manager assesses the creditworthiness of the corporate borrower and reports to the Central Credit Register of the National Bank of Romania.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is visible in delegation, that is when the manager hands part of its work to someone else: portfolio management, risk management or ancillary services. Until 7 September 2026, Article 20 of the regulation required documents „in support of the application for approval of, or the notification of, the delegation”, and among them were the delegation agreement in Romanian, the professional indemnity insurance of the delegated firm, a description of the insolvency legislation of its home state, a declaration on own responsibility signed by both parties and proof of payment of the fee to the ASF. The new text keeps three documents and removes the rest, including the fee and the requirement that the agreement be in Romanian. The word „approval” disappears: only the notification remains. In exchange, the regime is extended to ancillary services provided by an external manager, which until now were not covered.
The second effect concerns the senior management of managers. Article 8(1), the one setting out the conditions that directors must meet, is rewritten in full. A time rule appears: persons in senior management must exercise their duties „throughout the working hours of the AIFM, which may not be less than 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week and without affecting the normal and continuous operation of the AIFM”. Law no. 74/2015 requires only 8 hours a day. The weekly threshold of 40 hours is added by the ASF and changes the arithmetic for anyone working a compressed schedule: a director working four days of 8 hours reaches 32 hours and complies with the law, but breaches the regulation.
The third effect is a report with a fixed date. Article II(1) requires every manager to send the ASF the data on costs, including all fees, commissions and expenses, within 60 days of entry into force. The deadline falls on Friday, 6 November 2026. The data then go to ESMA, the European securities and markets authority, which is preparing a single report on how much funds in the Union cost investors. The law says expressly that the delivery to ESMA is made „only once”, so it is not a periodic report.
The fourth effect has a long deadline. Managers of open-ended funds must choose at least two liquidity management tools from a European list, for example an anti-dilution levy or a redemption gate, and must write the procedures for activating and deactivating them. For funds set up before 16 April 2026, the documentation is to be filed with the ASF by 16 April 2027, that is 221 days after the publication of the regulation. The date is not chosen by the ASF: it comes from Article 10 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/465 of the European Commission, which gives existing funds a transitional year.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Comparing the new text with the regulation in force until 6 September 2026, the amendments fall into four groups.
At the level of the manager’s senior management, the incompatibilities have been regrouped and renumbered. The point prohibiting positions with another manager, with an investment management company or with the intermediary with which the company has a contract becomes point (a). The prohibition concerning persons with duties of certifying the net asset value within the depositary becomes point (b). The rule on contractual relations becomes point (c). Working hours, formerly point (h), become point (d) and acquire the threshold of 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. The rule on replacements, formerly point (i), becomes point (e) and loses the option of part-time hours that it had until now. The renumbering has been carried through: the only internal cross-reference to these points, the one in Article 11^4(4)(d) on the director of a secondary establishment, was updated in the same act from „points (c) and (h)” to „points (a) and (d)”.
On the authorisation of changes, Article 11^1(1) used to refer to the significant conditions in Article 7(2)(a), (b), (e), (f), (h) and (i) of the law. It now refers to points (a), (a^1), (b), (f), (h) and (i). Point (a^1) is the legal name and the identifier of the manager, added to the law by Law no. 243/2025, while point (e), which covers precisely delegation arrangements, drops out of the list. The two changes are to be read together with the rewriting of Article 20: delegation leaves the prior authorisation circuit entirely and remains a notification.
On transparency towards investors, Article 41(2)(b) lists what counts as a „material change” for third-country funds distributed in Romania. The list is supplemented with point (i^1) of Article 22(1) of the law, that is the list of commissions, fees and expenses borne by the manager in connection with the operation of the fund and allocated to it. This single addition is the one postponed to 16 April 2027, the same date on which it enters into force in the law itself.
In the annexes, the application forms receive four new types of activity: granting loans on behalf of the fund, managing securitisation special purpose entities, administering benchmarks and servicing loans of corporate borrowers. The second annex, the one for internally managed funds, loses ancillary services instead, because a self-managed fund cannot provide them.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- Lending by funds gets a clear framework, with written ceilings and prohibitions, instead of the grey area of until now. An investor can check whether their fund observes the 20% limit per borrower and the leverage thresholds of 175% and 300%.
- Delegation becomes cheaper and faster: three documents instead of five, with no fee to the ASF and no obligation to translate the agreement into Romanian.
- The list of commissions and expenses becomes information the investor has to receive, and a change to it counts as a material change for third-country funds.
- The compliance deadlines are aligned with the European ones, so a manager operating in several states does not have different calendars to follow.
- The rules on directors’ replacements acquire a firm deadline, three months, for the authorisation of a permanent change of management, instead of an obligation with no due date.
What remains a problem
- The new section on loans contains no rule of its own, only a list of references to the law. Anyone reading the regulation alone learns neither the ceilings nor the prohibition on lending to consumers.
- The threshold of 40 hours a week is added by the ASF on top of the 8 hours a day in the law and restricts compressed schedules, without the act explaining why.
- The regulation appeared 144 days after the law it implements had become binding, a period in which managers worked with a regulation that did not match the law.
- The text does not say in what format and for what period the cost data are to be reported by 6 November 2026, even though the deadline is short.
- The renumbering of the points in Article 8 has produced a contradiction between two requirements applying to the same persons, set out below.
Practical advice
- If you have money in an alternative fund, ask the manager for the complete list of commissions, fees and expenses. It is the information the law has required since 16 April 2026, and the regulation now turns it into something the ASF follows.
- Check in the fund’s documents whether the strategy includes granting loans. A fund whose loans exceed 50% of net assets is, for the purposes of the law, a lending fund and falls under special leverage ceilings.
- If you manage a fund, put 6 November 2026 in the calendar for the cost report and 16 April 2027 for the documentation on liquidity tools. The second requirement applies to funds set up before 16 April 2026.
- Reread directors’ mandate agreements before your next authorisation with the ASF. The threshold of 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week applies from 7 September 2026 and also to the persons who replace them.
- If you delegated activities before 7 September 2026 under the approval circuit, check what you still have to file. The new regime requires only the delegation agreement, the documentation on the delegated entity and proof of its authorisation.
- When you change the company’s name or identifier, treat the change as one subject to prior authorisation by the ASF, within a maximum of 10 days from the moment it occurs. Point (a^1) was added for precisely that.
- Do not confuse the regulation with the source of the penalty. Fines are imposed under Articles 51 and 52 of Law no. 74/2015 and can reach 5% of the previous year’s net turnover.
Frequently asked questions
What is an alternative investment fund, in short?
How does it differ from an ordinary open-ended fund?
From what date does ASF Regulation no. 6/2026 apply?
Why does this regulation appear now?
Can alternative funds lend to anyone?
What must a manager do by 6 November 2026?
What are liquidity management tools?
Does delegation of management still need the ASF’s agreement?
What does a manager risk if it does not observe the new rules?
Does anything change for the ordinary investor from 7 September 2026?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article I point 1, Article 8(1), points (c) and (e) contradict each other on replacements. The introductory part of the paragraph says that the requirements in points (a) to (e) apply to persons in senior management „as well as to the persons who replace them”. Point (c) requires those persons not to be employees of the manager. Point (e), which refers expressly to replacements, says that „these may be employees of the A.F.I.A.”, that is of the manager. A manager acting in good faith can reach two opposite conclusions: that the person designated to replace a director must be taken off an individual employment contract and put on a mandate, or that they may remain an employee. The contradiction is new. In the previous text, point (i) provided only that replacements could work part-time hours, and that wording has now been replaced by permission to be employees, without the parallel prohibition being aligned. What is at stake is not theoretical: failure to observe the operating conditions laid down in Articles 6 to 10 of Law no. 74/2015 is an administrative offence, and for a company the fine starts at 0.1% of net turnover.
Editorial analysis
The regulation is, for the most part, an alignment exercise done properly. Checking the internal cross-references confirms it: the only place in the regulation that referred to the renumbered points of Article 8, namely Article 11^4(4)(d) on the director of a secondary establishment, was amended in the same act, from „points (c) and (h)” to „points (a) and (d)”. Nor does the new Section 4^1 overlap with anything already there, because the regulation had no Article 15^1 until now. The date of the postponement, 16 April 2027, coincides with the date on which the corresponding point of Law no. 243/2025 itself enters into force. These are things that break easily, and here they did not break.
The problem lies elsewhere and is visible only when the regulation is placed beside the law. The single new substantive rule, Article 15^1 in Section 4^1, says nothing in its own name: it refers to Article 3 point 49, to Article 15(3)(d), paragraphs (3^1), (3^2) and (6) to (21), to Article 15^1 and to Article 16(3) to (5) of Law no. 74/2015. And of those provisions, the ones carrying the actual ceilings are not covered by the list of administrative offences. Article 51(2)(e) of the law penalises „failure to observe the provisions of Article 15(1) to (3) and (5) on risk management and of Article 16 on liquidity management”. That enumeration was left untouched by Law no. 243/2025, which meanwhile added sixteen new paragraphs to Article 15, from (6) to (21). The result, on 7 September 2026: the obligation to document liquidity tools, which belongs to Article 16, carries an express penalty, while the 20% limit per borrower, the leverage ceilings of 175% and 300% and the retention of 5% of loans sold on, all in Article 15, do not appear in the list of offences. The regulation sends managers precisely towards those paragraphs, so it lends them visibility without being able to add a penalty, because it is not the regulation that establishes administrative offences.
The second observation concerns the preamble. The act invokes as its legal basis, among others, „Article 65 of Law no. 74/2015”. Article 65 of that law says that the annexes form an integral part of the law and lists the directives transposed. It confers no power on the ASF. The real empowerment comes from Government Emergency Ordinance no. 93/2012, cited correctly at the beginning of the preamble, and from Article IV(2) of Law no. 243/2025, which sets the deadline of 16 October 2026. The reference does not change the outcome, but it remains a citation error in an act that otherwise aligns its references carefully.
The third observation concerns the pace. The law became binding on 16 April 2026, the implementing regulation appeared on 7 September 2026, that is after 144 days. In the same month, the ASF asks managers to deliver the cost data within 60 days. The ratio between the two intervals says something about how time is shared between the authority and those the rule is addressed to.
What should be changed
- Alignment of points (c) and (e) of Article 8(1). A corrigendum saying expressly whether replacements may be employees of the manager would spare every AIFM a compliance decision taken by guesswork, with a fine at the other end.
- Supplementing Article 51(2)(e) of Law no. 74/2015. Without a reference to paragraphs (6) to (21) of Article 15 and to Article 15^1, the lending ceilings remain rules with no express penalty. The change cannot be made by the ASF but by Parliament, and yet the ASF is the one that can ask for it.
- Taking the prohibition on lending to consumers into the text of Section 4^1. The preamble invokes Articles 4^1 and 4^2 of the law, and Article 15^1 of the regulation does not mention them. Anyone reading only the new section does not learn that loans to individuals are prohibited.
- Specifying the format and the period for the cost report. Article II(1) sets 60 days, but does not say for which financial year the report is made or in what structure. An annex or an instruction published together with the regulation would have solved the problem before it arose.
- Updating the forms actually in use. The two amended annexes are, by their own footnote, the applications completed exclusively by entities not supervised by the ASF before Law no. 74/2015 entered into force in 2015. A manager authorised after that date which extends its object of activity to granting loans has no updated form, only the general procedure in Article 11^1(1)(d).
- Reasons for the threshold of 40 hours a week. The law requires 8 hours a day. The regulation adds a weekly threshold that rules out compressed schedules. If the intention is different, the text should say that the two thresholds apply as alternatives.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Gazette of Romania no. 758 of 7 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 117 KB the act starts on page 14
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.