In brief
- This is the third order in less than two months to recalculate the same 49 veterinary tariffs in Annex no. 3 to Government Decision no. 1.156/2013. Every time, the update is made in enforcement of a judgment of the Iași Court of Appeal that became final before the High Court, and every time it is made for a single company.
- This one goes back a year further than the other two, to 2020, so it comes out almost 7% higher. Inspecting a non-professional holding reaches 45.66 lei for the July 2024 period, against 42.69 lei in the orders of July and August 2026. Measured against the tariff written into the Government decision, 26 lei, the increase is 75.6%, the same across all 49 entries.
- For livestock farmers nothing changes. Article 2 says that the order applies exclusively to the actions carried out by the claimant in the case, S.C. DONDORVET S.R.L.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 768 of 10 September 2026
In force from: 10 September 2026, the date of publication
In less than two months the Official Gazette of Romania has published the table of tariffs for veterinary actions in household holdings three times, and the three tables do not say the same thing. Order no. 858/2026 of the president of the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority, published on 10 September 2026, follows the one of 14 July and Order no. 835/2026, published on 28 August 2026. All three update the same annex, all three enforce a judgment of the Iași Court of Appeal, all three apply to a single company. The difference is that this one, of 10 September, starts the count a year earlier, and out of that comes a tariff roughly 7% higher for exactly the same months of work.
The tariffs in Annex no. 3 to the Government decision are not the prices of a veterinary surgery. The State pays them to empowered free-practice veterinarians, that is to private vets to whom the county sanitary-veterinary directorate entrusts, by contract, the public actions in non-professional holdings. A non-professional holding is, in the language of the law, the household where animals are kept for the family’s own consumption, not for sale. Public actions are the inspections, the blood sample collections, the vaccinations, the tuberculin tests and the disinfection work that the State orders to keep animal diseases under surveillance.
Of the 11 categories of action in the table, ten are paid out of the programme approved by the Government. The eleventh, the inspection of live animals with a view to certifying their state of health, carries an asterisk and a note that says it plainly: the tariff is borne by the keeper of the animals. There, and only there, the figures in the table reach the owner’s pocket directly, and they run from 22.83 lei for a batch of up to ten pigs to 456.59 lei for a batch of more than a hundred sheep or goats.
The update does not come from any analysis by the authority. It comes from Civil Judgment no. 248 of 12 November 2025 of the Iași Court of Appeal, Administrative and Tax Litigation Division, which became final through Civil Decision no. 3.264 of 25 June 2026 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Administrative and Tax Litigation Division, delivered in case no. 691/45/2025. Administrative litigation is the branch of proceedings in which a person or a company asks the court to compel a public authority to do what it was bound to do. The court’s reasons are not reproduced in the act, but the obligation is plain to see: the authority had to recalculate the tariffs by reference to the average annual inflation rate for 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 and to the percentage by which the national minimum wage was indexed on six dates, from 1 January 2020 to 1 July 2024.
What it changes in practice
The order applies from the date of publication, 10 September 2026. Article 3 says only that the order is published in the Official Gazette of Romania, without providing for a later date, and Article 12 of Law no. 24/2000 establishes that the three-day period from publication concerns laws and ordinances, while the other normative acts enter into force on the date of publication if they do not themselves provide otherwise.
The first effect is the size of the update, and it shows only if you put the tariff from the Government decision next to the last column of the order. Inspecting a non-professional holding cost 26 lei in the annex published on 7 January 2014 and becomes 45.66 lei for the July 2024 period, an increase of 75.6%. The percentage is the same across all 49 entries: the ratio between the last column and the base tariff varies, row by row, between 75.38% and 76.31%, and the deviations come from rounding small amounts to the nearest two bani. The update was not done action by action, but through a single index applied to the whole table.
The second effect is how the increase is spread over the seven periods. Against the tariff in the decision, the 2020 column rises by 6.9%. From there, the tariffs go up by 3.3% for 2021, by 11.1% for 2022, by 17.2% for the first nine months of 2023, by 9.4% for the last quarter of 2023, by 0.3% for the first half of 2024 and by 11.4% for the July 2024 period. The biggest jump is the one in January 2023, and the smallest, the 0.3% step, is worth 13 bani, that is 0.13 lei, on the inspection tariff.
The third effect concerns the actual amounts. Clinical examination of a bovine goes from 2.60 to 4.56 lei per head. Blood sampling in large animals, from 9.10 to 15.99 lei. Taking samples for the diagnosis of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, the group of diseases that includes mad cow disease, in large animals, from 130 to 228.26 lei. The single tuberculin test, from 12.35 to 21.69 lei. The work of identifying and registering a bovine, from 20.80 to 36.52 lei. Disinfection and rat control work, from 19.24 to 33.80 lei per hundred square metres.
The fourth effect, and the one that changes the meaning of all the others, is Article 2. The order applies exclusively to the public sanitary-veterinary actions carried out during 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 by the claimant in case no. 691/45/2025, named in the text: S.C. DONDORVET S.R.L. No other veterinary practice, no county directorate and no animal keeper comes under this order.
The fifth effect is a matter of time, and it explains why the table looks the way it does. All seven periods are closed, the oldest of them for nearly seven years: between 1 January 2020 and the day of publication 2,444 days went by. The act does not set what will be paid from now on, it recalculates work already done in the meantime. And about the recalculation it says nothing at all: not who carries it out, not within what period the differences are to be paid, not from what date interest runs.
The sixth effect is a gap in the calendar. The last column closes on 20 November 2024, while Article 2 speaks of actions carried out during the whole of 2024. For an action performed by the same company on 1 December 2024 the order says that it applies, but offers no figure at all. The date of 20 November 2024 is explained nowhere in the text, and the order of 14 July 2026, built on the same criteria, stopped on 13 November 2024.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The most important thing that has changed is who decided. The criteria for the update were not chosen by the issuing authority but taken over from the operative part of a court judgment, and they appear word for word in the title of the order, in the preamble and in Article 1. The authority signed an act whose content had been imposed on it.
The calendar has changed too, and it can be measured. From the first-instance judgment to the final decision 225 days went by. From the final decision to the signing of the order, another 71. The internal approval reports bear the dates of 18 and 21 August 2026, the order is signed on 4 September, by a person empowered by the president of the authority, and published on 10 September. Between the court’s first judgment and the day the tariffs appear in the Official Gazette of Romania there are 302 days.
Compared with the other two orders in the same series, what has changed is the level of the figures, not their structure. Orders no. 745/2026 and no. 835/2026 both start from 2021 and have six columns, with values identical to each other: the inspection of a non-professional holding at 26.85 lei in 2021 and at 42.69 lei in the last period. This order has seven columns, because it adds the year 2020, so it starts from 27.79 lei and reaches 45.66. The difference is 6.9% and it is found at every entry: 213.45 against 228.26 lei for the encephalopathy samples, 426.89 against 456.59 lei for a large batch of sheep, 34.16 against 36.52 lei for the identification of a bovine. The same actions, the same months, two different official tariffs.
The structure of the table has not changed. The 11 categories, the sub-entries and the units of measurement remain those of the annex, and the columns merely add new values for past periods. No action is introduced, removed or renamed. The annex reproduced in the order is, however, no longer the one of 2014: the form published then had 50 entries, one of which, the taking of samples from wild boar at 65 lei per head, no longer appears in any of the three orders, and the title of the second entry has meanwhile lost the mention that the clinical examination is carried out where major diseases are suspected. The annex has therefore been amended in the intervening years, and the order does not say by what act.
Finally, nothing has changed for the future. The tariffs due to an empowered veterinarian for the same actions carried out after 20 November 2024 are not touched by this order, and it contains no provision that would index them from now on.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- A final judgment is enforced through a published act, not through an internal letter, so the outcome of the case can be checked by anyone.
- The table is reproduced in full, with all 49 entries and all seven periods, not only with the entries that were in dispute.
- The criteria are written out explicitly and can be verified from public sources: five average annual inflation rates and six moments of minimum wage indexation.
- The update is arithmetically consistent across all rows, with a final ratio of around 1.756 against the tariff in the decision, so no entry was treated preferentially.
- The order states precisely the case, both courts and the numbers of the judgments, so another provider can check whether it is in a similar position.
- The note showing that the inspection for health certification is borne by the keeper of the animals is preserved, so it is clear where the State pays and where the owner does.
What remains a problem
- For the same action and the same month, the Official Gazette of Romania now contains two different tariffs: 42.69 lei for the providers covered by Orders no. 745/2026 and no. 835/2026, and 45.66 lei for the one covered by this order.
- An act with the form of a general rule, published in Part I, produces effects for a single commercial company, named in the text.
- Providers who carried out the same actions, in the same years, at the same tariffs do not learn from the order whether the updated tariffs apply to them as well.
- The interval covered closes on 20 November 2024, although Article 2 speaks of actions carried out during 2024, with no limitation inside the year.
- The order lays down no procedure for recalculating and paying the differences, although it concerns exclusively sums owed for work already done.
- The words „exclusiv TVA”, excluding VAT, appear on the first five columns but are missing from the two columns for 2024, although all of them are built with the same index.
Practical advice
- If you run an empowered free-practice veterinary surgery and carried out public sanitary-veterinary actions between 2020 and 2024, bear in mind that the order does not apply to you directly. Article 2 limits it to the claimant in the case indicated.
- Before making any calculation of your own, settle which year you are starting from. A statement of account that begins in 2020 comes out, at the end of the period, 6.9% higher than one that begins in 2021, and the difference holds at every entry.
- Check your statements of account through the ratio between the tariff received and the tariff in Annex no. 3, not through the difference in lei. At all 49 entries, the last column is 1.756 times the tariff in the Government decision.
- If you are considering an action of your own, ask the court for the exact particulars of the rulings cited: Civil Judgment no. 248 of 12 November 2025 of the Iași Court of Appeal and Civil Decision no. 3.264 of 25 June 2026 of the High Court, both in case no. 691/45/2025. Three orders have already been issued on this pattern, so there are three case files to consult.
- If you have actions carried out between 21 November and 31 December 2024 to settle, the table has no column for that interval. Ask the sanitary-veterinary directorate in writing for the applicable tariff, so that you have the answer on the record.
- Animal keepers need do nothing. The only category paid by the owner, the inspection for certifying the state of health, is likewise updated only for the actions of the provider in the case.
- For any calculation, use the values excluding VAT. The first five columns say so explicitly, and the last two follow from the same index, so they are built on the same basis.
Frequently asked questions
Do veterinary services become more expensive for livestock farmers?
By how much have the tariffs gone up?
Why was a court judgment needed?
Why are there three orders with the same tariffs?
Why does this order give higher figures than the other two?
Why does the table stop on 20 November 2024?
What does it mean for an order to update an annex to a government decision?
Can another veterinary practice use this order as a basis for payment?
Where can I find the full text of the table?
Editorial analysis
The act itself is properly built and does exactly what it had to do: it enforces a final judgment, it reproduces the whole table instead of giving only the entries in dispute, it names the case and both courts. The problem is not the order, it is the series. Three normative acts published in Part I in 58 days, with the same title, the same annex, the same court and three different claimants, say that the administration chose not to index the tariffs in time and that the providers found out, one after another, that indexation is obtained in court. The cost of that choice does not show up in the budget: there are three first-instance cases, three appeals to the High Court and three internal procedures for issuing an order, that is three rounds of public expenditure to reach a result that a single general order would have produced once.
The second observation requires adding the figures up and contradicts what the title appears to say. The order announces an update „în funcție de”, by reference to, inflation and the indexation of the minimum wage, a wording that sounds like the sum of the two. The figures say otherwise. Compounded one after another, the five average annual inflation rates from 2020 to 2024, of 2.6%, 5.0%, 13.8%, 10.4% and 5.6%, give an increase of 43%. Compounded separately, the six indexations of the minimum wage, from 2,080 to 3,700 lei, give 77.9%. Applied together, they would give 154.4%. The tariffs, however, rose by 75.6%, that is below the level of the wage indexation on its own. The difference can be explained only if the tariff is split in two: reconstructed from the seven columns, the index reproduces itself with a deviation of at most 0.03 percentage points on each step if roughly 94% of the tariff is indexed with the minimum wage and the rest, roughly 6%, with inflation. The 0.3% step for the first half of 2024, the only one that matches no wage indexation, confirms it: 0.32% measured against the 5.6% inflation of 2024 gives exactly the same weighting. That split decides what the provider receives, but the order writes it nowhere, so nobody can redo the calculation from the act.
The third observation comes out of comparing the three orders, and it is the hardest to defend. Orders no. 745/2026 and no. 835/2026 set an inspection tariff of 42.69 lei for the July 2024 period, and this one sets 45.66 lei. The difference, 2.97 lei per inspection and 6.9% across all 49 entries, does not come from different work, but from the fact that this case also covered the year 2020, while the other two started from 2021. The result is that the budget of the same county directorate may pay, for the same blood sample taken in the same week of 2024, 14.93 lei to one provider and 15.99 lei to another, each of them holding a normative act. Each of the three orders is correct within the limits of its own case, so the difference does not come from a mistake in any of them, but from the method chosen: repairing a general indexation through individual acts.
One observation about time remains, and it is read by comparing the deadlines the order imposes with those the administration allowed itself. The provider has been working since January 2020 and receives the correct tariffs after 2,444 days. By contrast, from the final decision of the High Court to the signing of the order 71 days went by, and from the first approval report to the signature only 14. The order contains no deadline for paying the differences and no mention of interest, although all the sums have been due for several years. The one who won the case has the figures, but not the due date.
What should be changed
- A general act updating Annex no. 3 for all providers, rather than one act per claimant. The criteria are the same, the calculation is identical, and the result has already been published three times. Effect: the series of court cases stops, and the 49 tariffs become a single figure per action again, not one per case file.
- Publication of the update formula, with the weight of each component. One paragraph saying what part of the tariff follows the minimum wage and what part follows inflation is enough. Effect: the provider can check the statement of account without reconstructing the index from the columns, and a dispute is no longer fought over the method of calculation.
- Coverage of the interval between 21 November and 31 December 2024. Article 2 declares the order applicable to actions carried out during 2024, while the table closes on 20 November. Effect: the window in which the order applies but offers no figure disappears.
- A payment deadline and a mention of interest. The order recalculates sums owed for work carried out between 2020 and 2024, so the difference is a debt, not a forecast. Effect: the creditor knows by when payment is due and what happens if it is not made.
- An automatic indexation clause in the government decision. A single paragraph linking the tariffs to the indexation of the minimum wage and to the inflation rate, applied of the authority’s own motion. Effect: the cause of the three court cases disappears, and the authority no longer needs a court judgment in order to apply arithmetic it already knows.
- The words „exclusiv TVA” on every column, and full marking of the text being replaced. The last two columns do not carry them, and the table ends with a closing quotation mark without the opening one appearing anywhere. Effect: it becomes visible without interpretation where the text entering the annex begins and ends, and on what tax basis the figures are expressed.
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. 768 of 10 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 114 KB the act starts on page 12
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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.