In brief

  • The Constitutional Court rejected as unfounded the challenge brought against the rule that has capped, since 2019, public-sector allowances at their December 2018 level, for as long as the employee holds the same position and works under the same conditions.
  • The decision changes nothing in practice: it merely confirms, with general binding force, a rule already applied since 2019 to staff paid from public funds, originally set out in Article 34(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 114/2018.
  • It concerns public-sector staff whose allowances, indemnities, compensations and bonuses were frozen at their December 2018 amount. The decision becomes generally binding from the date of publication, 5 August 2026.
Act: CCR Decision No. 759/2025
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) No. 644 of 5 August 2026
In force from: 5 August 2026

The Constitutional Court has definitively confirmed that capping public-sector allowances at their December 2018 level is constitutional. Decision No. 759/2025, handed down back on 11 December 2025 but published only now, in Official Gazette of Romania No. 644 of 5 August 2026, rejects a challenge brought by a trade union from Târgu Mureș against Article 34(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 114/2018. The contested text provides that, starting 1 January 2019, allowances, indemnities, compensations, bonuses and other elements of the monthly gross salary or pay of staff paid from public funds are to be kept at no more than the amount granted for December 2018, for as long as the employee holds the same position and works under the same conditions.

The dispute originated in a claim for salary-difference damages heard by the Mureș Tribunal, where the “Acord” trade union challenged the constitutionality of the rule. The Court examined the challenge both from the standpoint of how the emergency ordinance was adopted and from the standpoint of its content, and rejected both lines of argument.

The Court has confirmed another public pay mechanism along the same line: a supplement granted on criteria kept in a classified order.

What it changes in practice

The rule capping allowances at the December 2018 level remains fully applicable, unchanged. No new obligation arises for either employers or employees: the decision definitively validates a mechanism that has already been used for more than six years in calculating public-sector pay.

A line of challenges is now definitively closed. Decision No. 759/2025 joins two earlier Court decisions (No. 809/2021 and No. 573/2022) that rejected the same challenge. In practice, the avenue of contesting this rule in court on constitutional grounds is now exhausted: the courts are bound by the Court’s settled case law.

Nothing changes for cases already pending. The Court held that the way the rule is actually applied (i.e. how employers calculate the allowances in practice) falls within the competence of the public authorities and, in the event of a dispute, of the ordinary courts, not of constitutional review.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

In practice, nothing changes in the actual payment of public-sector salaries. The rule capping allowances at the December 2018 level already existed since 2019 and has been applied without interruption by public-sector employers. What the decision adds is its judicial confirmation, with general binding effect: whereas until now the rule could be challenged case by case in court through individual constitutional challenges, from now on any similar challenge will be dismissed automatically, on the basis of the Court’s settled case law (Decisions No. 809/2021, No. 573/2022 and now No. 759/2025).

The same technique, a fixed month in the past standing in for today’s salary, was challenged by doctors as well, and just as unsuccessfully: on-call duty is still paid under the January 2018 rules, although the basic salary of the same doctor has risen several times since.

The Court stressed that allowances, bonuses and other incentives are additional salary rights, not fundamental rights directly guaranteed by the Constitution, and that the legislature has exclusive competence to set, amend, suspend or even abolish them. This position remains unchanged from the earlier decisions and is now reaffirmed with reference to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as well.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • It gives public-sector employers and employees definitive clarity that the pay-calculation rule applied since 2019 is lawful and cannot be struck down through litigation.
  • It reduces the number of individual lawsuits based on the same constitutional challenge, since courts can no longer refer to the Court an issue already settled consistently in the same sense.
  • It gives the state budgetary predictability, confirming that the personnel-spending containment measures adopted in 2018-2019 have remained valid.

What remains a problem

  • For employees whose allowances have stayed frozen at the December 2018 level, the decision confirms they will not obtain a recalculation or an increase through litigation by invoking the rule’s unconstitutionality.
  • Trade unions and employees who were counting on a possible finding of unconstitutionality as leverage in pay negotiations definitively lose this legal argument.
  • The decision offers no compensation for the gap accumulated between the frozen amount and whatever increase the allowances would have had without the cap.

Practical advice

  1. If you work in the public sector and have a pending case on the capping of allowances at the December 2018 level: talk to your lawyer, because the unconstitutionality argument no longer has a realistic chance of being upheld in court after this decision.
  2. If your employer applied the cap incorrectly (for example, you changed position or working conditions, a situation where the cap would no longer apply): check this separately as a factual issue, which remains within the competence of the ordinary courts, not constitutional review.
  3. If you are a public-sector employer (budget officer, HR): no change to the current method of calculating allowances is needed; the decision confirms existing practice.
  4. If you are following another similar pending case: keep in mind that any new constitutional challenge on this text will very likely be dismissed outright, on the basis of the settled case law.

Frequently asked questions

Does CCR Decision No. 759/2025 change how my salary is calculated?
No. The decision confirms a rule already applied since 2019, under which allowances, indemnities, compensations and bonuses of staff paid from public funds are kept at no more than the December 2018 level, as long as the employee holds the same position and works under the same conditions. It introduces no practical change.
Who challenged the rule, and why?
The “Acord” trade union from Târgu Mureș raised the constitutional challenge on behalf of some of its members, in a salary-difference damages case pending before the Mureș Tribunal, arguing that the rule was unclear, discriminatory and unlawfully adopted through an emergency ordinance.
Why was the challenge rejected?
The Court found that the emergency ordinance had been lawfully adopted, that the rule is not unclear when read together with the rest of the legislation on public-sector pay, that it does not create arbitrary discrimination, and that allowances are additional salary rights, not fundamental rights, which the legislature may freely amend.
Can this rule still be successfully challenged before the Constitutional Court?
In theory yes, a new challenge could be raised, but in practice the chances are minimal: this is the third Court decision (after No. 809/2021 and No. 573/2022) rejecting the same challenge, forming settled case law that is difficult to overturn without new elements.
From when does the decision take effect?
Decisions of the Constitutional Court are final and generally binding from the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, i.e. from 5 August 2026, although it was actually handed down back on 11 December 2025.
Does it also apply to staff of state-owned companies or autonomous administrations?
No. The rule applies exclusively to staff paid from public funds, i.e. public servants proper (public administration, education, health, defence, public order, etc.), not to employees of state-owned companies and autonomous administrations, who are subject to separate pay rules.

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. 644 of 5 August 2026 16 pages PDF, 120 KB the act starts on page 2

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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.