In brief

  • The number of positions that can issue fines in railway and metro transport rises from 17 to 23. The two railway authorities each go from five to eight empowered positions, while the list of ministry staff stays at seven. No position is taken off.
  • The identity card looks exactly as it did. The four models set in 2023 are untouched, so anyone who asks to see the document has the same booklet in front of them. The difference is in who is entitled to receive it.
  • The targets are the companies in the railway sector and their staff, that is, transport operators, infrastructure managers, the metro and the suppliers of railway products and services, not the passenger without a ticket. The fine these people can impose reaches 100,000 lei for a company.
Act: Order of the interim minister of transport and infrastructure no. 870/2026 amending Order of the minister of transport and infrastructure no. 1.649/2023 establishing the form, model and content of the special identity cards of the staff of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and of certain institutions subordinated to it, and establishing the staff empowered to establish, classify and penalise the administrative offences committed in the conduct of railway and metro transport operations
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, no. 796 of 18 September 2026, page 5
In force from: 18 September 2026, the date of publication, since the order provides for no later date

Six new positions gain the right to carry a special identity card and to issue fines on the railways and the metro. Order no. 870/2026 of the interim minister of transport and infrastructure, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 796 of 18 September 2026, rewrites four articles in two annexes of a 2023 order and achieves one thing: it lengthens the list of those who can establish, classify and penalise administrative offences in railway activity. These are the same inspectors who check the state of the track, of the carriages and of the passenger service, the area in which the infrastructure manager was given performance targets for 2026 to 2030. Who gets checked stays the same. What changes is who can do the checking.

The list in Annex no. 7, that of the Romanian Railway Safety Authority, had five positions since 2023: director general, director, territorial chief inspector, head of service and state inspector. It now has eight, with head of department, adviser to the director general and expert added to it. The list in Annex no. 8, that of the Romanian Railway Authority, also started from five positions: director general, director, head of department, head of service and technical inspector. It too now has eight, through the addition of deputy director general, adviser to the director general and expert. The third list, that of the ministry staff in Annex no. 6, has seven positions and was not touched.

The second article in each annex says which of these positions has to be nominated by a decision of the director general, that is, for whom an individual act with a name has to exist. At the first authority the mechanism covered the director, the head of service and the state inspector, and it now covers the head of department as well, so four positions out of eight. At the second it covered the director, the head of department and the head of service, and in the new wording it covers exactly the same three positions, with the letters changed because of the renumbering. The consequence only shows when the two annexes are set side by side: of the six newly added positions, one single position enters the nomination mechanism, while the other five gain the right to fine through the job title alone.

What has not changed takes up more room than what has. The models of identity card, reproduced in facsimile in annexes no. 1 to 4 of the 2023 order, are untouched, and so is the validity rule in Article 6 of the same order: the card runs from the date of issue until the end of the calendar year in which it was issued, or until it is withdrawn. The safety authority also remains the institution that prints and manages all the special identity cards, including those of the other institutions. The list of the staff of the Romanian Railway Investigating Agency, in Annex no. 9, has stayed as it was too, without being mentioned in the new order.

The order was signed on 17 September 2026 and published the following day. The signature belongs to State Secretary Horațiu-Lucian Cosma, who signed for the interim minister. The legal basis contains a single reference: Article 9(4) of Government Decision no. 370/2021, which says that the minister of transport and infrastructure „emite ordine și instrucțiuni” (issues orders and instructions).

What it changes in practice

For a company in the railway sector, the practical effect is that the list of people who can walk into its yard with an identity card and draw up an offence report has grown by six positions, from 17 to 23. The most important addition is not a management position but an operational one: the expert. Until 18 September 2026, the expert who carried out the technical check could not sign the finding alone and had to take it to a head of service or to a state inspector. From that date he can sign it himself.

The fines these people can impose do not change, because they sit in the law rather than in the order. Government Ordinance no. 39/2000, in the form given to it by Ordinance no. 3/2012, lists 46 administrative offences in railway activity, from passenger trains put into service without working sanitary and heating installations through to the carriage of dangerous goods without meeting the conditions imposed. For an individual the fine runs from 1,150 lei to 50,600 lei, and for a company from 3,450 lei to 100,000 lei, depending on how serious the act is. Separately, Government Emergency Ordinance no. 73/2019 on railway safety sets out, in Article 29, six administrative offences of its own, with fines between 5,000 and 20,000 lei, for which half the minimum can be paid within 48 hours of the offence report being drawn up or served.

For the ordinary passenger the effect is nil, and the confusion is worth clearing up, because the title of the order sounds otherwise. The administrative offences in Government Ordinance no. 39/2000 concern the acts of the individuals and companies that carry out railway transport activity, that is, the operators, the infrastructure managers, the suppliers and their staff. The travel ticket and the checking of transport documents on a train or on the metro belong to an entirely different framework. The person with the special identity card from this order checks how the railway is kept, not the passenger’s pocket.

For the company being checked, a real difficulty of verification remains. Five of the six new positions need no individual nomination decision, and where the decision does exist it is an internal document of the authority, which is not published. In practice, whoever receives the offence report can read the position written on the identity card and compare it with the list in the annexes, but cannot check on the spot whether that person was designated by an act.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Compared with the 2023 version, exactly four articles have changed, all of them in annexes. The body of the order is untouched. Each of the two lists of positions has grown by three, an increase of 60%, and the two articles that govern nomination were rewritten to fit the new numbering.

The count by letter shows more. Before, of the ten positions at the two authorities, six needed an individual nomination decision, or 60%. Now, of the sixteen positions, seven need one, or roughly 44%. The right to fine has spread faster than the duty to state, in an act, who exercises it.

The symmetry between the two lists has changed as well. Until now they resembled each other only in part: one authority had a territorial chief inspector, the other a head of department. Now both end the same way, with adviser to the director general and expert, and the remaining difference concerns the name of the inspector, „inspector de stat” (state inspector) at one and „inspector tehnic” (technical inspector) at the other. An old asymmetry does remain, which the order does not touch: the state inspector needs a nomination decision and the technical inspector does not.

In drafting terms, the only correction is a hyphen: „inspector șef teritorial” from 2023 has become „inspector-șef teritorial”.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • The person who does the check can also sign the finding. The expert and the adviser to the director general no longer have to go through another post for an offence report to be drawn up, so the check ends on the day it begins.
  • The lists of the two authorities become almost identical. An operator dealing with both authorities no longer has to remember two different hierarchies in order to know who is standing in front of him.
  • The head of department at the safety authority enters the nomination mechanism too, not just the list of positions, so an individual act will exist for him.
  • The model of the identity card stays unchanged, so nothing is reprinted and no transition period appears, and cards issued earlier run until their usual expiry.
  • The order enters into force on the day of publication, so no window appears in which the authorities’ updated organisation charts would have no cover in the list of empowered positions.

What remains a problem

  • „Expert” is a generic name, written without any mention of the structure, the specialisation or the number, and the internal organisation chart can multiply the position without limit.
  • Five of the six new positions receive the right to fine through the job title, with no individual decision, so no act exists from which it can be seen who actually exercises it.
  • The nomination decisions, where they are required, are internal documents that are not published. The company being checked has no way of verifying the empowerment at the moment of the check.
  • The provision from which the minister’s right to establish this staff flows is nowhere cited. The only basis invoked is the general power to issue orders.
  • The reference to the emergency ordinance on railway safety leads to the article on the access of accident investigators to evidence, not to the one on establishing administrative offences.
  • Under Article 6(1) of Government Ordinance no. 39/2000, unamended since 16 May 2003, the right to establish offences and to fine belongs only to the staff of the Romanian Railway Authority and to that of the ministry. The safety authority, a separate legal person since 2023, is missing from that text.
  • The previous version of the annexes is not reproduced, so what has changed can be found out only by opening the Official Gazette of Romania edition of 25 September 2023.

Practical advice

  1. Ask for the identity card and read all of it, not just the photograph. The position written on it has to be one of the 23 in annexes no. 6, 7 and 8 of Order no. 1.649/2023, in the form given by Order no. 870/2026.
  2. Look at the year. The card is valid from issue until the end of the calendar year in which it was issued, under Article 6 of the 2023 order. One issued in 2025 no longer covers a check carried out in 2026.
  3. If the position is director, head of department, head of service or state inspector at the safety authority, or director, head of department or head of service at the railway authority, ask for the decision of the director general nominating the person as well. For these positions the individual act is mandatory.
  4. Write into the offence report the position of the officer who drew it up, exactly as it appears on the identity card. It is the element that allows a later check on whether the person was among those empowered.
  5. Do not confuse this check with the checking of travel tickets. The acts penalised here concern the railway activity of companies and of their staff, not the transport documents of passengers.
  6. If the fine comes under Article 29 of the emergency ordinance on railway safety, you have 48 hours from the offence report being drawn up or served to pay half the minimum, and the officer who draws it up must write that option into the act.
  7. Keep the number and date of the new order, 870 of 17 September 2026, for any challenge. The list on which the check was based is the one in this version, not the one published in 2023.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly has this order changed?
Four articles in two annexes of Order no. 1.649/2023. The list of positions that can issue fines goes from five to eight at each of the two railway authorities, and the articles governing individual nomination were rewritten to fit the new numbering.
Does the identity card that the person doing the check has to show change?
No. The four models of identity card are set in annexes no. 1 to 4 of the 2023 order and none of them has been amended. The document looks exactly as it did before.
When does it apply from?
From 18 September 2026, the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania. No later date appears in the text, and for this type of act the rule in Article 12(3) of Law no. 24/2000 is entry into force on publication.
Which new positions have appeared on the list?
At the Romanian Railway Safety Authority: head of department, adviser to the director general and expert. At the Romanian Railway Authority: deputy director general, adviser to the director general and expert.
Has anyone lost the right to penalise?
No. None of the existing positions has been taken off. The order only adds, and the one change of form to an older position is the hyphen in „inspector-șef teritorial”.
Can a plain expert fine me?
Yes, from 18 September 2026. The expert appears on both lists, under letter h), and is empowered to establish, classify and penalise. No individual nomination decision is required for him.
Whom can these people fine?
The individuals and legal persons that carry out railway and metro transport activity: operators, infrastructure managers, suppliers of railway products and services, together with their staff. Not passengers.
How large are the fines?
For the administrative offences in Government Ordinance no. 39/2000, between 1,150 and 50,600 lei for individuals and between 3,450 and 100,000 lei for legal persons. For those in Government Emergency Ordinance no. 73/2019, between 5,000 and 20,000 lei.
How do I check whether the person checking me is entitled to?
You compare the position written on the identity card with the lists in annexes no. 6, 7 and 8 and you check the year of validity. For the positions that require individual nomination you can also ask for the decision of the director general. For the others the empowerment follows directly from the position.
Was the order signed by the minister?
It was signed for the interim minister of transport and infrastructure by State Secretary Horațiu-Lucian Cosma, on 17 September 2026.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Annex no. 7, Article 1. All eight empowered positions are within the Romanian Railway Safety Authority, a separate public institution with its own legal personality, subordinated to the ministry since April 2023. Article 6(1) of Government Ordinance no. 39/2000, unamended since 16 May 2003, gives the right to establish and penalise the administrative offences in railway and metro transport operations only to the staff of the Romanian Railway Authority and to the staff of the ministry. Anyone fined by an inspector of the safety authority for one of the 46 acts in that ordinance can argue that the officer who established the offence is not among the persons the law designates, and anyone reading the order can argue the opposite.
  • The legal basis. The order widens the list of staff empowered to establish and penalise administrative offences, yet it invokes a single basis: Article 9(4) of Government Decision no. 370/2021, under which the minister „emite ordine și instrucțiuni” (issues orders and instructions). The provision that gives him the right to establish this staff is Article 6(2) of Government Ordinance no. 39/2000, cited in the amended 2023 order and absent here. Article 42(4) of Law no. 24/2000 requires the introductory formula to include the bases on which and in execution of which the act was issued.
  • Preamble, fourth indent. Article 21(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 73/2019 is invoked. That article is headed „Statutul investigației” (the status of the investigation) and governs the access of investigators of railway accidents and incidents to information and evidence, a matter that belongs to the Romanian Railway Investigating Agency, an institution the order does not touch. The power to establish, by order of the minister, the staff who establish the administrative offences in the same emergency ordinance sits in Article 29(3).

Editorial analysis

The order runs to 23 paragraphs and almost everything in it is cross-references. To find out what has changed you have to set the Official Gazette of Romania edition of 25 September 2023 next to it, because the new text is reproduced in full while the replaced one does not appear at all. The comparison does give a clear result: ten positions become sixteen, an increase of 60% at each of the two authorities, and of the six new positions only one enters the mechanism that calls for an individual act of nomination.

That is where the heart of it sits, and it does not show on a straight read of the order. The share of positions for which a decision naming a person has to exist falls from six in ten to seven in sixteen, that is, from 60% to roughly 44%. The right to draw up an offence report is spreading while the duty to state in an act who holds it is thinning out. The extreme case is the expert. The Romanian Railway Safety Authority took over from the Romanian Railway Authority a maximum of 230 posts, under Article 5(2) of Government Decision no. 309/2023, and the order does not say how many of these people are called experts, which structure they sit in or what specialisation they have. Combined with Article 8(4) of the 2023 order, under which the identity cards of an institution’s own staff are printed on the basis of an instruction from the director general, the result is that the number of people who can sign a fine at this authority is decided by an internal document that reaches nowhere public.

The second observation concerns the different speeds at which the layers move. Article 6 of Government Ordinance no. 39/2000 was last amended on 16 May 2003, 8,526 days before this order, and its text still speaks of the staff of the „Ministerul Lucrărilor Publice, Transporturilor și Locuinței” (Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing), a ministry abolished that same year. The institutional architecture has changed twice since then, most recently in April 2023, when the safety authority was split off from the Romanian Railway Authority as a separate legal person. The ministerial order keeps up with the organisation chart, 1,089 days after the previous version, while the law that empowers it has stayed in 2003. An act of administrative technique cannot repair that, and that is the real subject of this publication.

What should be changed

  • The position of expert should be qualified. A wording such as „expert din cadrul structurilor de inspecție, control și supraveghere” (an expert within the inspection, control and supervision structures) would tie the empowerment to the actual duties, instead of attaching it to a name the organisation chart can multiply at will.
  • The five new positions left outside Article 2 should enter the nomination mechanism. There would then be, for every person who can draw up an offence report, a dated and verifiable act rather than just a job title.
  • The nomination decisions should be published. The position, the number and the date of the decision, displayed on each authority’s website, would give the company being checked the means to verify the empowerment during the check itself.
  • Government Ordinance no. 39/2000 should be brought up to date. Until Article 6 covers the safety authority as well, any order empowering its staff for the 46 administrative offences in the ordinance rests on a text that does not mention it.
  • The legal basis should be written in full. An act that decides who can issue fines ought to cite the provision that grants that right, not only the general power to issue orders and instructions.
  • The amending order should reproduce the previous version of the annexes as well. The reader would see from the same document what has been added and what has stayed, without having to look up an edition of the Official Gazette of Romania from three years ago.

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. 796 of 18 September 2026, page 5 8 pages PDF, 73 KB the act starts on page 5

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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.