In brief

  • The Government has approved the 2026 budgets of the two state port administrations, on the 264th day of the year. Administrația Porturilor Maritime Constanța takes in 587.68 million lei and comes out with a net profit of 105.14 million. Administrația Porturilor Dunării Maritime Galați takes in 31.75 million lei and comes out with a net profit of 3.53 million. Constanța has revenue 18.5 times higher, with 8 times more employees.
  • Neither of the two companies receives a subsidy or a transfer from the budget. Rows 3 and 4 of the annexes, those for subsidies and transfers, are empty at both. The state does, however, take dividends: 719.61 thousand lei from Galați and 21.61 million lei from Constanța, that is exactly 80% of the dividends distributed by each.
  • At both, the distribution of profit comes out with a surplus. The destinations in the annex add up to more than the profit available for distribution, by 66.99 thousand lei at Galați and by 9.13 million lei at Constanța, in both cases by exactly the value of employee profit-sharing. The decisions take effect on 21 September 2026.
Act: Government Decision no. 735/2026 approving the 2026 revenue and expenditure budget of the National Company „Administrația Porturilor Dunării Maritime” S.A. Galați and Government Decision no. 736/2026 approving the 2026 revenue and expenditure budget of the National Company „Administrația Porturilor Maritime” S.A. Constanța
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 800 of 21 September 2026
In force from: the date of publication, 21 September 2026

The two companies that administer the Romanian ports, the one at Constanța and the one at Galați, received their 2026 budget on 21 September 2026, that is on the 264th of the 365 days of the year they are budgeting for. There are 101 days left to execute a budget approved for a full year. The preamble of both decisions acknowledges the delay in the language of legal references: it rests on Article 4 paragraph (71) of Government Ordinance no. 26/2013, the text that applies precisely when the budget has not been approved within the usual deadline. It is the same mechanism we described in the case of the Bucharest metro budget, approved with 254 days of the year already gone, with one difference that matters: the ports take not a single leu in subsidy.

That is also why the two budgets deserve to be read together. They are the only two port companies under the authority of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, they do the same job, they administer waterborne transport infrastructure and collect charges from the operators that use it, yet they work at such different scales that the comparison becomes instructive. Constanța employs 948 people, Galați 119. In a year, the maritime port takes in 587.68 million lei and the Danube port 31.75 million.

The structure of revenue looks the same at both. Neither Galați nor Constanța has entered any sum under subsidies or under transfers from the budget. Operating revenue is 29.64 million lei at Galați and 530.54 million at Constanța, and the rest is financial revenue, 2.11 million and 57.14 million respectively. Recalculated, financial revenue accounts for 6.66% of the total at Galați and 9.72% at Constanța, which means that one in every ten lei taken in by the Constanța port administration does not come from port activity but from investing its money.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is that spending is unblocked. Without an approved budget, a state company covered by Government Ordinance no. 26/2013 cannot lawfully commit expenditure at the level of the current year. From 21 September 2026, the two administrations have approved ceilings: total expenditure of 27.91 million lei at Galați and 463.27 million at Constanța.

The second effect concerns wages. Staff costs are approved at 13.84 million lei at Galați and at 183.04 million at Constanța. Set against total expenditure, they amount to 49.59% at Galați and 39.51% at Constanța: half of everything the Danube port administration spends goes on people. Per employee, the full annual staff cost is 116.31 thousand lei at Galați and 193.08 thousand at Constanța. The average monthly earnings entered in the annex are 7,934.82 lei at Galați and 13,933.46 lei at Constanța, so the maritime port pays 75.6% better than the Danube one.

The third effect is that what the state takes is settled. The approved net profit is 3.53 million lei at Galați and 105.14 million at Constanța. Out of it, dividends of 899.51 thousand lei and 27.01 million respectively are distributed. Out of both sums, the state budget takes exactly 80.0%, that is 719.61 thousand lei from Galați and 21.61 million from Constanța, the rest going to the other shareholders. It is the only indicator on which the two administrations behave identically.

The fourth effect is the authorisation of investment. Galați has approved investment expenditure of 130.40 million lei, of which only 3.60 million are state budget allocations. Constanța has 409.90 million approved, without a single leu of budget allocation. Set against annual revenue, Constanța’s investment represents 69.75%, while that of Galați represents 410.66%, that is more than four times the company’s turnover.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The published text does not show whether the budgets rise or fall against 2025. The annexes have a single numerical column, „Proposals for the current year 2026”, without the previous year’s values, and the decisions do not refer to the acts by which the 2025 budgets were approved. What certainly changes is the legal position: until 21 September 2026 the two companies operated without an approved budget for the current year, and from that date they have one.

The basis on which the Government founds its power also changes. Budgets approved on time rest on Article 4 paragraph (1) letter a) of Government Ordinance no. 26/2013. The preamble of the two port decisions does not cite it at all and goes straight to paragraph (71), the exceptional text for late budgets. By comparison, Government Decision no. 737/2026, published in the same Official Gazette of Romania, cites both texts. The difference does not affect the validity of the acts, since the Government derives its power from Article 108 of the Constitution, but it shows that the preamble was drafted to a different pattern.

Finally, what is publicly known about the ports’ receivables changes. Under overdue receivables, the maritime port has 116 million lei entered, while its overdue payments are zero. The sum is larger than the company’s net profit for the whole year, 105.14 million, and equals 19.74% of total revenue, that is around two and a half months of takings. Galați has overdue receivables of 500 thousand lei, 1.57% of revenue.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • Both companies come out in profit without a single leu of subsidy. The rows for subsidies and transfers are empty in both annexes, so the ports pay for themselves, unlike the rest of state transport.
  • The efficiency indicators are below the threshold at both. Total expenditure per 1,000 lei of revenue is 879.10 lei at Galați and 788.30 lei at Constanța, which means each company spends less than it takes in.
  • The budgets unblock real investment. Constanța’s 409.90 million lei and Galați’s 130.40 million are together more than half a billion lei for port infrastructure, and almost all of it is financed from own and European sources, not from taxes.
  • European funds are entered symmetrically. At both companies, revenue from European funds and eligible expenditure from European funds have exactly the same value, 1.53 million lei at Galați and 5.55 million at Constanța, so the budget does not provide for an unrecovered own contribution on that line.
  • Otherwise the tables are correctly built. All the relationships announced in the row headings themselves, from total revenue through to labour productivity and expenditure per 1,000 lei of revenue, check out by calculation and come out exactly, at both companies.

What remains a problem

  • The budget for a year arrives when 264 days of that year have gone. There are 101 days left in which to execute a plan designed for 365, which means most of the expenditure will already have been committed under another regime.
  • The distribution of profit does not close. At both companies, the sums distributed exceed the available profit by exactly the value of employee profit-sharing, so one of the lines has no cover.
  • Galați proposes investment of 130.40 million lei on annual revenue of 31.75 million and a net profit of 3.53 million. That is 36.9 times the annual profit, and the annex does not show where most of it comes from: budget allocations are only 3.60 million and European funds 1.53 million.
  • Constanța’s overdue receivables, 116 million lei, exceed the company’s net profit. The port administration is in effect financing its own clients with a sum larger than it earns in a year, and the annex does not say who owes it and for how long.
  • The average monthly earnings in the annex cannot be verified from the published data. Recalculated from salary-type expenditure and the average number of employees, they come out at 8,479.44 lei at Galați and 15,383.44 lei at Constanța, 6.4% and 9.4% respectively above the figures in the table. The difference is explained by a footnote referring to a supporting annex that is not published.
  • There is no comparison column for the previous year, so no reader can say whether the budget is rising or shrinking, and by how much.
  • Both annexes appear in facsimile, that is photographed rather than typeset into the edition, which makes them hard to read on screen and impossible to process automatically for anyone wishing to compare several state companies.

Practical advice

  1. If you want to check the figures yourself, open the PDF of the official edition attached to the article and go to pages 4 and 5 for Galați and pages 7 and 8 for Constanța. The annexes are reproduced in facsimile, so in the article they are explained, not reproduced row by row.
  2. The quick benchmark for the financial health of a state company is row 57, total expenditure per 1,000 lei of revenue. Below 1,000 means profit, above 1,000 means loss. Here it is 879.10 at Galați and 788.30 at Constanța.
  3. To find out how much of the costs are people, divide row 10, staff costs, by row 6, total expenditure. A ratio close to one half, as at Galați, points to a company in which almost any saving runs through wages.
  4. Firms working with the ports can use row 59, overdue receivables, as a signal of the sector’s payment discipline. Constanța’s 116 million lei show that the port operates with long collection delays, so firm payment clauses are worth negotiating.
  5. If you want to know what is actually being built in the ports, ask the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, through a public information request, for the list of investment objectives making up Galați’s 130.40 million lei and Constanța’s 409.90 million. The published annex gives only the total.
  6. To see whether the delay was analysed, ask the same institution for the analysis required by Article 4 paragraph (71) of Government Ordinance no. 26/2013, the document that establishes the causes of the missed deadline. It is drawn up before approval but is not published in the Official Gazette of Romania.

Frequently asked questions

Do the two ports receive money from the state?
Not in the form of a subsidy. Rows 3 and 4 of the annexes, subsidies and transfers under legal provisions, are empty at both. The only budget support appears at Galați, on the line for investment financing sources, with 3.60 million lei out of the 130.40 million. Constanța does not even have that. In the opposite direction, the state collects dividends: 719.61 thousand lei from Galați and 21.61 million from Constanța.
Why do both budgets appear in a single article?
Because they were approved on the same day, published in the same issue of the Official Gazette of Romania, built on the same form, and they concern the only two port administrations under the authority of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. Read separately, each is a list of figures. Read together, the difference of scale and of wage policy between the maritime port and the Danube one becomes visible.
How much does a port employee earn?
The annexes give average monthly earnings of 7,934.82 lei at Galați and 13,933.46 lei at Constanța. Recalculated from salary-type expenditure divided by the average number of employees and by 12 months, the result is 8,479.44 lei and 15,383.44 lei respectively. The difference comes from a calculation base set in a supporting annex that is not published, to which a footnote in each table refers.
What does it mean that the annex is reproduced in facsimile?
That the table appears in the Official Gazette of Romania as an image of the original document, not typeset into the text of the edition. The note belongs to the issuer and is placed under each annex. In practice, the figures cannot be copied and processed automatically, and reproducing them row by row in an article would risk moving a value onto the wrong line.
Why was the budget approved so late?
The decisions do not say. They do say, indirectly, that this is a delay: the preamble rests on Article 4 paragraph (71) of Government Ordinance no. 26/2013, which applies when the budget has not been approved within the usual deadline and which requires the principal authorising officer to analyse the causes. The analysis is not published with the decision.
Which port is more efficient?
Constanța, on every indicator that can be calculated from the annexes. Labour productivity is 559.64 thousand lei per employee, against 249.07 thousand at Galați, that is 2.25 times higher. The net profit margin is 17.89%, against 11.12%. Expenditure per 1,000 lei of revenue is 788.30, against 879.10. On the other hand, its overdue receivables are 232 times larger than those of Galați.
From what date do the two decisions apply?
From 21 September 2026, the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 800. Government decisions enter into force on publication unless they themselves provide a later date, and these do not.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • The annexes of both decisions, rows 32, 33, 34 and 38: the distribution of profit exceeds the profit available for distribution, at both by exactly the amount of employee profit-sharing. Row 38 is headed „Profit not distributed to the destinations provided for in rows 33 to 34 is allocated to other reserves”, so its value must be row 32 minus row 33 minus row 34. At Galați, row 32 is 3,531.04 thousand lei, while rows 33, 34 and 38 add up to 67.00 plus 899.51 plus 2,631.52, that is 3,598.03 thousand lei, 66.99 thousand more; calculated correctly, row 38 should have been 2,564.53 thousand lei. At Constanța, row 32 is 98,916.00 thousand lei, while rows 33, 34 and 38 add up to 9,129.00 plus 27,011.00 plus 71,905.00, that is 108,045.00 thousand lei, 9,129.00 thousand more; row 38 should have been 62,776.00 thousand lei. In both cases, row 38 was calculated as row 32 minus row 34, ignoring row 33, so the amount of employee profit-sharing is allocated twice and the budget cannot be executed as approved. The rest of the annexes closes without a remainder, including rows 1, 6, 7, 10, 11, 20, 26, 32, 40, 54 and 57, so this is not a printing loss.
  • The annex to Government Decision no. 735/2026, row 34: the distribution rate is worded differently from the other annexes in the same Official Gazette of Romania. At Galați, the row heading begins with „A maximum of 25% in payments to the state or local budget in the case of autonomous administrations, or dividends due to shareholders”. In the annex to Government Decision no. 736/2026, for Constanța, and in that to Government Decision no. 737/2026, published in the same issue, the same row begins with „A minimum of 50% in payments to the state or local budget”. The rest of the heading is identical word for word in all three. The two wordings set opposite limits for the same distribution line, and the sum approved at Galați, 899.51 thousand lei, represents 25.47% of the net profit of 3,531.04 thousand lei, so it exceeds even the ceiling written in its own annex.

Editorial analysis

The two decisions do what they are meant to do, and the form they use is well enough built for almost every internal check to close to the decimal. We reworked every relationship announced by the row headings, from total revenue as the sum of operating and financial revenue through to labour productivity as the ratio of operating revenue to the average number of employees, and all of them come out exactly, at both companies. That is precisely why the one relationship that does not come out, the distribution of profit, cannot be blamed on the printing or on the conversion: it is a filling-in error, made identically in two different annexes, so most likely carried over from a common template.

The observation that does not emerge from reading the annexes row by row appears at Galați, when two figures ten rows apart are set side by side. Administrația Porturilor Dunării Maritime has total revenue of 31.75 million lei a year and proposes investment of 130.40 million, that is 4.1 times its turnover and 36.9 times its net profit. Budget allocations cover 3.60 million, European funds 1.53 million and reinvested profit 2.63 million. Almost 123 million lei remain for which the published annex shows no source at all. The form has a single row for investment financing sources, broken down only by budget allocations, the rest being left implicit. At a company that takes in 31 million a year, that implicit remainder is the most important figure in the whole budget, and it is the only one missing.

The second observation that requires calculation concerns Constanța and reads the other way round. The company has no overdue payments at all, yet it has overdue receivables of 116 million lei, that is 19.74% of annual revenue, the equivalent of almost two and a half months of takings and 10 million more than its net profit for the whole year. A port administration that pays its suppliers on time but waits for more from its clients than it earns is acting as a bank for the operators in the port. The budget approves that situation without naming it, because the form asks for a figure, not an explanation.

The third observation concerns the relationship between the deadline the administration sets itself and the one it sets for others. The 2026 budget appears on the 264th day of the year, at almost three quarters of the financial year it regulates, and the only visible consequence in the act is a change in the legal basis invoked in the preamble. The analysis of the causes, which the very text invoked requires of the principal authorising officer, is not published. For the taxpayer, that means the delay is documented somewhere, but not somewhere they can reach.

What should be changed

  • Correct row 38 in both annexes, through a published rectification. Without it, the two companies have approved distributions that do not fit within their own profit, and the year-end accounts will have to decide on their own which line is not executed, which moves a decision on the distribution of profit from a Government decision into the company’s internal practice.
  • Standardise the heading of row 34 across all annexes published on the same day. As long as one table says a maximum of 25% and the others a minimum of 50%, any later inspection may reach opposite conclusions about the same distribution, and the company has no way of knowing which text to follow.
  • Break down investment financing sources over more than one line. An extra row for own sources, loans and external funds would immediately show that Galați is planning investment four times its turnover and would force an explanation of how it is covered, instead of leaving the sum unaccounted for.
  • Introduce a column with the previous year’s outturn. The form has a single numerical column, which makes any comparison impossible, and with it any public scrutiny of the trend. A second column costs nothing and turns the table from a list into a series.
  • Publish the annexes as text, not in facsimile. A photographed table cannot be read by any automated tool, so it cannot be compared between companies either. For state budgets, the form of publication alone decides how much public scrutiny is possible.
  • Publish the analysis of the causes of the delay together with the decision. The document exists on the date of approval, because the text invoked in the preamble requires it. Publishing it would move the discussion from noting the delay to its reasons, which recur year after year at the same companies.

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. 800 of 21 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 182 KB the act starts on page 3

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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.