State companies with unpaid invoices can hire again, if they clear their arrears by 30 August

A state-owned company that had paid its dues to the budget on time but had fallen behind on its invoices to suppliers could not, until now, ask the Government for approval to hire. Law no. 173/2026 reopens that door, with a deadline attached: 30 August 2026. The act was published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 672 of 13 August 2026 and promulgated the same day by Decree no. 724/2026 of the President of Romania. It joins a string of laws carrying budgetary measures adopted this summer, among them Law no. 171/2026, which unlocked the state crude oil reserves and the capital of the Investment and Development Bank.

The law does not build new rules from scratch. In four short articles it supplements three emergency ordinances already in force and adds one budget reallocation rule. The common denominator is flexibility: the state is making room to manoeuvre in the execution of the 2026 budget, in a year when the pay austerity rules were fixed in December 2025 and have proved, in places, too rigid.

The most visible change concerns state-owned companies. Emergency Ordinance no. 89/2025, the act that set the regime for staff costs in 2026, allowed vacant posts to be filled and headcount to be increased in only two categories of economic operators: those with no losses and no overdue payments at the end of 2025, and those that did have losses or arrears but reflected them in a corresponding increase in operating revenue. The law adds a third category.

The other three articles are technical, yet they bear directly on projects financed with European money: one unblocks the recommitment of appropriations under the SAFE programme for financing the defence industry, another clears a procedural deadlock at the National Investment Company, and the third allows the capital of the National Development Bank to be topped up from non-repayable European funds.

What it changes in practice

A third gateway to hiring in state-owned companies opens up. Article III inserts, in paragraphs (3) and (4) of Article XXXVI of Emergency Ordinance no. 89/2025, an identical point c): economic operators that recorded overdue payments on 31 December 2025 and did not record losses on the same date. Paragraph (3) covers the filling of posts left vacant at the end of 2025, paragraph (4) covers the actual increase in headcount where the business expands.

The condition comes with a fixed date and is not open to negotiation. On 30 August 2026 the company must no longer record overdue payments and, on top of that, must not forecast either losses or overdue payments for the whole of 2026. The requirements are cumulative and are measured against 30 August 2026, not against the date the application is filed.

Approval still rests with the Government, by memorandum. The law does not turn the right to hire into an automatic one. Article XXXVI continues to require a duly substantiated analysis and a memorandum approved by the Government. The new point c) merely widens the list of those allowed to file the application.

Principal authorising officers can move commitment appropriations between expenditure titles. The new Article 8¹⁰ of Emergency Ordinance no. 62/2025 refers to the commitment appropriations entered in budgets under Article 68 paragraph (1) of the 2026 State Budget Law. Where the legal commitment was concluded during the year under an expenditure title other than the one provided for, the authorising officer can release the funds and commit them again under the new title.

The released appropriations stay locked for anything else. Paragraph (2) of the same article states explicitly that those commitment appropriations cannot be used to commit new spending, cannot be transferred to other titles and cannot be surrendered to the Budget Reserve Fund at the Government’s disposal. This is an accounting correction, not a source of extra money.

The National Investment Company gets a clear implementation mechanism. Article II rewrites paragraph (1⁴) of Article 9 of Emergency Ordinance no. 133/2021 on European funds for 2021-2027. By way of derogation from Government Ordinance no. 25/2001, the implementation mechanism is set out in the implementation agreement concluded with the lead partner, and the company’s expenditure is eligible under the conditions laid down in the funding contract or funding decision and in that agreement.

The capital of the National Development Bank can be topped up from non-repayable European funds. Article IV allows budget appropriations to be reallocated from article 01 „Non-repayable European funds” in the budget of the Ministry of Finance, General Actions, to article 16 „Amounts for investment 11, Capital injection into the National Development Bank”, under the conditions of Article 59 of the 2026 State Budget Law.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The regime for staff costs at state-owned companies was fixed in December 2025, by Article XXXVI of Emergency Ordinance no. 89/2025. The basic rule is that pay entitlements stay at their 30 November 2025 level, with a single automatic exception, the rise in the minimum wage. Everything else, an increase in staff costs, the filling of vacant posts or a larger headcount, requires a memorandum approved by the Government.

Until today, only two categories of company could apply to fill vacant posts and to increase their headcount. The first: those that recorded neither losses nor overdue payments on 31 December 2025 and forecast none for 2026. The second: those that did record losses or overdue payments, provided the amounts are reflected in a corresponding increase in operating revenue.

Between the two, one category was left without a way out: the profitable company with invoices unpaid at maturity. It did not meet the first condition, because it had arrears, and it did not fit the second either, built as that one is around covering those amounts with additional operating revenue. The new point c) fills exactly this gap, but sets a concrete test in exchange: the arrears must be gone by 30 August 2026.

On commitment appropriations, the earlier position was one of technical deadlock. Emergency Ordinance no. 62/2025, the act that implements the European SAFE instrument for the defence industry, said nothing about what happens when the legal commitment ends up under an expenditure title other than the budgeted one. The general framework of the SAFE loan was approved this summer by Law no. 167/2026, which ratifies the loan of 16.68 billion euros. The new Article 8¹⁰ settles the matter, but with an express ban on using the money for any other purpose.

At the National Investment Company, paragraph (1⁴) previously pointed to the general rule in Government Ordinance no. 25/2001 on the establishment of the company. The new wording moves the source of the implementation mechanism into the agreement signed with the lead partner, which matters for projects where the company is a partner rather than a direct beneficiary.

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