In brief
- Four years and seven months on, Parliament approves the ordinance that created RO e-Transport, the system through which ANAF tracks the movement of goods across the country.
- The same act moved meal vouchers exclusively onto an electronic medium and made it a criminal offence to withhold and fail to pay taxes and contributions within 60 days of the due date.
- For the public sector, the ordinance froze pay at the December 2021 level and banned value vouchers for the whole of 2022.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 574 of 13 July 2026
In force from: 16 July 2026
The system under which every consignment of goods carrying a high tax risk receives a code and can be stopped on the road for checking has a birth certificate: an emergency ordinance from December 2021. The same text is where it says that meal vouchers are no longer issued on paper. Law no. 131/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 574 of 13 July 2026, approves that ordinance, without a single change. It is one of the seven approving laws in the same issue, alongside the one on the budget package for 2023.
Government Emergency Ordinance no. 130/2021 was published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 1202 of 18 December 2021 and runs to more than forty articles. Like the other end-of-year packages, it mixes public sector pay measures with substantive changes to tax legislation.
The approving law has a single article. It approves the ordinance together with the amendments and additions made to it in the meantime, without touching the text.
What it changes in practice
RO e-Transport stays in the legislation for good. The ordinance provided that the Ministry of Finance, through ANAF, monitors the transport of goods on national territory through the national RO e-Transport system, made available by the National Centre for Financial Information, and allowed 30 days for the implementing order.
Value vouchers are issued exclusively in electronic form. Law no. 165/2018 was rewritten: vouchers are issued only on an electronic medium, the cost of issuing them falls entirely on the employer, the nominal value cannot be reduced in any way, and the electronic medium does not allow cash to be withdrawn or exchanged into cash.
Failure to pay withheld taxes becomes a criminal offence. Article 6^1 was inserted into Law no. 241/2005: withholding and failure to pay, or collection and failure to pay, within no more than 60 days of the due date, the taxes and contributions listed in the annex to the law is punishable by imprisonment from 1 year to 5 years or by a fine. The text entered into force on 1 March 2022.
The thresholds for covering the damage were rewritten. If the damage is covered in full during the criminal investigation or during the trial and does not exceed 100,000 euros, a fine may be imposed; if it is up to 50,000 euros and recovered under the same conditions, the penalty is a fine.
The register of home purchases at the 5% VAT rate appeared. The procedure for setting it up was laid down by order of the president of ANAF, after consulting the National Union of Notaries Public, within 10 days of publication. Until it became operational, the reduced VAT rate of 5% for homes priced between 450,000 and 700,000 lei, VAT excluded, applied on the basis of a declaration on own responsibility, authenticated by a notary and kept by the supplier.
Public sector salaries stayed at the December 2021 level. By way of derogation from Framework Law no. 153/2017, in 2022 the gross amount of basic salaries, military pay and position allowances was kept at the December 2021 level, in so far as the member of staff held the same post and worked under the same conditions. The allowances for public dignity offices were frozen in the same way.
No value vouchers and no retirement aid in 2022. Public institutions granted no value vouchers, and the aid and allowances payable on retirement, on withdrawal or on transfer to the reserve were not granted either. The maximum number of posts financed from public funds stayed capped.
Gifts and gift vouchers get a clearer regime. Article 76(4)(a) of the Tax Code was rewritten, with a full list of the non-taxable forms of aid and benefits, including the value of tourism and treatment services during the holiday period.
Several deadlines were pushed back. The application of Article 8 of National Education Law no. 1/2011 was postponed, the application of Article 210 of the Administrative Code was suspended until 1 January 2023, and the distribution of honey in schools was suspended for the whole of 2022.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Set against the December 2021 issue, the comparison shows the difference from the following year’s package. In 2022 public sector salaries did not rise at all, they were kept at the December 2021 level. The 10% rise came only with the ordinance for 2023, and even that was capped in cash terms.
The second difference is that the 2021 package contains far more substantive tax legislation than a usual end-of-year one. RO e-Transport, the move of value vouchers onto an electronic medium, the new offence in the tax evasion law and the register for the 5% VAT rate are not annual measures but permanent changes, brought in through an act that carries in its title the words „the postponement of certain deadlines”.
The third observation concerns value vouchers. The ordinance banned them in the public sector for 2022 and, at the same time, rewrote the law that governs them for every employer, requiring them to be issued exclusively in electronic form. The two measures sit in the same act but are addressed to entirely different people.
Under the present law, nothing changes. The measures limited to 2022 have exhausted their effects, and the permanent ones have been running for four years. What does change is the status of the ordinance, which can no longer be rejected or amended in the approval procedure.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It closes the legal uncertainty over the legal basis of RO e-Transport, a system that today underpins checks and penalties.
- It confirms for good the electronic regime of value vouchers, including the ban on withdrawing cash from the medium.
- It strengthens the legal basis of the offence of withholding and failing to pay taxes, in a field where any argument about the basis reaches into criminal files.
- It changes nothing, so it produces no retroactive effects on situations that are already settled.
What remains a problem
- Four years and seven months from the ordinance to its approval, in an act that contains a new criminal offence and a national monitoring system.
- Permanent measures of tax law and criminal law were brought in through an end-of-year act, alongside the pay freeze and the postponement of a number of deadlines.
- A package of more than forty articles can only be approved or rejected as a block, so the vote says nothing about each measure taken on its own.
- The offence inserted into the tax evasion law produced criminal files as early as March 2022, while the act that contains it could, in theory, have been rejected by Parliament.
- Moving value vouchers onto an electronic medium shifted the cost of issue entirely to the employer, with no public assessment of the impact.
Practical advice
- If you work with the transport of goods, the legal basis of RO e-Transport is Article XXVIII of this ordinance. The actual procedure, though, is in the order of the minister of finance issued to implement it, not in the ordinance itself.
- For employers, the essential rule on value vouchers is that the electronic medium allows neither cash withdrawal nor exchange into cash, and that the nominal value cannot be reduced.
- The cost of issuing value vouchers falls entirely on the employer, both the nominal value and the cost of the electronic medium.
- If you have tax obligations withheld at source, keep in mind the 60 day period from the due date in Article 6^1 of Law no. 241/2005. Going past it is no longer only a matter of interest and penalties.
- Before buying a home at the 5% VAT rate, check the version of Article 291 of the Tax Code that is in force. The 2021 thresholds, between 450,000 and 700,000 lei, were changed later on.
- If you are checking pay entitlements from 2022 in the public sector, the reference point is the level granted for December 2021, on condition that the post and the working conditions were the same.
- Do not confuse this ordinance with the one for 2023. The annual measures in each of them apply only to the year they were written for.
Frequently asked questions
What does this law do?
What is RO e-Transport?
Since when are vouchers no longer issued on paper?
What new criminal offence did it introduce?
Did public sector salaries rise in 2022?
What was the register for the 5% VAT rate?
Why was it approved only now?
Editorial analysis
The ordinance approved here is not an ordinary end-of-year package. Alongside the predictable annual measures, the pay freeze, the ban on vouchers in the public sector, the ceiling on posts, it contains three interventions with permanent effect: RO e-Transport, the compulsory digitalisation of value vouchers and a new offence in the tax evasion law. None of them has anything to do with the postponement of deadlines, the words used in the title.
Each of the three deserved an act of its own and a debate of its own. The system for monitoring transport changed the way goods move around Romania and generated, in the years that followed, an entire regime of penalties. The offence in Article 6^1 produced criminal files from March 2022 onwards. Both operated for four and a half years on the basis of an act that Parliament had not confirmed.
This is, in fact, the underlying problem with the whole series of approving laws published on the same day. When confirmation arrives four years later, it can no longer correct anything; all it can do is record. And the difference between reviewing and recording is exactly the difference between a Parliament that decides and one that ratifies.
What should be changed
- A constitutional deadline for the approval of emergency ordinances. All the more necessary where the act contains rules of criminal law, in which the stability of the legal basis is not a formality.
- A ban on introducing new criminal offences by emergency ordinance in mixed packages. If urgency really does call for a criminal rule, it should travel in a separate act that can be identified as such.
- Separating the permanent measures from the annual ones. RO e-Transport and the regime of value vouchers had no business sitting in the same text as a pay freeze for a single year.
- A public assessment of the cost of digitalising value vouchers. The measure shifted the cost of issue entirely to the employer, and its effect on small firms has never been measured in public.
- Titles of acts that describe what is in them. An act that creates a national monitoring system and a criminal offence should not be called „certain fiscal and budgetary measures, the postponement of certain deadlines”.
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. 574 of 13 July 2026 16 pages PDF, 101 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.