In brief
- Holdings of up to 30 hectares no longer face penalties for crop rotation, and those with no more than 10 hectares eligible for payment stay outside conditionality penalties altogether. Both exemptions had been in force since 6 March 2026, but only now do they enter the system by which the cuts are calculated.
- The tolerance on permanent grassland doubles, from 5% to 10%: the ratio of permanent grassland to agricultural area may fall by up to 10% against the 2018 reference year before the state imposes the reconversion of land.
- A penalty appears that until now could not be calculated: a farmer who grows the same species for more than 3 consecutive years without the compulsory secondary crop falls under a severity scale of its own, and the reduction of the payment starts at 1% and rises to 3% or 5%.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 732 of 1 September 2026
In force from: 1 September 2026
The system by which APIA cuts subsidies when a farmer breaks the environmental rules has been brought into line with the rules he actually has to follow, almost six months after those rules changed. Order no. 252/2026 of the minister of agriculture and rural development, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 732 of 1 September 2026, amends Order no. 393/2023, the System of administrative penalties for conditionality, at thirteen points. It is the second penalty system the ministry has touched in 2026, after the one covering interventions and transitional national aid, approved by Order no. 224/2026, where 37 annexes each received a scale of penalties of their own. Order no. 224/2026 is, incidentally, cited in the new text.
Conditionality is the package of rules on the environment, climate, public health, plant health and animal welfare that a farmer has to observe in order to receive European money in full. There are two kinds: the GAEC standards, the good agricultural and environmental condition of land, numbered from 1 to 10, and the SMR requirements, which come from European directives on water, birds, habitats, food safety, pesticides and animal protection. The rules bring in no extra money. Failing to observe them reduces the payment the farmer would have received anyway, and the penalty system establishes by how much.
The mechanism has three stages. First it is established whether the non-compliance was negligent or intentional. Then severity, extent, permanence and repetition are measured. Only at the end is the percentage read off a table. For an unintentional breach found for the first time, confined to the farmer’s own holding and with effects that die out within the calendar year, the reduction is 1% for low severity, 3% for medium severity and 5% for high severity. If the effects reach beyond the holding, the same three levels become 3%, 5% and 7%. A repetition usually takes it to 10%, and an intentional breach starts at 15% and can reach 100%, that is the loss of the entire payment. Where several unintentional breaches accumulate in one year, the percentages are added together, but the total cannot exceed 5%, or 10% if at least one of them has serious consequences or endangers public health.
The act concerns every farmer who files a single application with the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture, plus those with commitments in agri-environment, organic farming, animal welfare, or payments for areas facing natural constraints.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is that two broad exemptions finally reach the text by which the penalty is calculated. Joint Order no. 33/359/304/2026 of the ministries of agriculture and of the environment and of the veterinary health authority, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 176 of 6 March 2026, had already exempted holdings with an eligible area of no more than 10 hectares from conditionality checks and penalties, and those of no more than 30 hectares from the GAEC 7 standard, the one on crop rotation. From 1 September 2026 both also appear in the penalty system, in Article 4 of annex no. 1.
The second effect is the doubling of the tolerance on grassland. GAEC 1 requires the ratio of permanent grassland to agricultural area, calculated at national level, not to fall too far below its 2018 value. The threshold was 5%. It becomes 10%, in four places at once: in the list of standards in annex no. 1, in the GAEC 1 entry in annex no. 2 and in two of the control elements. In practice, the obligation to reconvert land into grassland is triggered only at a fall of more than 10%, not more than 5%.
The third effect concerns organic farmers. Areas certified in organic farming, under conversion or under maintenance of certification, are deemed to comply with GAEC 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, at parcel level. The exemption is not total, however: if the non-compliance concerns a conditionality norm that is also a baseline requirement of an environmental and climate commitment, including of an eco-scheme, the penalty is applied through the other two systems, those approved by Order no. 286/2024 and by Order no. 224/2026.
The fourth effect is the appearance of a penalty where the obligation already existed but could not be quantified. The rotation rule allows the same species to be grown on the same parcel for at most 3 consecutive years, provided that a secondary crop of a different species is established between two main crops. The table measuring severity for GAEC 7 had three cases of non-compliance and none of them covered this situation. The new act adds „cazul 4”, case 4, with a calculation formula of its own.
The fifth effect is a narrowing of the scope. Payments under the old National Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 leave the conditionality penalty system entirely: both entries in Article 1 referring to measure 10, agri-environment and climate, and to measure 11, organic farming, are repealed, together with the whole paragraph listing the compensatory measures under the programme. In their place comes an intervention from the current Strategic Plan, DR-08, support for the maintenance and tending of afforested areas.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The previous version of the system is the one given by Order no. 297/2025, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 825 of 8 September 2025. A point-by-point comparison shows five real changes.
Under GAEC 1, the text used to say „Reducerea maximă este de 5% în comparație cu anul de referință”, the maximum reduction is 5% compared with the reference year. It now says 10%. Likewise, the control element triggering measures by the competent authority spoke of a fall in the ratio „cu peste 5%”, by more than 5%, and now speaks of „peste 10%”, more than 10%.
On the exemptions, the last paragraph of Article 4(3) used to exempt „fermierii care dețin exploatații cu o suprafață agricolă declarată în cererea de plată de maximum 10 ha”, farmers holding farms with an agricultural area declared in the payment application of no more than 10 hectares. The new wording changes the basis of measurement: those exempted are the beneficiaries of direct payments and of annual payments under Articles 70, 71 and 72 of Regulation (EU) 2021/2.115, if the area eligible for payments, declared in the geospatial aid application, does not exceed 10 hectares. In other words, the move is from declared area to eligible area, which is what is left after the checks.
In the severity table for standards checked at parcel level, the thresholds stay the same: 0 to 40% is low severity, between 40% and 80% medium severity, above 80% high severity. What changes is the basis of reference for GAEC 5, the standard on soil tillage: until now the whole standard was measured against the arable area, and from now on it splits into GAEC 5.1, still measured against arable land, and GAEC 5.2, measured against the entire determined area of the holding. The difference matters: the element concerning soils in quality class V applies whatever the slope of the land and not only on arable land, so measuring against the larger area lowers the resulting severity percentage.
Under GAEC 6, minimum soil cover, the percentages have not moved. The severity scale is the same as in 2024: for arable land, cover between 70% and 80% means low severity, between 50% and 70% medium severity, below 50% high severity; for permanent crops, the thresholds are 40 to 50%, 30 to 40% and below 30%. What is new is that areas occupied by greenhouses and polytunnels, on arable land, and those being prepared for the establishment of orchards and vineyards, on permanent crops, are now expressly left out of the calculation.
On crop rotation, table 7 had three cases, all introduced in September 2025. Case 1 covered the situation where the same species exceeded 50% of the holding’s arable land, cases 2 and 3 those linked to a late harvest and to unfavourable weather, that is to the exception of 2 consecutive years. The new case 4 covers the exception of 3 consecutive years with a compulsory secondary crop, the only one that had been left without a scale. Severity is calculated by relating the non-compliant area to 50% of the holding’s arable area, not to the whole of it.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The penalty system finally reaches the same place as the substantive rules, so a farmer exempted since 6 March 2026 no longer finds, in the act that calculates the cut, a text that contradicts it.
- Holdings of up to 30 hectares, the majority of farms in Romania, no longer have to keep track of the crop rotation rule, the hardest of them all to document.
- The 10% tolerance on permanent grassland leaves twice as much room for manoeuvre before the state imposes the reconversion of land.
- Expressly taking greenhouses, polytunnels and land being prepared for orchards out of the soil cover calculation removes a frequent source of non-compliance on paper.
- Case 4 closes an inconsistency almost a year old, in which an obligation existed but had no penalty scale, so it was applied unevenly.
What remains a problem
- The act comes 179 days after the rules it puts into practice, and with almost three quarters of the soil cover window, 15 June to 30 September, already gone.
- Case 4 creates a new penalty for conduct in the current campaign, and the act does not say from which claim year it applies.
- The derogation of 3 weeks for preparing the land, in force since March 2026, is missing from the control elements this very order rewrites.
- The notation GAEC 5.1 and GAEC 5.2 appears in the table without being defined anywhere, alongside references written out in full, to the control elements, in the same cell.
- The rule saying how several cases of failure to rotate are combined still speaks of „cele trei cazuri”, the three cases, although the cases are now four.
Practical advice
- First check whether you fall under one of the two exemptions. The 10-hectare one is measured against the area eligible for payments in the geospatial aid application, not against the area you own. The 30-hectare one, which concerns only crop rotation, is measured against the declared agricultural area.
- If you have more than 30 hectares, reconstruct the crop history of each parcel over recent years. Case 4 applies where the same species has stayed on the same parcel for more than 3 years in a row without the secondary crop between two main crops.
- Remember that severity for rotation is measured against half the holding’s arable land, not against all of it. Ten non-compliant hectares on a farm with 100 hectares of arable land means 10 against 50, that is 20%, not 10%.
- Until 30 September 2026 you can still influence your soil cover. The requirement is at least 80% of the arable land and at least 50% of the permanent crops, and stubble and the plant residues left after harvesting count towards it.
- If you cannot prepare the land within the 3 weeks allowed by Order no. 54/570/32/2023, notify APIA in good time. The extension by a further week is granted on the opinion of the county agricultural directorate, not automatically.
- If you work in organic farming, do not assume you are exempt from everything. The exemption concerns conditionality, but the same act may be penalised as a failure to meet a baseline requirement of the commitment, through Order no. 286/2024 or Order no. 224/2026.
- Keep proof of any case of force majeure. Severe drought, the destruction of shelters, a plant disease or expropriation are expressly recognised and stop the penalty from being applied, but only if they are notified and documented.
Frequently asked questions
By how much does my subsidy fall if I break a conditionality rule?
I have 8 hectares. Can I still be penalised?
What does the exemption for holdings of up to 30 hectares mean?
What has changed for permanent grassland?
What is case 4 on crop rotation?
I am an organic farmer. Do the GAEC rules no longer apply to me?
From what moment do the new rules apply?
What happens to commitments under the 2014-2020 rural development programme?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Point 13: the control elements for GAEC 6 do not take over the derogation of 3 weeks, although they do take over the other two exceptions from the same act. The order rewrites the „Elemente de control” column, the control elements, for GAEC 6 in annex no. 2 and requires at least 80% of the arable area to be covered „în perioada cea mai sensibilă a anului (15 iunie-30 septembrie)”, during the most sensitive period of the year, 15 June to 30 September, with no exception in time. The substantive standard, GAEC 6 in the annex to Order no. 54/570/32/2023, as worded by Order no. 33/359/304/2026, provides that „în intervalul stabilit solul trebuie acoperit, cu excepția timpului necesar pentru pregătirea terenului și înființarea noii culturi de cel mult 3 săptămâni, cu posibilitatea de prelungire cu încă o săptămână”, that within the set interval the soil must be covered, except for the time needed to prepare the land and establish the new crop, of at most 3 weeks, extendable by one further week, on the opinion of the county agricultural directorate. From that same text the order took over the other two exceptions, the one for greenhouses and polytunnels and the one for land being prepared for orchards and vineyards, which shows that the source was consulted. The result is that a farmer who leaves the land bare for three weeks to prepare the crop complies with the standard, yet appears non-compliant in the control element on which the inspection report is based, and cover falling below 80% goes straight into the severity scale at point 8.
- Point 9 adds a fourth case to table 7, but the combination rule has stayed at three. The introductory text of table 7, untouched by this order, says: „În cazul în care fermierul se încadrează la două din cele trei cazuri, se calculează gravitatea pentru fiecare caz și se alege gravitatea cu procentul de nerespectare cel mai mare”, where the farmer falls under two of the three cases, severity is calculated for each case and the severity with the highest percentage of non-compliance is chosen. After the introduction of case 4 there are four cases, and the rule saying what happens when the farmer falls under more than one of them expressly covers only three. A farmer caught, say, under case 1 and case 4 has no text telling him whether the highest percentage is chosen or the two are added together, and that choice changes the level of severity and, through it, the reduction percentage in table 1.
- Table 7 still cannot be reached from the rule that distributes the tables. Article 4(8) of annex no. 1 lists exhaustively how severity is determined: point iii sends the GAEC standards checked at agricultural parcel level to table 4, and point v sends GAEC 6 to table 6. There is no point for GAEC 7 and table 7. Since GAEC 7 is checked at agricultural parcel level, a literal application of paragraph (8) sends it to table 4, which does not list it among the standards covered and which uses different thresholds, measured against the determined area of the holding rather than against 50% of the arable land. The omission comes from Order no. 297/2025, the one that introduced table 7, but the present order acts on that very table and does not repair it.
Editorial analysis
This is not an act of agricultural policy, it is an act of maintenance. The decisions it puts into practice were taken elsewhere and earlier: Regulation (EU) 2025/2.649 changed the conditionality system at European level, and Order no. 33/359/304/2026 transposed it into Romanian rules on 6 March 2026. What the present order does is translate those rules into scales of percentages. The problem is not the content but the calendar: between 6 March and 1 September 2026 there were 179 days in which the act saying what has to be done and the act saying how much is cut if you do not do it said different things. Throughout that period, GAEC 1 carried a tolerance of 10% in one act in force and one of 5% in another, equally in force.
The gap shows up best against the farming calendar rather than the administrative one. The window in which soil cover is checked runs from 15 June to 30 September, that is 108 days. By the date of publication, 79 of them had passed, so the farmer learns how his cover will be measured with 29 days left in which to do anything about it. The changes to GAEC 6 are, fortunately, in his favour, because they take greenhouses, polytunnels and land prepared for orchards out of the calculation. Case 4 on crop rotation is not in his favour, however: it creates a penalty scale for conduct the farmer decided on at last year’s autumn sowing and can no longer change. The order contains no transitional provision and does not say from which claim year the new scales apply.
The choice of denominator in case 4 is worth working through, because it does not show on a reading of the text. Severity is calculated by relating the non-compliant area not to the holding’s arable land but to 50% of it. For a farm with 100 hectares of arable land and 20 hectares on which rotation was not observed, the ratio is not 20% but 40%, which moves the farmer from low severity into medium severity. The consequence in money, through table 1: the reduction goes from 1% to 3% of the total amount of the payments, so it triples. The same act, measured against the whole of the arable land, would have stayed in low severity. The denominator is consistent with the logic of the standard, since the derogation concerns precisely the half of the arable land on which rotation is not compulsory, but its effect on the penalty is nowhere explained.
A second useful calculation concerns accumulation. A farmer with more than 30 hectares who gets both soil cover and rotation wrong receives reductions that are added together: 1% plus 3% makes 4%, below the ceiling of 5% for unintentional breaches without serious consequences. If one of them does have serious consequences, the ceiling rises to 10% and accumulation becomes possible up to that point. In other words, the system is built so that small breaches do not turn into catastrophes, and it is the ceiling, not the scale, that decides the real exposure of a well-intentioned farm.
Finally, the introduction of intervention DR-08 is not just any addition. The list of payments subject to conditionality, rewritten in September 2024, covered interventions DR-01 to DR-07 and then DR-09, DR-10 and DR-11. DR-08, the maintenance and tending of afforested areas, was the only one missing from the sequence, and it is now inserted as a new point after DR-07. For two years, the beneficiaries of a single rural development intervention were outside the conditionality penalty system, without any act explaining why.
What should be changed
- The derogation of 3 weeks, written into the control element for GAEC 6. Without it, the inspection report records non-compliance for a period during which the substantive standard allows bare soil. A single sentence added to the column rewritten at point 13 would close the gap between what is asked of the farmer and what is checked on him.
- Updating the combination rule in table 7 from three cases to four. Otherwise the farmer caught at the same time under case 4 and one of the others has no text to invoke, and inspectors will decide differently from one county to another exactly where the difference means 1% or 3% of the payment.
- A new point in Article 4(8), sending GAEC 7 to table 7. That list is the only thing linking a standard to its severity table, and GAEC 7 has been missing from it for a year. One line would make table 7 applicable without interpretation.
- A transitional provision saying from which claim year the new scales apply. Case 4 penalises an agronomic decision taken a year or two before publication. If the intention is application from claim year 2027, one sentence says so. If the intention is immediate application, one sentence has to say that too, so that the farmer knows what he is exposed to in this autumn’s checks.
- Defining the notation GAEC 5.1 and GAEC 5.2 at first use. In the same cell of table 4, GAEC 2 is written out at length, „pentru elementele de control 1.a), 1.c), 1.d), 1.e) și 2”, for control elements 1.a), 1.c), 1.d), 1.e) and 2, while GAEC 5 is written in shorthand, with figures after a full stop. Either both are written the same way, or a note is added saying that the figure after the full stop is the number of the control element.
- Publishing changes to penalties at the same time as changes to standards. The two acts are signed by the same ministry and prepared by the same directorate within APIA. Had they gone out together in March 2026, farmers would have entered the campaign with a single set of figures, and this article would have had nothing to compare.
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. 732 of 1 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 143 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.