Forms for classifying hotels and guesthouses replaced: proof of staffing now comes from a REGES extract

Anyone opening a guesthouse, a hotel or a restaurant now fills in different forms. Through Order No. 1.198/2026, the Ministry of Economy, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurship and Tourism has amended the implementing rules on the issuing of classification certificates for tourist accommodation and food service establishments and of tourism licences and tourism manager’s certificates, approved in 2013 by Order No. 65/2013 of the President of the National Tourism Authority. The order was signed on 30 July 2026, for the minister, by a secretary of state, and published on 17 August 2026. It is the ministry’s second intervention in the tourism regime this summer, after the de minimis scheme for spa resorts.

The order has two articles. The first amends one letter in an article of the rules and replaces three annexes. The second provides for publication in the Official Gazette of Romania. It contains no transitional provisions and does not postpone entry into force.

The three replaced forms are the standard application for obtaining the classification certificate, which was Annex No. 3 to the rules, the standard application for business operators who are natural persons, which was Annex No. 3¹, and the standard form application for the issuing of the tourism manager’s certificate, formerly Annex No. 16.

What it changes in practice

The first effect concerns one precise situation, not the classification file in general. Article 4 paragraph (6) of the rules governs the amendment of the annex sheet, that is, the issuing of a new sheet when the structure of the accommodation or of the food service premises has changed. Letter g) of that paragraph now has new wording: the declaration on one’s own responsibility covers compliance with the mandatory conditions and criteria according to the type and the classification category stated in the certificate, and the requirement is expressly tied to the situation of an increase in the number of accommodation units.

The second effect is the move to the electronic register of employees currently in use. The standard application requires, for the minimum necessary staff employed, a REGES extract endorsed as compliant, together with copies of the qualification documents. This is the general register of employees kept in electronic form, the one that replaced the former REVISAL.

The third effect relates to the types of establishment recognised in the form. The examples given under the heading for the type of establishment include a hotel, a tourist resort, a guesthouse, a restaurant and a day bar, and among the documents to be attached there appears, for resorts, the general plan of the resort together with an extract from the land register.

The fourth effect is a closed list of documents for companies. The standard application in Annex No. 3 to the rules, the one used by companies, authorised natural persons, family enterprises and sole trader enterprises, lists five categories of documents: the standard form for the classification of the accommodation and food service premises, the earlier classification certificates and annex sheets in the original, the REGES extract with the qualification documents, the plan of the resort with the extract from the land register, and a document showing the lawfulness of the building.

Only two of them are required in every case: the standard form and the document showing the lawfulness of the building. The other three, the earlier certificates, the REGES extract and the plan of the resort, are marked in the form with the note where applicable, so they are attached only when the specific situation calls for them.

The fifth effect concerns owners who are natural persons, who have a form of their own, formerly Annex No. 3¹. There, six documents are required: a copy of the owner’s identity document, the standard form for the classification of the accommodation premises, the ownership document, a copy of the identity document and the agreement of the co-owners where applicable, the written approval of the executive committee of the residents’ association together with the written agreement of the directly affected owners whose premises adjoin the space, horizontally and vertically, both where applicable, and the document on the lawfulness of the building.

The sixth effect is at the tourism manager’s certificate, where the list runs to nine items. Among them, a valid criminal record certificate with no entries, copies of the documents attesting professional training and professional experience, the foreign language certificate, the previously issued certificate in the original and, where applicable, the notice of loss of the certificate. The applicant signs in the knowledge of Article 326 of the Criminal Code on false statements and gives express consent for the tax record certificate and the criminal record certificate to be requested.

The seventh effect is one of form, but it counts at the counter: the copies of the documents submitted for the tourism manager’s certificate are signed, dated and certified by the holder through the words „certified true copy”.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The rules have been amended many times since they were published, in Official Gazette of Romania No. 353 and No. 353 bis of 14 June 2013. The present order does not reproduce the previous wording of the letter it changes, just as it does not reproduce the old forms, so the exact difference from the version in force until 16 August 2026 cannot be read from the act.

What can be said with certainty, comparing with the initial version of the rules, is how much the documentation has grown. In 2013, Article 4 paragraph (6) dealt with the amendment of the annex sheet to the classification certificate and had four letters, from a) to d): the application, the standard form, the earlier annex sheet in the original and, where applicable, a justifying memorandum for reclassification. Today the same paragraph has at least seven letters, and letter g) is the one now rewritten.

It is equally clear that Annex No. 3¹, the separate form for owners who are natural persons, did not exist in the initial 2013 version of the rules. It was introduced later, and now it too is being replaced.

The order does not touch the other annexes to the rules, nor the rest of Article 4. The amendment is a narrow one: a single letter and three forms.

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