In brief

  • 74 corrections, 52 of which change the rule rather than the spelling. The corrigenda cover 56 articles and two annexes of the Spatial Planning, Urban Planning and Construction Code. Twenty are matters of spelling, diacritics and grammatical agreement, two supply the paragraph missing from a cross-reference, and the other 52 move a cross-reference or rewrite a condition.
  • One administrative offence has its meaning entirely reversed. In Article 570(1)(z), „angajarea de către consultanți de specialiști atestați”, the engagement of certified specialists by consultants, becomes „neangajarea”, the failure to engage them. For the 50 days in which the Code was in force before the correction, the published text penalised exactly the conduct that the law requires.
  • A deadline for local authorities is shortened, and it had already expired by the date of the correction. In Article 92(10), the 60 working days from entry into force become 45 working days from publication, that is, a deadline that fell due on 12 October 2026, two days before the corrigenda appeared.
  • A criminal offence punishable by 6 months to 3 years’ imprisonment has both its cross-references rewritten. In Article 244, one of the printed references, Article 187(2)(c), did not exist: that paragraph has no letters.
  • A single word added to a definition in Annex no. 1 propagates through 39 articles. The Special Telecommunications Service enters the definition of SNAOPSN, a term that appears 58 times in the Code.
Act: Corrigenda to Law no. 169/2026 on the Spatial Planning, Urban Planning and Construction Code
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 862 of 14 October 2026, pages 14-16
In force from: 14 October 2026, the date of publication, the act setting no other date

The code that governs everything from the urban planning certificate to the acceptance of a completed building is corrected on 74 points, and 52 of the corrections change what the rule says. The Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 862 of 14 October 2026 publishes, on pages 14 to 16, the corrigenda to Law no. 169/2026, the Spatial Planning, Urban Planning and Construction Code, the act that repealed Law no. 50/1991 and Law no. 350/2001 and that has applied since 25 August 2026. A corrigendum is not a normative act and does not amend the law: it is the procedure by which the text printed in the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) is corrected. That is precisely why the list of 14 October deserves a close reading, because it also contains corrections that look nothing like printing errors.

The count by category shows where the weight lies. Forty-three corrigenda touch a cross-reference: 34 change the number of the article referred to, four change the paragraph within the article cited, and five change the article’s reference to one of its own paragraphs. Nine rewrite a rule in its own text: an administrative offence, a deadline, an urban planning document, a signatory, a definition in an annex. Two merely supply the paragraph missing from a cross-reference, and the other 20 restore diacritics dropped in typesetting, put the genitive „Ministerului Culturii” right as the nominative „Ministerul Culturii”, the Ministry of Culture, and deal with slips of the same kind. On a code with 584 articles, the proportion says something simple: the text voted and the text printed were not the same text precisely where the cross-references decide which rule applies.

What it changes in practice

The most direct consequence is in Article 570(1)(z), which lists the administrative offences under the construction regime. All the neighbouring letters are framed as omissions: letter (w) penalises „neaplicarea de către executant a soluțiilor stabilite”, the contractor’s failure to apply the solutions laid down, letter (x) „nerespectarea obligației de expertizare”, the failure to comply with the obligation to obtain an expert assessment, and letter (aa) „nerespectarea de către consultant a obligației de sesizare a dezvoltatorului”, the consultant’s failure to notify the developer. Letter (z) stood outside the series and penalised „angajarea de către consultanți de specialiști atestați și/sau autorizați în toate domeniile de consultanță pentru care au încheiate contracte de servicii”, the engagement by consultants of certified and/or authorised specialists in all the consultancy fields for which they hold service contracts. That is, the act of working with certified people. After the corrigendum, the offence is the failure to engage them, which turns letter (z) from a trap into an obligation.

The second practical consequence is in Article 92(10), which requires local authorities to set up the local commission for the integrated approval of spatial planning and urban planning documentation, the body that replaces the stack of separate approvals. The printed version gave 60 working days from the entry into force of the Code. The corrected text gives 45 working days from its publication, the same formula already used by Article 576(2) in the final provisions, for exactly the same obligation. The two paragraphs had contradicted each other since 10 August 2026, and the corrigenda bring them into line. The arithmetic, however, is not reassuring: 45 working days counted from the first working day after publication fall due on 12 October 2026, and if the count starts on the day of publication, on 9 October. On either reading, the corrected deadline had expired before the corrigenda appeared. Under the published text, local authorities had until around 16 November 2026.

The third consequence touches criminal law. Article 244 punishes by 6 months to 3 years’ imprisonment, or by a fine, the carrying out of works in protected areas in breach of a paragraph which, in the published text, was Article 190(4), on interventions in areas of archaeological heritage situated within protected natural areas. The correction takes the reference to Article 189(4), which lists the urban planning rules, limits and prohibitions imposed to protect protected areas, including the bans on demolition and the restrictions on the right to build. The content of the offence is therefore widened from a particular situation to the general catalogue of prohibitions. The exception in the same sentence, the one referring to Government Ordinance no. 43/2000 on the protection of archaeological heritage, was tied to Article 187(2)(c), a paragraph that has no letters at all; after the corrigendum it refers to Article 186(2)(c), where „zonele cu patrimoniu arheologic”, the areas of archaeological heritage, are indeed to be found. Until 14 October 2026, the criminal rule announced its exception through a reference that could not be opened.

Other corrections reassign responsibility. In Article 357(1)(q), the offence consists in issuing administrative acts without requesting and obtaining the approval of the specialist department of the county council. The printed reference led to Article 121(2)(g), which describes the powers of the mayor’s specialist department, not those of the county council. The correction moves it to Article 118, the article that actually governs the county council’s specialist department. The provision in Article 584(2), which from 1 November 2028 transfers powers from the sector mayors of Bucharest to the General Mayor, referred to Articles 132 and 134, that is, to the General Mayor’s own department and to the public expertise centres. Once corrected, the reference leads to Articles 131 and 133, the powers of the sector mayor and the specialist department of that mayor, the only ones that can be transferred from the sectors to the centre.

Finally, a comma. Article 252 lists the works that may be carried out without drawing up new urban planning documentation, even where they exceed the land use coefficient laid down for the area. Letter (f) read „lucrări de amenajare pentru funcționalizarea podurilor, clădirilor existente”, conversion works to bring into use the lofts, existing buildings, which reads as two categories: lofts, and existing buildings in their entirety. The corrected text removes the comma and says „funcționalizarea podurilor clădirilor existente”, bringing into use the lofts of existing buildings, in other words loft conversion. The difference between the two readings is the difference between an exception for converting a loft and an exception for converting any building at all.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Most of the corrected references led, in the published text, to articles that do exist but speak about something else. In Article 118(2)(u) and Article 121(3)(b), the obligation to ensure the organisation and functioning of the single-agreement commission referred to Article 317, „Dispoziții comune aplicabile documentației în vederea emiterii autorizațiilor”, the common provisions applicable to documentation for the issue of permits. The correct article, Article 307, is itself entitled „Organizarea și funcționarea comisiei de acord unic”, the organisation and functioning of the single-agreement commission. The coordination of the commission for informal settlements, a power of the county council laid down in Article 117(2)(d), referred to Article 128, which governs the technical commission for spatial planning and urbanism, an entirely different commission; the correct article is Article 127. The centres of expertise in spatial planning and urbanism were organised and operated, under Article 124(12) and Article 134(2), „in accordance with Article 136”, which is the National Territorial Observatory, instead of Article 135, entitled „Organizarea și funcționarea centrelor de expertiză”, the organisation and functioning of the centres of expertise. The land granted under concession for housing was, in Article 323, „the land referred to in Article 329”, an article about the authority competent to issue permits for transport infrastructure, instead of Article 319, on the concession of land for construction.

A second family of references could not be opened at all. Article 150(14) referred to „Article 161(1)(a)”, but Article 161 has no paragraphs: it is a single paragraph defining the housing zone. The classification the text was looking for is in Article 160(1)(a). Article 536(8) required periodic assessments to be carried out „in accordance with Article 558(19) to (21)”, while Article 558 is a three-line definition of the type product, with no paragraphs at all; paragraphs (19) to (21) are in Article 550, „Programul de urmărire în timp”, the long-term monitoring programme. Article 424(2) referred to „Article 437(1)(e), (h), (i), (j) and (k)”, but Article 437(1) is a continuous sentence about technical expert assessment, with no letters; the list is in Article 426(1), „Răspunderea proiectanților”, the liability of designers. Article 144(1)(w) referred to Article 69(11), while Article 69 stops at paragraph (10). Article 277(1) sent the verification of the technical execution design to Article 519, a two-line article on the contractor’s obligation to take out insurance against the loss of the property; the technical verification of designs is in Article 440.

The third change is one of vocabulary, but it has effects. Article 89(9)(a) prohibited making an approval conditional on first obtaining other approvals, „with the exception of the opportunity approval and the approval of the chief architect”. The opportunity approval, „avizul de oportunitate”, was the instrument from Law no. 350/2001, and in the new Code the term appears nowhere: the document is called the initiation approval, is governed by Article 69 and appears 23 times in the law. The exception therefore rested on an instrument that does not exist. Similarly, Article 86(10), which prohibits charging multiple fees at the approval stage, spoke of „zonal or detailed urban plans”. The Code knows no detailed urban plan: it knows the zonal urban plan and the detailed urban planning project, two distinct instruments, and the corrected text names both correctly. The ban on charging twice now expressly covers detailed urban planning projects as well, the most common kind among private clients.

Article 256(5) also falls under vocabulary. The urban planning certificate for cadastral operations was signed, in the published text, „by the secretary and the chief architect”. The twin clause in Article 257, for the urban planning certificate for building or demolition, said from the outset „by the secretary-general”, and Article 144(1)(n) penalises, by name, the „secretary-general”. The Code therefore had two names for the same official, one of which designates a post that no longer exists in local government. The corrigenda bring them to the same form.

In Annex no. 1, the definition of SNAOPSN, the National Defence, Public Order and National Security System, listed the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Protection and Guard Service, the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice, plus the National Administration of State Reserves and Special Issues. The corrigenda add the Special Telecommunications Service. Because the term is used 58 times in 39 articles, from the regime of urban planning documentation to the restrictions and easements imposed around special installations, a single institution added to a definition changes the application of the Code in all those places.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • Letter (z) of Article 570(1) no longer penalises the engagement of certified specialists but the failure to engage them, so consultants no longer risk a fine for complying with the law.
  • Forty-three cross-references become usable, and five of the old ones could not be opened at all, because the target article had no such paragraph or letter.
  • The criminal rule in Article 244 recovers both its content, through the reference to Article 189(4), and its exception, through the reference to Article 186(2)(c).
  • The contradiction between Article 92(10) and Article 576(2) disappears: the deadline for setting up the local integrated approval commissions has a single value and a single starting point.
  • The ban on charging multiple fees at the approval stage expressly covers detailed urban planning projects, the name actually used in the Code, rather than an instrument that does not exist.
  • The official who signs the urban planning certificate for cadastral operations is named as in the article that penalises him, the secretary-general.

What remains a problem

  • The corrected deadline in Article 92(10) had fallen due on 12 October 2026, while the correction appears on 14 October. Local authorities learn that they were late only after the delay has occurred.
  • The corrigenda do not say when each correction applies from, even though between 25 August and 14 October 2026 the Code was in force in its printed form, letter (z) inverted and all.
  • In Article 357(1)(q), the correction moves the reference to the right article, but to a letter that governs no approval at all.
  • The text does not show who requested the corrigenda, or on what basis, so the reader cannot check whether each change restores the text as voted or adjusts it.
  • Article 92(10) and Article 576(2) remain two provisions commanding the same thing, which keeps the risk that a future amendment will touch only one of them.
  • References affected by the same renumbering and left uncorrected remain in the Code, for instance Article 570(1)(x), which refers to Article 437(2) for the obligation to obtain an expert assessment, while Article 424(2) has had its reference moved from Article 437 to Article 426.

Practical advice

  1. If you have documentation in progress that was submitted after 25 August 2026, check the cross-references in the approval or certificate you received against the corrected text. An administrative act that bases its reasoning on Article 317, Article 136, Article 161 or Article 519 rests on a reference that no longer exists in the form invoked.
  2. Consultants and developers who received an administrative-offence report based on Article 570(1)(z) between 25 August and 14 October 2026 have a substantive argument: the conduct described in the printed text was the engagement of certified specialists, not the failure to engage them.
  3. Local authorities that have not set up the local integrated approval commission should do so without waiting for a further deadline: after the corrigenda, the one in Article 92(10) coincides with that in Article 576(2) and has passed.
  4. For the urban planning certificate for cadastral operations, ask for the signature of the secretary-general. A certificate signed in his place by someone else carries a defect that can be raised later.
  5. If you are preparing a project to convert the loft of an existing building, bear in mind that the exception in Article 252(f) concerns the loft of the building, not the building as a whole. Exceeding the land use coefficient without new documentation can be justified only within that frame.
  6. Clients building next to installations belonging to the institutions in SNAOPSN should re-check the list of approving bodies: following the change to the definition in Annex no. 1, the Special Telecommunications Service enters the special regime in all 39 articles that use the term.

Frequently asked questions

Can a corrigendum change the content of a law?
No. A corrigendum corrects the text published in the Official Gazette of Romania, not the act voted by Parliament. The problem arises when a correction has substantive effect, as with the move from „angajarea” to „neangajarea” in Article 570(1)(z): if the printed text reproduced what was voted, a corrigendum cannot reverse it, whereas if it was an error of transcription, the corrigendum restores the law. The act published on 14 October 2026 does not state which of the two situations applies.
What happens to conduct between 25 August and 14 October 2026?
For the administrative offence in Article 570(1)(z), the text in force in that period described the offence as the engagement of certified specialists. Anyone penalised then can invoke the published form of the rule. In administrative-offence and criminal matters the more favourable law applies, and for the consultant who did engage his specialists the more favourable form is precisely the corrected one.
Do I have to redo documentation submitted on the basis of the old text?
No. The corrigenda move the place where an obligation of design or approval is to be read, without touching the obligation itself. It is worth checking the references in the administrative acts and approvals you have received, however, especially those that relied on Article 279, Article 281 or Article 317, articles which in the corrected text become Article 269, Article 271 and Article 307.
Why so many wrong references in the same act?
Because the articles of the Code were renumbered in the course of adoption, and the internal references were not updated everywhere. The shifts are not uniform: of the 34 corrigenda that change the number of the article cited, 14 drop by exactly ten articles, eight by one, four each by eight and by eleven, and four follow no rule at all: two rise, by seven and by three articles, and two fall, by three and by 79. There was therefore no single renumbering that a mechanical check could have caught.
Does the Code still contain wrong references after the corrigenda?
At least one deserves checking. Article 570(1)(x) penalises the failure to comply with the obligation to obtain an expert assessment „where this is provided for in Article 437(2)”, and Article 437 is „Expertizarea tehnică”, technical expert assessment, so the reference looks right. At the same time, the reference in Article 424(2) was moved from Article 437 to Article 426, a sign that the numbering in that part of the Code shifted by eleven articles. Anyone applying letter (x) should check whether Article 437(2) does in fact provide for the situation invoked.
What changes for Bucharest?
Article 584(2) provides that, from 1 November 2028, the powers exercised by the sector mayors and by their specialist departments pass to the General Mayor. The published text referred to Articles 132 and 134, that is, to the General Mayor’s department and to the public expertise centres, which left the transfer without object. After the corrigenda, the reference is to Articles 131 and 133, the powers of the sector mayor and the specialist department of that mayor.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article 357(1)(q), the reference corrected to Article 118(2)(z). The offence consists in issuing administrative acts without requesting and obtaining the approval of the specialist department of the county council. The corrigenda move the reference from Article 121, which governs the mayor’s department, to Article 118, which governs the county council’s department, and that much is right. The letter indicated, however, letter (z), provides that the county department „acordă, la cerere, asistență tehnică de specialitate autorităților administrației publice locale”, that it provides specialist technical assistance to the local public administration authorities on request, an activity carried out on request and involving no approval at all. The approval of the county council’s specialist department is in Article 118(2)(v), the letter providing that the department „propune emiterea avizului pentru planurile urbanistice generale și planurile urbanistice zonale având ca obiect modificarea limitei teritoriului intravilan, precum și pentru toate documentațiile de urbanism inițiate în comunele, orașele și municipiile care nu pot asigura ocuparea funcției de arhitect-șef”, that it proposes the issue of the approval for general urban plans and zonal urban plans whose object is the amendment of the boundary of the built-up area, and for all urban planning documentation initiated in communes, towns and municipalities that cannot fill the post of chief architect. As drafted, the offence penalises the absence of an approval that the article invoked does not govern, so the offence cannot be established even after the correction.

Editorial analysis

The list of 14 October 2026 is, in substance, the verification report that the Code never received before publication. Two corrections show this better than any statistic. Article 404(1) said that the sustainability strategy is drawn up „in accordance with Article 494(1)(o)”, while Article 494 is „Analize aferente studiului de fezabilitate”, the analyses relating to the feasibility study. Article 486(1)(o) said, as its mirror image, „the sustainability strategy in accordance with Article 415”, while Article 415 is the National Register of Construction Works. The two provisions were meant to point to each other; in the published text, each pointed somewhere else, and one of the wrong targets, the register, sounded plausible enough for nobody to stop at it. After the corrigenda, Article 404 refers to Article 486(1)(o), that provision refers back to Article 404, and the loop closes.

The second example is the penalty that contradicts itself. Article 144(1)(u) penalised „the failure of the local public administration authorities to observe the deadline laid down in Article 69(10) concerning placement on the agenda of the technical commission for spatial planning and urbanism”. Except that the deadline concerning the agenda, the 30 days, is in the first sentence of Article 69(9), while Article 69(10) sets a different deadline, the 15 days for issuing the initiation approval. The description of the offence and the reference it rested on pointed to two different deadlines in the same text. The following letter, (v), had the same problem, and letter (w) referred directly to a paragraph (11) that does not exist. Three consecutive administrative offences, all aimed at local authorities that are late, rested on references that did not hold.

What does not show up in reading the corrigenda from end to end is the ratio between the deadlines the administration imposes and the time it takes for itself. The Code entered into force on 25 August 2026, and the correction came on 14 October 2026, after 50 days of application and 65 days from publication. Over the same period, Article 92(10), as corrected, required local authorities to set up the local integrated approval commission within 45 working days of publication, a deadline that fell due on 12 October 2026. In other words, the issuing authority needed more time to correct the text than it allowed those bound by it to apply it, and the local authority that worked from the printed text, with 60 working days from entry into force, wakes up on 14 October with an expired deadline it had no way of knowing about. The difference between the two versions is not small: about five weeks.

The proportion between corrections of form and corrections of substance also matters. Of the 74 corrigenda, 52 change the applicable rule, two supply the paragraph missing from a cross-reference, and 20 concern spelling and agreement. That has stopped being the correction of printing errors. It is a structural repair carried out after entry into force, on a code that simultaneously replaced Law no. 50/1991 and Law no. 350/2001 and that underpins the procedure for approving urban planning documentation and the 36 authorisation forms adopted in August 2026. Each of those secondary acts cites articles of the Code, and some of the articles cited have now had their internal references changed.

What should be changed

  1. The corrigenda should be supplemented with a statement of the point from which each substantive correction applies, in the first place Article 570(1)(z) and Article 92(10). Without it, the authority establishing an offence and the person penalised read two different rules for the same period.
  2. The deadline in Article 92(10) should be reopened by an amendment rather than by a corrigendum, because a deadline that had already expired on the date of the correction can no longer be met. The clean option is to repeal the paragraph and keep a single text, the one in Article 576(2).
  3. The reference in Article 357(1)(q) should be taken to Article 118(2)(v), the letter that governs the approval of the county council’s specialist department; otherwise the offence remains unenforceable.
  4. The whole Code should be put through a consistency check of its cross-references, published as a table of correspondence between the numbering in the draft and that in the law as adopted. The discrepancies now established, from one to eleven articles, plus three isolated cases, show that a spot check is not enough.
  5. Republishing the Code in the Official Gazette of Romania, with all the corrigenda incorporated, would spare users the parallel reading of two texts. With 584 articles and 56 articles affected, reading by superimposition is a sure source of mistakes in approvals and permits.
  6. The secondary acts adopted in August 2026 on the basis of the Code should be rechecked and, where necessary, corrected, because they cite articles whose internal references have changed.

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. 862 of 14 October 2026, pages 14-16 16 pages PDF, 111 KB the act starts on page 14

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