In brief
- The Ministry of Finance opens a new round of the Tezaur Programme: subscriptions between 5 October and 6 November 2026, with annual interest of 6.50% over one year, 7.00% over three years and 7.50% over five years. That is 0.25 to 0.35 percentage points above the September edition, and the gain stays tax-free.
- One bond costs 1 leu. At the treasury counter and at the post office you can subscribe from 1 leu, on ghiseul.ro the minimum threshold is 1,000 lei, and the ceiling is 200,000 lei for each issue code. Only resident individuals who have turned 18 by the close of the subscription may buy.
- Interest starts to run only on 10 November 2026. Anyone subscribing on the first day keeps their money blocked for 36 days with no gain at all, which brings the real yield of the one-year issue down from 6.50% to about 5.92% a year.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, no. 835 of 1 October 2026, pages 12-14
In force from: 1 October 2026, on the date of publication
The State is raising the interest on government bonds for the public: 6.50% over one year, 7.00% over three years and 7.50% over five years. Order of the Minister of Finance no. 1.324/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 835 of 1 October 2026, approves the prospectus of three Tezaur issues, with the codes 0228, 0229 and 0230. Subscription runs from Monday 5 October 2026 to Friday 6 November 2026. Against the September-October 2026 edition, approved by Order no. 1.192/2026, the interest rises by 0.30 percentage points over one year, by 0.25 over three years and by 0.35 over five years.
The rates held in the following month: the November-December 2026 Tezaur issues still pay 6.50%, 7.00% and 7.50%, with subscriptions between 9 November and 4 December 2026.
The bonds are bought at the counters of the State Treasury, at the post offices of the National Company Poșta Română and online, on the ghiseul.ro platform. No broker is involved and there is no stock exchange: the State sells directly to individuals. The money goes, Article 5 of the prospectus says, to financing the budget deficit and refinancing the public debt.
Here are the three issues, with the dates the prospectus sets. The last column is our own calculation for 10,000 lei invested, at simple interest, the way the State pays it.
For anyone comparing net yields, the Fiscal Code gained a new instrument in October 2026, the savings and investment account exempt from tax on dividends and gains, applicable from 2027.
| Code | Maturity | Annual interest | Issue date | Maturity date | Total interest on 10,000 lei |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0228 | 1 year | 6.50% | 10 November 2026 | 10 November 2027 | 650 lei |
| 0229 | 3 years | 7.00% | 10 November 2026 | 10 November 2029 | 2,100 lei |
| 0230 | 5 years | 7.50% | 10 November 2026 | 10 November 2031 | 3,750 lei |
The maturities close exactly: from 10 November 2026 to 10 November 2027 there are 365 days, to 10 November 2029 there are 1,096 days, and to 10 November 2031, 1,826 days. One year, three years and five years, without a single day more or less than the table in Article 2 says.
The last day for subscribing, channel by channel
The subscription period has 33 calendar days, of which 25 working days, because no public holiday falls between 5 October and 6 November 2026. Not all the channels stay open to the end, however, and the differences are set by Article 2 as well.
- At the treasury counter you can subscribe until the last day, Friday 6 November 2026.
- At post offices in urban areas, one working day earlier, so until Thursday 5 November 2026.
- At post offices in rural areas, two working days earlier, so until Wednesday 4 November 2026.
- On ghiseul.ro, also two working days earlier, that is until Wednesday 4 November 2026, and on the last day the platform stops at 23:30, not at midnight.
The prospectus contains another paragraph, though, which gives a different closing date for online subscriptions, 5 November 2026, and a different time, 23:59:59. Nowhere in the act does it say which of the two rules applies.
What a bond costs and who may buy
The nominal value of one bond is 1 leu, and fractions of a bond are not accepted. At the treasury and at the post office that means you can come in with a single leu, because Article 3(1) sets the minimum there at the price of one bond. Online, paragraph (2) of the same article raises the minimum for a subscription to 1,000 lei and imposes a ceiling of 200,000 lei for each issue code, to which the limits of your bank card are added.
The buyer must be an individual resident in Romania and must have turned 18 by the day the subscription period closes at the latest. Article 4 allows an investor to make any number of subscriptions within the same issue, and the ghiseul.ro ceiling is counted separately for each issue code.
When the interest is paid
The interest is paid once a year, on the dates in the schedules annexed to the prospectus, and the nominal value is returned at the last payment. The one-year issue has a single payment, on 10 November 2027, covering both the interest and the capital. The three-year issue pays on 10 November 2027, 10 November 2028 and 12 November 2029, and the five-year one adds 11 November 2030 and 10 November 2031.
The two dates that fall out of line are not mistakes. 10 November 2029 is a Saturday and 10 November 2030 a Sunday, so the payment moves to the following Monday, under Article 9(3). The same paragraph states that the investor receives nothing extra for the days of postponement.
The calculation formula in Article 13 relates the interest to the actual number of days in the interest period, and the final result is rounded to the ban, the hundredth of a leu. For round sums the stated rate comes out exactly: 10,000 lei in issue 0229 bring 700 lei a year, three years running.
What the prospectus does not say: the exit before maturity
Article 7 lists two rights of the investor, repayment of the nominal value at maturity and payment of the interest on each payment date. Nothing else. The prospectus does not mention early redemption, does not say where it is applied for and does not warn what it costs, even though the right exists and is governed by the two framework orders to which Article 15 refers the procedures.
For bonds bought at the treasury, Articles 27, 28 and 38 of Order of the Minister of Public Finance no. 3.139/2017 require the application to be filed only at the unit where the subscription was made, only for the whole value of one form and at least 60 working days before the payment date. Partial redemption is not accepted, and the money arrives by the 20th of the following month. For bonds bought at the post office or on ghiseul.ro, Chapters VI and VII of Order no. 333/226/2025 provide the same mechanism but with a different deadline: at least 25 working days before the 1st of the month in which the next payment falls, and the money arrives by the last working day of the following month.
The price is the same everywhere and it is high: the sum returned is the amount originally subscribed, reduced by all the interest received up to that point. Anyone leaving the programme hands back in full what they received, so they are left with exactly the money they put in.
The tax regime
Article 10 of the prospectus says that the income of resident individuals from subscribing to and holding these bonds is not taxable, and refers to Article 93(1)(a) of Law no. 227/2015 on the Tax Code. The reference checks out: the text invoked sits in the chapter on investment income and exempts precisely income from holding and transferring financial instruments evidencing the public debt of the State. Being non-taxable income, it also stays outside the annual ceiling by which the health insurance contribution is determined.
What happens on death
Ownership passes to the heirs, who present the legal documents attesting to that status. Article 16 also sets out the practical route: the heirs go to the treasury unit where the investor subscribed or to a postal sub-unit, with the documents proving the death, and obtain a document listing the deceased person’s holdings, on the basis of which the transfer is made. The bonds are not extinguished on death and do not lose their interest.
On 16 October 2026 the central bank published the interest rates on minimum reserve requirements, in lei and in euro.
What it changes in practice
The order entered into force on 1 October 2026, on the date of publication, but its practical effect starts on 5 October, when the counters open. Until then, anyone who wants to buy has four days to read the prospectus, a breathing space this edition does leave: the order was signed on 30 September 2026 and appeared before the counters opened, not after.
For the State budget, the three issues are a source of funding with no intermediary and no commission, the only one in which the State knows its creditors one by one. For the buyer, the effect is a fixed rate, known from the first day, which does not depend on how the market moves and which no bank can cut along the way.
The third effect is the one the prospectus does not name. The money handed over at subscription passes into the State’s hands at once, but the bond starts earning interest only on 10 November 2026. Between 5 October and 10 November there are 36 days in which the sum works for nobody but the issuer.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The previous edition, approved by Order no. 1.192/2026 and published on 4 September 2026, gave 6.20% over one year, 6.75% over three years and 7.15% over five years. The new rates are higher at all three maturities, and the biggest rise is at the long end: 0.35 percentage points over five years. In money, for 10,000 lei held for five years, the difference between the two editions is 175 lei, 3,750 lei now against 3,575 lei in September.
The rest of the prospectus is unchanged, including the thresholds, the ceiling of 200,000 lei, the closing rules by channel and the wording in Article 2(4) that was flagged at the previous edition as well. The only change in the calendar is the length of the subscription period, which rises from 26 to 33 calendar days.
On the same day, through Order of the Minister of Finance no. 1.321/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 834 of 1 October 2026, the State also set the final terms of the FIDELIS issues launched between 2 and 9 October 2026. The two programmes are not to be confused: Tezaur is bought over the counter and online, is listed nowhere and cannot be sold, while FIDELIS goes through an intermediary and reaches trading on the Bucharest exchange from 15 October 2026. At the nearby maturities, Tezaur pays more: 7.50% over five years against 7.15% over four years at FIDELIS, and the FIDELIS issue in lei over two years gives 6.60% to the general public, with a single percentage point more reserved for blood donors.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- Fixed rates, known from the first day, higher than at the September edition at all three maturities.
- The gain is not taxed and does not enter the ceiling by which the health contribution is calculated.
- The entry threshold at the counter and at the post office is 1 leu, so the programme stays open to people who set aside small amounts.
- The payer is the Ministry of Finance itself, and the interest and the capital come back on the dates set in the act, with no intermediary and no commission.
- The subscription period is a week longer than last month, 33 calendar days instead of 26.
- The bonds pass to the heirs without losing their interest, under a procedure written into the prospectus.
What remains a problem
- Interest starts to run only on 10 November 2026, so the real yield for someone subscribing on the first day drops to about 5.92% a year over one year, 6.76% over three years and 7.35% over five years.
- There is no secondary market: the bonds cannot be sold to anybody.
- Leaving before maturity means losing all the interest received, and the prospectus does not breathe a word about it.
- Redemption is made only for the whole value of one subscription form, so part of the money cannot be withdrawn.
- The deadline for filing the exit application differs by channel, 60 working days at the treasury and 25 at the post office or on ghiseul.ro, even though the product is the same.
- Online, entry starts at 1,000 lei, a thousand times above the counter threshold.
- The cut-off dates differ from one channel to another by up to two working days, and the prospectus leaves them to be worked out instead of writing them down somewhere.
Practical advice
- If you want full interest for every day you are without your money, subscribe towards the end of the period, not on the first day. Anyone paying on 6 November 2026 loses only four days without interest, instead of 36.
- If you use ghiseul.ro, the last useful day is 4 November 2026, not 6 November, and the platform closes at 23:30. At the post office, in rural areas, the deadline is 4 November as well.
- Do not put here money you might need before maturity. An early exit returns exactly the sum you deposited, with no gain at all.
- If you still want a way out, split the sum across several smaller subscription forms. Redemption is made per whole form, so several forms mean several possible partial exits.
- Keep the subscription form and the receipt. Without them, the redemption application at the post office requires a sworn statement about the loss of the documents.
- If you want to be able to sell before maturity, compare with the FIDELIS issues of the same day, which are listed on the exchange. The difference in interest is the price of the freedom to get out.
Frequently asked questions
How much do I get if I put in 10,000 lei?
Can I take my money out before maturity?
Do I pay tax or a health contribution on the interest?
Until when can I subscribe online?
Can I buy in my child’s name?
Why does the interest start only on 10 November 2026?
What happens if the holder dies?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 2(4) of the prospectus: three different closing points for the same online subscription. The paragraph says that „subscrierile în mediul online, prin intermediul Spațiului privat virtual, se încheie la ora 23:59:59 în ziua anterioară datei de încheiere a perioadei de subscriere”, that online subscriptions made through the Spațiul privat virtual, the taxpayer’s own online account with the Romanian tax administration, close at that time on the day before the end date of the subscription period, so on 5 November 2026. Paragraph (3)(c), however, closes online subscriptions two working days before the last day, that is on 4 November 2026, and point (a) of the same paragraph fixes the closing time at 23:30, not at 23:59:59. An online subscription made on 5 November 2026 at 23:45 is valid or void, depending on which paragraph you read. On top of that, the Spațiul privat virtual appears nowhere else in the act: it is not in the title of the order, not in Article 1 of the prospectus, not in Article 3, which sets the thresholds and the ceiling, not in Article 9, which says into what account the interest and the capital are paid, and not in Article 15 either, which refers the procedures to Order no. 3.139/2017 and Order no. 333/226/2025, two acts concerning the treasury and the post office with ghiseul.ro respectively. Anyone subscribing through the Spațiul privat virtual cannot learn from the prospectus whether the minimum of one leu or the one of 1,000 lei applies, whether the ceiling of 200,000 lei catches them and where they receive their money. The same wording passed untouched through Order no. 1.013/2026 and through Order no. 1.192/2026, so this is the third consecutive edition with the same defect.
Editorial analysis
The calendar of the issues is carefully made. The interest periods link up from 10 November to 9 November with not a day lost, the number of payments matches the maturity at all three issues, and the two dates that break the pattern, 12 November 2029 and 11 November 2030, are exactly the Mondays following a Saturday and a Sunday. Somebody checked the calendar by hand and checked it well. The problem is not in what the prospectus says, but in what it chooses not to say.
The costliest silence is the gap between payment and interest. Subscription opens on 5 October 2026, but Article 11 starts the interest only on the issue date, 10 November 2026. That is 36 days in which the money is with the State and produces nothing for the person who handed it over, seven more than at the September edition. For the one-year issue, that turns the stated 6.50% into a real yield of about 5.92% a year, measured from the day of payment to 10 November 2027, that is over 401 days. Over three years, 7.00% becomes 6.76%, and over five years, 7.50% becomes 7.35%. More than half a percentage point evaporates at the short maturity from the mere layout of the calendar, and the prospectus warns nobody. Anyone subscribing on 6 November 2026 loses four days instead of 36 and receives exactly the stated rate. The same issue, two different outcomes, without a line saying so.
The second observation comes out of combining three acts. The prospectus does not mention early redemption, and the two framework orders to which Article 15 refers set different conditions depending on the channel: the application is filed at least 60 working days before the payment date, if the bond was bought at the treasury, and at least 25 working days before the 1st of the payment month, if it was bought at the post office or on ghiseul.ro. For issue 0228, with a single payment on 10 November 2027, that means 18 August 2027 in one case and 27 September 2027 in the other. The same bond, bought on the same day, with the same interest, has two exit calendars 40 days apart, and what separates them is the counter the person walked into. Overlaying the payment schedule in Article 8 produces a second consequence: the one-year issue has a single payment, at maturity, so by the deadlines above no interest has been received, and the sum returned is the amount subscribed less all the interest received, that is exactly the amount deposited. Whoever leaves walks away, after almost a year of lending to the State, with the money they came with.
The third observation is a matter of arithmetic. Article 13(2) announces that the interest is calculated „pe baza numărului efectiv de zile din perioada de dobândă relevantă și pe baza numărului de zile din anul respectiv”, on the actual number of days in the relevant interest period and on the number of days in the year concerned, and then defines both terms of the fraction identically, as the actual number of days in the interest period. The division always gives one, and the formula reduces to the nominal value multiplied by the rate. Here the result comes out right, because all the periods are whole years, but the difference is not theoretical: the second period of issues 0229 and 0230 has 366 days, because it includes 29 February 2028. If the denominator were the calendar year of 365 days, as the introductory sentence suggests, the interest for 10,000 lei on issue 0229 would be 701.92 lei instead of 700, and at the ceiling of 200,000 lei the difference would climb above 38 lei. The definition saves the calculation, but the sentence preceding it says something else, and the text has stayed unchanged at this edition too.
What should be changed
- Removing the Spațiul privat virtual or regulating it fully. If it is a real channel, the prospectus must write down its minimum threshold, its ceiling and the payment account. If it is not, the mention must be deleted from Article 2(4), which otherwise contradicts paragraph (3) and leaves a subscription made on the last evening without a clear legal status.
- A table with the final subscription date for each channel. Today the reader has to count the working days alone to find out that at the post office in rural areas and on ghiseul.ro the deadline is 4 November 2026, in urban areas 5 November, and at the treasury 6 November. The ministry already has these dates and can put them in the act, in four lines.
- A section on early redemption, even one of ten lines. Someone handing over money at the counter must learn from the document they sign that they can get out, where to file the application, that they cannot withdraw part of it and that they leave with no gain. Today the information is in two orders to which the prospectus merely refers, for procedures.
- Interest should run from the payment date, not from the issue date. The four days between the close of the subscription and the issue are technically unavoidable, the 36 days of the first subscriber are not. If the solution is too costly to administer, the prospectus should at least say openly how much an early subscriber loses.
- Rewriting the definition of the denominator in Article 13(2). „Număr de zile an curent”, the number of days in the current year, must be defined as the number of days in the calendar year, not as the number of days in the interest period, otherwise the introductory sentence and the definition say different things about the same fraction.
- Showing the final sum alongside the rate. One line showing what 1,000 lei becomes at maturity for each issue, 1,065, 1,210 and 1,375 lei, would make clear at a glance that the interest does not compound and would take hasty comparisons with bank deposits out of the discussion.
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. 835 of 1 October 2026, pages 12-14 16 pages PDF, 116 KB the act starts on page 12
Open the official PDFDownload the PDF
The viewer is not shown on small screens. Use the buttons above to open or download the file.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.