In brief
- The entry fee for the residency competition of 15 November 2026 is 500 lei a person. The same amount was asked for at the sessions of November 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, so the amount has not changed for six sessions in a row. In May 2017, the fee was 360 lei.
- Out of each fee, at most 425 lei reach the universities and 75 lei stay with the Ministry of Health. The share of at most 85% is divided between the six university centres of medicine and pharmacy, Bucharest, Craiova, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Târgu Mureș and Timișoara, in proportion to the number of candidates at each. Out of the ministry’s 15% share is paid, among other things, the secret location where the examination questions are drawn up.
- The money is paid into a treasury account of the Ministry of Health and goes back into the organisation of the competition. Those concerned are the graduates in medicine, dentistry and pharmacy who enter the competition, plus the six universities that host the papers. The order applies from 25 September 2026, 51 days before the examination.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 819 of 25 September 2026, page 13
In force from: from publication, 25 September 2026, because Article 12(3) of Law no. 24/2000 on legislative drafting rules says that normative acts, with the exception of laws and ordinances, take effect on the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) unless they themselves lay down a later date, and this order does not
Residency is the gate through which a medical graduate becomes a specialist doctor, and the entry competition is held once a year, in November. The Romanian system keeps two forms of it apart: residency on a post, where the trainee is hired by a named hospital before the training begins, and residency on a place, where the trainee receives only a training place. The order published on 25 September 2026 fixes what taking part in the session of 15 November costs: 500 lei a candidate. Still in the field of the professional training of doctors, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Research decided in August 2026 that the examination at the end of residency should have the same questions throughout the country, so both ends of specialist training are being standardised in the same year.
The figure is not new. The same fee of 500 lei was set for the session of 21 November 2021, for the one of 20 November 2022, for the one of 19 November 2023, for the one of 17 November 2024 and for the one of 16 November 2025. Six consecutive sessions with the same amount. The last time the sum visibly changed was before 2021: at the session of 21 May 2017 the fee was 360 lei, so the move to 500 meant an increase of 38.89%.
The order is read together with the second act published on the same page of the Official Gazette of Romania, which sets out the 25 shortage specialties for the residency on a post in the same session. Both carry the date of 24 September 2026 and both refer to the competition of 15 November, only that one says how much the candidate pays and the other where the candidate can go after passing.
Where the money goes is written in Article 2. All the sums collected become revenue of the budget of the Ministry of Health and are used for the staff and material costs of the competition. A share of at most 85% goes to the universities of medicine and pharmacy in Bucharest, Craiova, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Târgu Mureș and Timișoara, and 15% stays with the ministry, for the goods and services that secure the secret location where the questions are drawn up and for the management of residency training at national level. Translated per candidate: out of the 500 lei, at most 425 reach the university centre where the paper is sat, and 75 stay with the ministry.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is direct and the candidate feels it. Without paying the 500 lei into the treasury account given in the order, enrolment in the competition cannot be made. The sum is fixed, it is not related to the candidate’s income and it has, in this act, no form of exemption or reduction.
The second effect is on the universities. The six centres receive money in proportion to the number of candidates who sit the paper with them and on the basis of an estimated costing note signed by the rector, and the allocation is made through contracts concluded with the ministry. The more candidates a centre attracts, the more it receives for the rooms, the invigilators and the logistics it provides.
The third effect is on the ministry’s budget. The 15% share finances an expense that no other act covers: the location where the questions are drawn up, kept secret precisely for the integrity of the competition. Out of the same share, goods and services can be bought for the national management of residency.
The fourth effect is one of predictability. Keeping the amount at 500 lei for the sixth session in a row means that a graduate who sits the competition again pays the same as five years ago, in nominal lei. For the universities, it means that the sum per candidate stays the same, however much the costs of rooms, security and invigilation staff have risen in the meantime.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The amount has not changed. The order of 23 September 2025, published on 26 September 2025, had set the same sum of 500 lei for the session of 16 November 2025, with an almost identical text, article by article: the same share of at most 85% for the universities, the same share of 15% for the ministry, the same treasury account, the same list of six university centres.
What did change is the name of the competition in the text of Article 1. In 2025 it read „the competition for residency on a post and on a place”, now it reads „the admission competition for residency on a post and on a place”, a wording that was used in 2024 as well. It is a return to the older phrasing, with no effect on the sum or on the procedure.
The signature changed too. The 2025 order carries the signature of the minister of health in office. The present one is signed for the interim minister of health by a state secretary, although the order published immediately after it, on the same page, is signed by the interim minister himself. Two acts from the same day, on the same competition, with two different signatories.
The calendar has stayed identical. In 2025, the order with the fee appeared 51 days before the examination. In 2026, again 51 days before. The distance between the publication of the amount and the date of the paper has not moved at all.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The sum stays 500 lei for the sixth session in a row, so candidates who have sat the competition before know in advance how much they pay.
- Where the money goes is written into the act, not left to the ministry’s discretion: at most 85% to the universities, 15% for the central organisation and for the location where the questions are drawn up.
- The allocation to the universities is made in proportion to the number of candidates, so the centre that receives more people also receives more money.
- The payment account, the beneficiary, the tax registration code and the address are written out in full in the order, so that the payment can be made without any other document being needed.
- The act appears 51 days before the paper of 15 November 2026, the same distance as at the previous session.
What remains a problem
- The figure of 500 lei has no justification at all. The order does not show the estimated cost of the competition, nor the expected number of candidates, so it cannot be checked whether the fee covers the expenditure, exceeds it or falls short of it.
- There is no exemption and no reduction. The sum is the same for every candidate, whatever their means, and the act does not refer to any other rule that would allow an exception.
- The share for the universities is „at most 85%”, while the ministry’s is „15%”. One is a ceiling, the other a fixed figure, so the act does not show what happens to the difference if the universities receive less than 85%.
- There are two criteria for the allocation between the six centres, the number of candidates and the costing note signed by the rector, but the order does not say how they combine. The same sums can be divided in several ways, all of them in keeping with the text.
- Keeping the fee nominally unchanged for six sessions means, for the universities, a fall in real terms of the sum received per candidate, in a period when the costs of organisation have risen. There is no updating mechanism in the order.
Practical advice
- Pay exactly 500 lei, into the treasury account written in Article 1(2), with the Ministry of Health as beneficiary. Any other account given in an unofficial announcement has no basis in this order.
- Keep the proof of payment. The contracts between the ministry and the universities are concluded on the basis of the number of candidates at each centre, and the individual proof of payment is what ties your enrolment to that number.
- Read the order together with the one that sets the shortage specialties, published on the same day. The fee is the same for everyone, but where a post can be taken depends on that list.
- Check the methodology of the competition separately. This order sets only the amount of the fee, not the enrolment calendar, the documents needed or the rules for sitting the paper.
- If you are interested in how the money is spent, ask for the contracts between the Ministry of Health and the universities. They are concluded under Article 2(4) and are not published in the Official Gazette of Romania.
- Do not count on reductions or exemptions. The order provides none, and the fee is a condition of taking part, not an optional contribution.
Frequently asked questions
How much does enrolling for residency cost in 2026?
Has the fee gone up against the previous session?
Where does the money end up?
What does the ministry pay out of its share?
Are there exemptions from paying the fee?
How is the money divided between the universities?
From when does the order apply?
Does the order also say when enrolment takes place?
Editorial analysis
The act is simple and contradicts itself nowhere. It has four articles, a single important figure and a clearly written route for the money. That is precisely why it is worth looking at from the side that does not show when you read it: what a fee that does not move means over time. Since 2021, over six competition sessions, the amount has stayed 500 lei. Before that, at the session of May 2017, it was 360 lei, so the last visible adjustment meant an increase of 38.89%, followed by a long freeze. For the candidate, the stability is good news. For the university that organises the paper, the same 425 lei per candidate buy less and less, year after year.
The second observation comes from putting two paragraphs of the same article together. Paragraph (2) says that the universities are allocated „a share of at most 85%”, while paragraph (5) speaks of „the 15% share due to the Ministry of Health”. One is a ceiling, the other a fixed sum. If the universities receive less than 85%, the difference has, in the act, no named destination, although paragraph (1) leaves it with the ministry’s budget anyway. The text holds together, but only because the first rule covers what the second does not say. The same wording is repeated unchanged in the orders of 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
The third observation concerns the division between the six centres. The order gives two criteria joined by a conjunction: the proportion of candidates and the estimated costing note signed by the rector. The first is an arithmetical rule, the second is a cost estimate. How they combine, the act does not say. Two universities with the same number of candidates may receive different sums if their costing notes differ, and a university with fewer candidates may receive more if it estimates higher expenses. Both results respect the text, which means that the concrete outcome cannot be foreseen from the act.
The fourth observation has to do with what is not published. The contracts between the ministry and the universities, the costing notes signed by the rectors and the final number of candidates stay outside the Official Gazette of Romania. Without them, the only public figure about the financing of the most important medical competition of the year is the fee. For every thousand candidates, the competition brings in 500,000 lei, of which at most 425,000 go to the universities and 75,000 to the ministry. What the organisation actually costs cannot be found out from anywhere.
What should be changed
- The order should contain the estimated cost of the competition. A single line with the estimated sum and with the expected number of candidates would show whether the fee of 500 lei covers the expenditure, and the debate about the amount would at last have a basis.
- The two shares should be written in the same way. Either both as a ceiling, or both as a fixed percentage. „At most 85%” next to „the 15% share” leaves a zone with no named destination, which is closed only by the general rule in paragraph (1).
- The criterion for the allocation between the universities should have a written weighting. For instance a fixed part per candidate and a variable part justified by the costing note, so that it can be checked why one centre receives more than another.
- The fee should have an updating mechanism. Six sessions with the same nominal sum quietly move the cost of the organisation from the candidate to the budgets of the universities, without anyone deciding on that transfer explicitly.
- The contracts with the universities should be published. They are concluded from public money, for a public competition, and publishing them would close the only unknown in the whole mechanism: what residency on a post and on a place actually costs.
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. 819 of 25 September 2026, page 13 16 pages PDF, 143 KB the act starts on page 13
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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.