The company that runs the spa treatment resorts: 171 million lei for 2026, no subsidies and a budget approved on day 261 of the year

The company that runs the State’s spa treatment resorts received its 2026 budget with 104 days left of the year. Joint Order no. 1.092/1.087, published on 18 September 2026, approves for Societatea de Tratament Balnear și Recuperare a Capacității de Muncă „T.B.R.C.M.” S.A. revenue of 171.182 million lei and expenditure of 168.329 million lei. Acts that put a figure on public money reach the Official Gazette of Romania in every size, from the 287,671 lei that a three-day forum in Bucharest cost up to the annual budget of a company with 828 employees. The difference here is that the money does not come from the State budget: the line for subsidies is struck through, and the one for transfers has been left blank.

The sole shareholder is the National Public Pension House, written into Article 1 of the order itself, and that is why the document concerns the pensioner who goes for treatment. According to the company’s own presentation, it runs 13 spa complexes, from Amara and Lacu Sărat to Covasna, Olănești and Băile 1 Mai, with 3,181 beds, through which more than 70,000 visitors pass every year. Measured against that number, the 171.182 million lei work out at about 2,445 lei collected for each visitor, and the 32.657 million for investment at about 10,200 lei for each bed.

The annex, reproduced in facsimile across three pages of the Official Gazette of Romania, shows where the money goes. Staff costs are the largest item, 77.284 million lei, or 45.9% of the total. Of that, 72.462 million are costs of a salary nature, split into 65.619 million of salaries and 6.843 million of bonuses, to which are added 3.263 million for mandate contracts and for the management and supervisory bodies and 1.559 million of contributions owed by the employer. Next come goods and services, 61.416 million, then other operating expenses, 25.584 million, and taxes and duties, 4.045 million. Financial expenses are struck through, so the company plans no interest to pay.

What is left at the end is little. The programmed gross result is 2.853 million lei, current profit tax 1.541 million, and net profit 1,312,000 lei. One indicator in the annex says the same thing more directly: for every 1,000 lei of total revenue, 983 lei of expenditure are programmed, so 17 are left. On that margin, the net profit comes to less than 19 lei for each of the year’s more than 70,000 visitors.

The headcount rises during the year: 828 employees on average, but 873 forecast at the end of the year. The average monthly earnings per employee, calculated on the costs of a salary nature, are entered at 7,048 lei, and the same earnings recalculated under the State budget law at 6,913 lei. Labour productivity appears at 205 thousand lei per person, and the lines for overdue payments and overdue receivables are empty, meaning that the company declares no debts unpaid at maturity.

One thing is missing from the whole document: the column for the previous year. The annex has a single column of figures, headed „Propuneri an curent 2026”, that is proposals for the current year, with nothing achieved in 2025 beside it. How the budget compares with last year cannot be said from the act, and it is precisely the comparison with 2025 that decides whether the limits on salary costs imposed for 2026 have been observed.

What it changes in practice

For someone who buys or receives a treatment voucher, the order changes nothing directly. It sets no tariff, it does not touch the criteria for granting vouchers and it says nothing about the number of places allocated through the pension house. What it does is fix the ceiling within which the company may spend until 31 December 2026.

For the company, the effect is immediate and restrictive. Article 10(1)(a) of Government Ordinance no. 26/2013 says that the costs of a salary nature and the headcount at the end of the year approved in the budget are maximum limits that cannot be exceeded. The 72.462 million lei and the 873 people therefore become firm thresholds, and going beyond them requires an amendment approved by the same route, through a joint order of the two ministries.

For employees, the order opens a right to money, but a small one and with a questionable figure. Profit sharing is entered at 144,000 lei for 828 employees on average, that is about 174 lei per person for a whole year. The sum is due only if the programmed profit is actually made, because the distribution is made out of the accounting profit left after tax, not out of the forecast one.

For the budget from which pensions are paid, the effect shows on a single line. The dividends of 728,000 lei are entered in full under „dividende cuvenite altor acționari”, dividends due to other shareholders, and the lines for dividends due to the State budget and to the local budget are empty. Since the shareholder is the National Public Pension House, the money returns to the institution that runs the state social insurance budget, not to the State budget.

For the taxpayer there is an effect that is nowhere spelled out in the act but follows from it: the company asks for no public money for investment. The line for budget appropriations has been left blank, and the 32.657 million lei of investment expenditure have as their source exactly the same amount of own financing sources. The investment is almost 25 times larger than the year’s net profit, so it rests on depreciation and on reserves, not on the 2026 earnings.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Until 18 September 2026 the company operated without an approved budget for the current year. The rule for that situation is written in Article 8(1) of Government Ordinance no. 26/2013: until the budget for the current year is approved, economic operators may incur total monthly expenditure within the limit of one twelfth of the total expenditure approved in the budget for the previous year. In practice, the company ran on the 2025 budget divided by twelve.

That regime grew tighter during the year. Article 6(1) of the same ordinance allows 45 days from the entry into force of the State budget law for submitting the budget for approval, and Article 8(4) provides that an operator whose budget is not approved within a further 45 days after that deadline may commit and incur monthly expenditure of only 90% of that limit, starting with the following month and until the date of approval. Law no. 43/2026 on the State budget entered into force on 30 March 2026, so the submission deadline fell on 14 May, and the one under Article 8(4) on 28 June 2026.

The concrete change is therefore the exit from that reduced regime. With the budget signed on 19 August 2026 and published on 18 September, the company moves back from the 90% ceiling to spending under its own budget for the year. What has changed since January is the legal basis, not the amount: until now it was spending on the basis of last year, and from now on it spends on the basis of a document that has the figure 2026 on it.

What can be checked has changed as well. The 2025 budget said nothing about how many people the company would have at the end of 2026 and how much profit it was aiming for. Now there are public figures for both, 873 employees and 1,312,000 lei, plus a salary ceiling that can be compared with the outturn at the end of the year.

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