In brief

  • The threshold for including an occupation in the List of Shortage Occupations falls from 10 to 5: 5 full-time individual employment contracts concluded with foreigners are now enough and, when the list is drawn up, 5 work permits, instead of 10 each.
  • Proposals to update the list „ori de câte ori se impune” (whenever necessary) are examined within 10 calendar days of registration, not 30. The deadline also covers proposals from ministries and social partners, not only those from employers, and the National Employment Agency, the Labour Inspectorate and the General Inspectorate for Immigration must respond within 3 working days.
  • Who is affected: employers recruiting workers from outside the European Union, social partners and the institutions that supply data and permits. The order enters into force on 5 November 2026, and the ministry has 30 days, until 5 December 2026, to draw up the guide for justifying proposals.
Act: Order of the Minister of Labour, Family, Youth and Social Solidarity no. 1.668/2026 amending the Methodology for drawing up and updating the List of Shortage Occupations provided for in Article 1(4) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 32/2026 on the access of foreigners to the labour market in Romania, and amending and supplementing certain normative acts, approved by Order of the interim minister of labour, family, youth and social solidarity no. 987/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 928 of 5 November 2026, pages 7-8
In force from: 5 November 2026, the date of publication, under Article 12(3) of Law no. 24/2000; the order does not provide for a later date

The Ministry of Labour is changing the rules for drawing up and updating the List of Shortage Occupations, approved in August 2026 with 289 occupations, the list employers rely on when they want to bring in workers from outside the European Union. Order no. 1.668 of 4 November 2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) of 5 November 2026, amends the methodology approved by Order no. 987/2026 on four points: it halves the inclusion thresholds, rewrites the content of the justifications and replaces in full the article on updating the list between two half-yearly reviews.

The change with the most direct effect concerns the thresholds. An occupation entered the list if, in addition to the other conditions, it had at least 10 full-time individual employment contracts concluded with foreigners and active in the electronic register of employees, REGES-ONLINE, and, for the first drawing up, at least 10 work permits issued in 2025. From now on, the threshold is 5 in all three places: for contracts active on 31 December 2025, for work permits issued in 2025 and for contracts active on the last day of the half-year, the criterion used in the half-yearly update.

The second change concerns the fast track. The list can also be updated „ori de câte ori se impune”, at the request of ministries that need labour for infrastructure projects, of employers that demonstrate an immediate need, or of social partners representative at national level. Until now, the 30-day examination deadline applied only to employers’ proposals. The new Article 14 sets a deadline of 10 calendar days from registration for all three categories of proposals and describes step by step what happens within that interval.

What it changes in practice

  • More occupations can meet the criteria. An occupation for which employers now have between 5 and 9 foreigners employed full-time used to fall below the threshold and stay off the list. At the next half-yearly update, the same occupation can be included.
  • A tight timetable for institutions. The ministry’s specialist directorate must request data from the National Employment Agency, the Labour Inspectorate and the General Inspectorate for Immigration within one working day of the proposal’s registration, and they respond within 3 working days of receiving the request.
  • A reasoned note for each proposal. Within the 10 days, the ministry prepares a note stating whether the list must be updated and with which occupations and codes from the Classification of Occupations in Romania, or why the conditions are not met. The outcome is communicated to the applicant.
  • The draft order starts within the same deadline. If the note supports an update, the draft order is also prepared within the 10 days, and consultation and endorsement run in parallel, to the extent permitted by law. The statutory consultation and publication periods are not shortened.
  • Clarifications no longer stop the clock. Questions put to the proposer neither suspend nor extend the deadline. If the information does not arrive, the negative answer must state what is missing and which documents would support a new proposal.
  • Two new rules of interpretation. A small number of jobs requested is not, in itself, grounds for rejection. Missing data or the lack of a response from an institution does not mean that the labour shortage is proven.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

  • Article 6(1)(b) and (c), drawing up the list: at least 5 contracts with foreigners active on 31 December 2025 and at least 5 work permits issued in 2025, instead of 10 each.
  • Article 11(1)(b), half-yearly update: at least 5 contracts with foreigners active nationwide on the last day of the half-year, instead of 10.
  • Article 11(6), justifications: the text is now tied to employers’ proposals under paragraph (5) and refers to the „Ghidul privind justificarea propunerilor pentru actualizarea Listei ocupațiilor deficitare” (Guide on justifying proposals for updating the List of Shortage Occupations), which does not yet exist.
  • Article 14, updating between reviews: grows from four paragraphs to nine. The examination deadline falls from 30 days to 10 calendar days and is extended from employers’ proposals to all three categories. The update starts from the „Lista în vigoare” (the list in force), not from the last list updated in the half-yearly review.
  • Social partners: their requests must contain the information set out in the guide; in the old version, they „pot fi însoțite” (may be accompanied) by justifications and data.
  • Unchanged: the 30-day deadline for employers’ proposals examined in the half-yearly update, under Article 11(5), and the 5-calendar-day consultation of social partners on the list updated between reviews, under Article 15.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • An employer urgently needing an occupation missing from the list gets a reasoned answer within 10 days, not 30.
  • Niche occupations, with few foreign workers, are no longer excluded merely because they do not reach the threshold of 10 contracts.
  • The institutions supplying the data have a written deadline of 3 working days, and their silence can no longer block the examination.
  • A rejection must state what is missing, so a second proposal can be complete at the first attempt.

What remains a problem

  • The guide referred to in the new texts does not exist; the ministry has 30 days to draw it up, and its approval by order has no deadline.
  • The threshold of 5 for the first drawing up of the list applies to 2025 data, after the list was already approved in August 2026.
  • The same employer proposal, filed on the same platform, may have a 10-day or a 30-day deadline, depending on the route the ministry chooses.
  • The 10-day deadline covers the examination and the draft order, not the approval; before the updated list there are still at least the 5-day consultation and the endorsement.

Practical advice

  1. If you need an occupation that is missing from the list, file your proposal through the electronic platform and state explicitly why the need is immediate; only then does it go on the 10-day track.
  2. Attach from the outset the steps taken to find workers locally, including through the employment agency, and the situation of the local labour market; clarifications do not extend the deadline, so an incomplete proposal is rejected.
  3. Check in advance how many full-time contracts with foreigners exist for your occupation in REGES-ONLINE; from 5 upwards, the occupation can be included at the half-yearly update.
  4. Follow the workinromania.gov.ro platform for the guide on justifying proposals, which must be drawn up by 5 December 2026.
  5. If your proposal as an employer was registered before 5 November 2026, the old examination deadline still applies: 30 days from registration on the platform.

Frequently asked questions

What is the List of Shortage Occupations?
It is the list of occupations for which employers in Romania can more easily recruit workers from outside the European Union, provided for by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 32/2026. The first list was approved by Order no. 1.073/2026 and contains 289 occupations.
Does this order change the list of occupations?
No. The order changes only the methodology by which the list is drawn up and updated. New occupations will be added only through a subsequent updating order.
How quickly will I get an answer to a proposal?
For proposals to update the list „ori de câte ori se impune” (whenever necessary) registered from 5 November 2026, the ministry has 10 calendar days from registration for the examination and the reasoned note. Proposals registered earlier remain subject to the old deadline.
If the ministry asks me for clarifications, is the deadline extended?
No. Article 14(8) provides that requests for clarification neither suspend nor extend the 10-day deadline. If the information does not allow the proposal to be substantiated, you receive a reasoned answer setting out what is missing.
Can a proposal for only a few posts be rejected on that ground?
Not on that ground alone. The new text provides that a small number of jobs requested does not, in itself, constitute grounds for rejection.
What will the guide for justifying proposals contain?
It is not yet known. The ministry must draw it up within 30 days of 5 November 2026, in consultation with the social partners; the guide is then approved by order of the minister and will be available on the workinromania.gov.ro platform.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article 14(3) of the methodology, as worded by point 4 of Article I, read together with Article II and Article III(1) of the order. The new text provides that social partners’ requests under paragraph (1)(c) „cuprind informațiile din ghidul prevăzut la art. 11 alin. (6)” (contain the information in the guide referred to there), and Article III(1) applies the 10-day deadline to all proposals registered from the order’s entry into force, that is, from 5 November 2026. The guide does not exist on that date: Article II(1) gives the ministry 30 days to draw it up, and Article II(2) subjects it to approval by a separate order, with no deadline. The order contains no transitional provision for this interval. For a request filed between 5 November 2026 and the approval of the guide, a reader acting in good faith can reach two conclusions: either the request cannot meet the content requirement and may be rejected as unsubstantiated, or the requirement does not apply until the guide is approved. The same reference, in a softer form („ținând cont de orientările din Ghid”, taking into account the guidance in the Guide), appears in Article 11(6), on which employers’ proposals under Article 14(1)(b) also depend, through Article 14(2).

Editorial analysis

The order solves a real problem: the fast track for updating the list was written for a single type of applicant, the employer, and had a 30-day deadline that did not fit the „necesitate imediată” (immediate need) which the text itself required. The new Article 14 gives the ministry 10 calendar days, a step-by-step procedure and two useful rules of interpretation, and lowering the threshold from 10 to 5 contracts opens the list to small occupations, where a few foreign workers make the difference.

Working through the deadlines shows, however, how little room is left for the examination itself. If a proposal is registered on a Friday, the request to the three institutions can go out on Monday, and the answers can arrive on Thursday, the sixth of the ten days. That leaves four calendar days, two of them working days, for the reasoned note and the draft order. A proposal registered on a Monday leaves four working days. The institutions supplying the data have 3 working days; if all the intermediate deadlines are used up, the ministry is left with between two and four working days for everything else, and the guide on which the content of proposals depends has no approval deadline.

The second observation comes from reading Article 6 together with the order approving the list. The threshold for drawing up the list falls to 5 contracts and 5 permits, calculated on 2025 data, but the list drawn up on that data has already been approved, by Order no. 1.073/2026, published on 6 August 2026. The amendment to Article 6 has effect only if the list is redone on the same data. For the current update, what matters is Article 11, where the threshold of 5 applies to contracts active on the last day of the half-year; the first reference date after entry into force is 31 December 2026, and the institutions then have 60 days, until 1 March 2027, to send the data.

The third observation concerns the two speeds of the same proposal. An employer filing a proposal on the platform may be examined within 30 days, in the half-yearly update, under Article 11(5), or within 10 days, in the update „ori de câte ori se impune”, under Article 14(4). The criterion for choosing the route is the „necesitatea imediată”, which the ministry assesses during the examination itself, so the applicant does not know in advance which deadline applies.

What should be changed

  • A deadline for approving the guide and a transitional rule. If the guide were approved within the same 30 days, and justifications were assessed under Article 11(6) until then, social partners and employers would know what to file from 5 November 2026.
  • Classification of the proposal by the applicant, on filing. A tick box on the platform, “half-yearly update” or “immediate need”, would establish from the start whether the deadline is 10 or 30 days, and any reclassification by the ministry should be reasoned.
  • An overall deadline, up to the published order. The 10 days cover only the examination and the draft; a time limit for the 5-day consultation, endorsement and publication would show employers when they can actually apply for a work permit for the new occupation.
  • Clarifying the role of Article 6 after the list’s approval. Either it should be stated that the list approved by Order no. 1.073/2026 is to be redone with the new threshold, or Article 6 should be explicitly limited to the first drawing up, so that it does not remain a criterion with nothing to apply to.
  • Publishing the reasoned notes, without personal data. The list of occupations proposed and rejected, with the reasons, would show other employers which justifications were sufficient and would reduce repeated proposals.

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. 928 of 5 November 2026, pages 7-8 16 pages PDF, 119 KB the act starts on page 7

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