In brief
- The money that follows a person out of a residential centre, the cost standard of that centre kept for 24 months, went only to those who left by 30 June 2026. The law deletes that deadline and replaces it with a condition: the amounts are paid until the annual budget law secures the financing of the two benefits under Law no. 7/2023.
- Anyone who left a centre after 30 June 2026 receives the money retroactively, for the whole period since then, that is, 62 days up to the day the law enters into force.
- The procedure for paying the two benefits, the housing benefit and the transition benefit, moves out of a Government decision suspended by the court after two days and into the annex to a law, where it can no longer be suspended in the same way.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 724 of 28 August 2026
In force from: 31 August 2026
The financial support that follows a person with disabilities out of a residential centre was about to stop reaching anyone who left after 30 June 2026. Law no. 178/2026 deletes that deadline, and the people who left in the meantime are paid retroactively. The act, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 724 of 28 August 2026 and promulgated by Decree no. 731/2026, at the same time repeals Government Decision no. 569/2026, whose enforcement the Bucharest Court of Appeal had suspended two days after publication, and moves the procedure out of it and into annex no. 1 to Law no. 7/2023.
There are two stories in the same act. The first is about money and about a deadline that was on the point of turning off the tap. Article III of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2025 said that a person leaving a residential centre keeps the cost standard of the centre they came from for 24 months, but only if they left „by 30 June 2026”. The law rewrites the article and removes that condition.
The second is about where the rules are written down. The housing benefit, a monthly allowance for rent, insurance, utilities and routine repairs, and the transition benefit, which covers the cost of the move itself, have been provided for in Law no. 448/2006 since 2023. The procedure for paying them appeared only on 28 July 2026, by Government decision, and on 30 July the Bucharest Court of Appeal suspended its enforcement, at the request of the PSD, pending the ruling on the action for annulment. Now the same procedure, almost word for word, becomes the annex to a law.
In the same period the Higher Board for the Assessment of Adults with Disabilities received new rules of organisation, through ANPDPD Order no. 784/2026, with tighter rules for challenging the degree of disability.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is the deletion of the 30 June 2026 deadline. The three paragraphs of article III of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2025 that contained the phrase „by 30 June 2026” no longer contain it. A person leaving a centre keeps its cost standard for 24 months, and an older person with disabilities who moves into a centre for the elderly keeps it for 6 months, whatever the date they left.
The cost standard follows the person when the move is made as an emergency too: for those taken out of the centre at Dumbrava, the state pays private centres 90% of the cost standard, retroactively from 1 July 2026.
The calendar deadline does not disappear without leaving something in its place. The law adds a new paragraph, (5), to the same article, saying that the amounts are granted „until the sources of financing are secured, through the annual budget law”, for the transition benefit and the housing benefit under Law no. 7/2023. The support does not therefore become permanent: it lasts until the budget takes over the two benefits, and that moment has no date.
The second effect is retroactive. Article V says expressly that the amounts due to people who left the centres after 30 June 2026 are paid after the law enters into force and cover the period since then as well. There are 62 days between 30 June and 31 August, during which people left centres without the funding that should have followed them.
The third effect concerns the rank of the act. Article 20^2(3) and Article 20^3(3) of Law no. 448/2006 said, in the wording given by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2025, that the procedure for granting the payments and the situations of suspension, amendment and termination „are approved by Government decision”. From 31 August 2026 they say that these are laid down in annex no. 1 to Law no. 7/2023. The same procedure, a different type of act.
The fourth effect is a new obligation, one that existed neither in the decision nor in the law until now: at least 12 months before the estimated date of leaving the centre, the adult with disabilities takes part in a preparation programme for independent living, run by the general directorates for social assistance and child protection, on the basis of the individual plan for independent living and community integration.
The fifth effect has to do with definitions. The „deinstitutionalised person” and the „person at risk of institutionalisation”, defined until now in the Government decision, enter Law no. 7/2023 itself, at article 4(p) and (q). The content of the definitions stays the same, but their place moves up from a decision to a law.
The sixth effect is a rule against drawing both, written into article VI. The transition benefit and the housing benefit go to people who leave public residential centres and receive deinstitutionalisation and community integration measures, apart from those in supported community living services, and only if they do not receive the amounts under article III of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2025. In other words, a person receives either the cost standard of the centre they left or the two benefits, not both.
The seventh effect concerns the amounts, which do not change. The housing benefit is the monthly allowance worth one national gross minimum wage. The transition benefit has a maximum value of two national gross minimum basic wages guaranteed in payment. Both are granted on the basis of supporting documents.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
A comparison with Government Decision no. 569/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 614 of 28 July 2026, shows that the procedure has been carried over almost in full, with the numbering of the articles shifted. Anyone looking for changes of substance in the annex finds few, and most of them are procedural.
The first, and the most useful: the application can now be filed „in person, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, by fax, by e-mail or online”. The decision listed no channel at all. For a person with a disability, that is the difference between reaching the counter and not reaching it.
The second is a rewording, not a change. The time window for the transition benefit stays the same: the decision said „within the first 12 months from the date on which the residential social service ends and up to 60 days before that date”, and the annex writes it the other way round, „up to 60 days before the date on which the service ends …, but no more than 12 months after that date”. It could be claimed before leaving under the decision as well; the new word order only makes the rule easier to read.
The third has to do with moving to another county. The article existed in the decision too, with the same deadlines of 5 and 10 days, but without saying when they start running. The annex anchors them: the file is sent „within 5 days of the application being registered”, and the new directorate issues the order „within 10 days of receiving the file”. More importantly, it adds a sentence that did not exist: „payment of the benefit is made from the date of termination provided for in paragraph (2)”. Without it, a move between counties meant a hole in the payments.
The fourth is not an improvement. The model application form, annex no. 2, was published in the decision as ordinary text, with fields that could be read and copied. In the law it appears with the note „Annex no. 2 is reproduced in facsimile” and has no usable text layer in the Official Gazette of Romania. Annex no. 3, the model order that the official fills in, has stayed as text.
What has not changed, although it deserved to: the methodology that says who counts as a person at risk of institutionalisation still does not exist. The decision gave the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 45 days from its own entry into force, that is, until 11 September 2026. The law takes over the same 45-day deadline, but running from its own date, so until 15 October 2026.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The 24-month support that follows a person out of a centre no longer expires on a calendar date, so it no longer depends on the day by which someone managed to leave.
- Anyone who left a centre after 30 June 2026 receives retroactively the amounts they were owed, for the whole period.
- The procedure rises from a Government decision to an annex to a law, so it can no longer be suspended by the administrative court, as happened on 30 July 2026.
- The application can be filed by post, fax, e-mail or online, not only at a counter.
- Moving to another county no longer leaves a hole in the payments: they restart from the date on which the entitlement had ended at the old directorate.
- Preparation for independent living becomes compulsory at least 12 months before leaving the centre.
What remains a problem
- The calendar deadline is replaced by a condition with no date: the amounts are granted until financing is secured through the annual budget law, a moment nobody can predict.
- The deadline for the methodology that identifies people at risk of institutionalisation starts again from zero and moves from 11 September to 15 October 2026, 34 days later.
- The application form, annex no. 2, was text in the decision and becomes a facsimile in the law, precisely the document meant for the person with a disability.
- The administration has up to 35 days from the application to communicate the payment order, while the beneficiary has 5 days to report any change.
- The entitlement ends if the person fails to produce the utility invoices for three consecutive months, with no warning stage at all.
- The contradiction between an allowance of one minimum wage and payment at the actual value of the expenses has passed untouched from the decision into the law.
Practical advice
- If you left a residential centre after 30 June 2026, ask the general directorate for social assistance and child protection for the amounts provided for in article III of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 90/2025. Article V of the new law says expressly that payment also covers the period before it entered into force.
- File the application by e-mail or online if travelling is a problem. The annex lists these channels expressly, alongside registered post with acknowledgement of receipt and fax.
- Keep the utility invoices and the proof that you paid them, month by month. Failing to produce them, or failing to pay them, suspends the entitlement, and three consecutive months without invoices extinguishes it.
- Claim the transition benefit before you leave the centre: it can be filed up to 60 days before the date on which the service ends and no later than 12 months afterwards.
- If you move to another county, notify the directorate that established your entitlement within no more than 5 days. Payment restarts at the new directorate from the date on which it ended at the old one, but only if the transfer actually starts.
- If you live in the community and are at risk of ending up in a centre, watch for the publication of the Authority’s methodology, expected by 15 October 2026. Without it, the status of person at risk of institutionalisation cannot be established.
Frequently asked questions
What changes in practice for someone who left a centre in July 2026?
How much are the two benefits worth in money?
Why was the decision that the law repeals under suspension?
Can the law be suspended in the same way?
Who counts as a person at risk of institutionalisation?
How long does it take to get an answer after I file the application?
What happens if I do not submit the invoices one month?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Annex no. 1, article 12(5) against article 13(3). Article 12(5) says that „acordarea plăților aferente cererii … se realizează în termen de 5 zile lucrătoare de la emiterea dispoziției prevăzute la alin. (1)”, that is, from the order granting the entitlement. Article 13(3) says that the order for payment of the benefit „se emite … în termen de 10 zile de la data emiterii dispoziției de acordare a dreptului … și se comunică în 5 zile de la data emiterii”, meaning that it is issued within 10 days of the granting order and communicated within a further 5. The two deadlines exclude one another: payment falls due within 5 working days of the granting order, but the act that orders it can lawfully be issued only on the tenth day from that same order and communicated on the fifteenth. The beneficiary cannot know when the money is due, and the directorate cannot meet both deadlines at once.
- Annex no. 1, article 10(1) against article 12(6) and annex no. 3, article 2. Article 10(1) defines the housing benefit as „indemnizația lunară în valoare de un salariu minim brut pe țară”, the monthly allowance worth one national gross minimum wage, a fixed-sum formula, unlike article 11(1), which for the transition benefit says expressly „în valoare maximă de”, up to a maximum value of. The same sentence then adds „cu încadrarea în valoarea maximă corespunzătoare acestuia, pe baza documentelor justificative”, within the corresponding maximum value and on the basis of supporting documents, while article 12(6) provides for payment „la valoarea reală a cheltuielilor efectuate în luna anterioară”, at the actual value of the expenses incurred in the previous month. The model order in annex no. 3 asks for both things at once: at article 2(1) the official writes in a sum in lei, and at article 2(5) writes that payment is made monthly at the actual value of the expenses. A person reading the act in good faith cannot work out whether they receive one minimum wage a month or only the value of their invoices, and the difference between the two is exactly the sum that reaches them. The inconsistency comes from Government Decision no. 569/2026, but it is now the text of a law.
Editorial analysis
The act solves a real problem, and it solves it in time. The 24-month support that follows a person out of a centre was conditional on a calendar date that had already passed, 30 June 2026, which meant that anyone leaving in July or August left without it. Deleting the deadline and the retroactive payment in article V cover exactly that gap, even if the new paragraph (5) puts in the date’s place a financing condition that is just as uncertain. It is worth saying, because it is the kind of correction that makes no headlines but decides whether a person can pay the rent in their first month of independent living.
What you do not see reading the act from end to end is what the repeal did to the clock on the methodology. Government Decision no. 569/2026 entered into force on 28 July and gave the Authority 45 days to approve the methodology for assessing individual needs, that is, until 11 September 2026. The law repeals the decision, takes over the same text in the annex and starts the same 45 days again, this time from 31 August, so until 15 October. A deadline that had 11 days left to run has been made 34 days younger. Without the methodology, the category of people at risk of institutionalisation exists in the law, but nobody can establish who belongs to it.
The second observation calls for comparison, not reading. The model application form, the only document the law asks of the beneficiary, was published in the decision as ordinary text, with legible fields. In the law it appears with the note „Annex no. 2 is reproduced in facsimile” and has, in the official edition, no usable text layer: it cannot be read by a screen reader, it cannot be copied and it cannot be searched. Annex no. 3, the official’s form, has stayed clean text. In a law about the independent living of people with disabilities, the only document published in an inaccessible form is precisely the one addressed to the person with a disability, and the earlier version shows that this was not a technical inevitability.
The third comes out of counting the days on each side. From the application to the communication of the payment order, the administration has 20 days for the granting order, then 10 days for the payment order, counted from that first order as well, and another 5 to communicate it, which comes to 35 days. The communication of the granting order, also 5 days, runs in parallel and does not add to the total. On top of all this comes the rule that payment is monthly and in arrears, against the previous month’s invoices. The beneficiary has 5 days to report any change that might alter or stop their payment, 5 days to report a move, and loses the entitlement if they fail to produce the invoices three months running. The ratio is 35 to 5 in the institution’s favour, in a procedure written for people who have just come out of a residential centre.
A question of method remains in the background. A Government decision whose enforcement the court had suspended on 30 July was repealed a month later, and its content reappeared as an annex to a law, where suspension in administrative litigation is no longer possible. The procedure now has the force of law, which is a gain in stability for beneficiaries. But the case that produced the suspension is left without an object, and the reasons for which the court stopped the act being applied have been neither confirmed nor set aside in public.
What should be changed
- One payment deadline, not two that exclude each other. If article 12(5) said „5 zile lucrătoare de la emiterea dispoziției de plată”, five working days from the issue of the payment order, instead of „de la dispoziția de acordare”, from the granting order, the chain would close and the beneficiary would have a due date they could rely on.
- A single formula for the amount of the housing benefit. Either „un salariu minim brut pe țară”, one national gross minimum wage, or „cel mult un salariu minim brut pe țară, pe baza documentelor justificative”, up to one national gross minimum wage on the basis of supporting documents. As it stands the act writes both and asks the official to enter in the order a sum that is then not paid.
- Republishing annex no. 2 as text. The form already existed in that form in the repealed decision, so this is not extra work, it is a matter of not losing what had already been done. In a law about disability, the accessibility of its own form is not a typesetting detail.
- A short deadline for the methodology, not another 45 days from zero. The text of the methodology had been in preparation since July anyway; 15 days from entry into force would have kept the original calendar instead of moving it by more than a month.
- A warning before the entitlement ends over missing invoices. Three consecutive months without invoices lead straight to loss of the entitlement; a notice in the second month would separate the person who has given up from the person who could not file in time.
- A date, not a condition, at the end of the transition support. Paragraph (5) ties payment to the moment when the annual budget law finances the two benefits, a moment that may never come. A calendar deadline, even a distant one, would tell the beneficiary how long they can count on this money.
- Publishing the number of people who left the centres between 1 July and 31 August 2026. That is exactly the group article V repairs retroactively, and the figure would show what the 30 June deadline cost, in people.
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. 724 of 28 August 2026 16 pages PDF, 120 KB the act starts on page 2
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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.