In brief
- The state pays for the care of dozens of people taken out of the centres at Dumbrava, Bihor County, but the money does not reach them. Government Decision no. 739/2026 grants emergency aid for each vulnerable person accommodated in a private residential centre after relocation. The sum is transferred into the centre’s account, not the person’s, even though the person is the one entered in the paperwork as the holder of the aid.
- The amount is 90% of the cost standard for the type of centre, regardless of the person’s income. For a care home for older people, at dependency level I, the standard is 102,674 lei a year, so 90% means 92,406.60 lei a year. For a care and assistance centre for adults with disabilities, the standard is 111,712 lei a year, so 100,540.80 lei. The Government announced monthly sums of 7,700 and 8,378 lei, that is these values divided by 12, yet the division by 12 appears nowhere in the text of the decision.
- Payment covers retroactively the period beginning on 1 July 2026 and stops on 31 December 2026 at the latest. The decision was published on 21 September 2026, so 83 of the 184 days of that period, that is 45.1%, had already gone when the act appeared. Neither an application nor a social inquiry is required.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 800 of 21 September 2026
Takes effect: from publication, 21 September 2026, since Government decisions enter into force on the date of publication unless they themselves provide a later date, and this act does not
On 30 June 2026, an operation by prosecutors of the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism emptied the residential centres in the locality of Dumbrava, Bihor County. According to the Government’s press release of 18 September 2026, around 409 vulnerable people were moved to other social services, and 65 of them ended up in centres run by private providers in the counties of Alba, Hunedoara and Sibiu. For these 65 people, that is 15.9% of the total, the state had until now no mechanism through which to pay for their care. Government Decision no. 739/2026 creates one. It is a situation akin to that of people leaving residential care and left without a source of support, where the expiry date of the transition support was struck out of the law, with the difference that here the money goes to the institution housing the person, not to the person.
The legal basis invoked is Article 84 paragraph (2) of Law no. 196/2016 on the minimum inclusion income. That paragraph is the exceptional route: the rule in paragraph (1) says that emergency aid from the state budget is approved by name through a Government decision, while the exception in paragraph (2) allows it to be granted for other situations as well, established by a decision that sets out the methodology. That is exactly what the act of 21 September 2026 does: it lists no names but builds a mechanism and leaves approval by name to a memorandum of the minister of labour, family, youth and social solidarity or of the person designated by the minister.
The mechanism has four links. The county agencies for payments and social inspection in the counties where the centres are located draw up payment lists with the name, the personal identification number, the name and address of the centre, and the sum proposed. The county prefect endorses the payment lists. The National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection consolidates them and sends them to the ministry with a proposal for approval. The minister approves them by memorandum. Payment is made monthly, into the bank account indicated by the private centre, at the centre’s request, submitted by the 10th of each month for the previous month.
The aid is granted solely for the costs of assistance, care, accommodation and meals, for the duration of the stay, and ceases in three situations: transfer of the person to a public residential centre, the person being taken in by next of kin, and death. If the person moves to another private centre, the entitlement moves with them, and the centre is required to notify the county agency in writing within 24 hours.
What it changes in practice
Private centres receive public money for a service they are already providing. Until 21 September 2026 there was no act allowing payment from the state budget to a private provider for these people. The cost of care was borne for three months by someone else. The act acknowledges this through Article 4 paragraph (8), which provides that at the first payment the centre also receives the arrears.
The entitlement arises without an application and without a social inquiry. Article 3 derogates from Articles 54 and 55 of the methodological norms approved by Government Decision no. 1,154/2022. Article 54 requires, under the ordinary regime, an application and a statutory declaration from a family member or from the single person, submitted to the territorial agency, plus a possible check of the facts on the ground by the town hall within 10 days. Article 55 requires supporting documents. For the people relocated from Dumbrava, none of these formalities applies any longer, which was necessary: many of them have no next of kin to file an application and carry no documents.
The person’s income does not count. Article 2 paragraph (1) states expressly that the aid is granted „regardless of that person’s income”. A person with a pension and a person without one receive the same amount at the same type of centre.
Payment has two fixed ends and one movable one. The start is 1 July 2026, under Article 4 paragraph (4). The latest end is 31 December 2026, under Article 1 paragraph (2). Between them, each person’s entitlement lapses on the date when one of the three situations of cessation occurs.
The budgetary burden falls on a single ministry. Article 6 states that payment is made from the budget approved for the Ministry of Labour, Family, Youth and Social Solidarity, without supplementation and without a budget revision. The Government’s press release estimates 3,078,112 lei for six months and 65 people, that is 47,355.57 lei per person for the whole period and an average of 7,892.59 lei per person per month.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The general regime of emergency aid, the one in Article 84 paragraph (1) of Law no. 196/2016, is built for a family or a single person who applies for aid and whom the administration checks. Each beneficiary appears by name in the Government decision. The act of 21 September 2026 overturns all three elements: there is no application, there is no check, and the decision contains no names. Approval by name moves down from the level of the Government to the level of a ministerial memorandum.
The second change concerns the recipient of the payment. Under the ordinary regime, emergency aid is paid to the holder. Here, Article 4 paragraph (2) letter a) calls the person „the holder of the emergency aid”, but Article 4 paragraph (6) transfers the money into the private centre’s account. The person remains the holder on paper and never sees the sum.
The third change is the amount. Ordinary emergency aid is granted in variable sums, set case by case according to the situation established. Here the amount is tied to an objective indicator, the cost standard for the social service, approved by Government Decision no. 426/2020, in the form given to it by Government Decision no. 6/2026 of 14 January 2026. This is a sound link, because it takes discretion out of the calculation. The problem is the unit of measurement of that indicator, and that is discussed below.
The fourth change concerns the calendar. Emergency aid is, by its nature, granted in an emergency. Here the event occurred on 30 June 2026, and the act allowing payment appeared on 21 September 2026, that is 83 days later. The period covered runs to 184 days, from 1 July to 31 December 2026, so 45.1% of it had passed by publication.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It removes the paperwork that would have blocked everything. Without the derogation from Articles 54 and 55 of the norms approved by Government Decision no. 1,154/2022, each of the 65 people would have needed a signed application, a statutory declaration and supporting documents, in a situation where many have neither next of kin nor papers.
- It ties the sum to a public indicator rather than to an assessment. The cost standard in Government Decision no. 426/2020 is a figure printed in the Official Gazette of Romania, verifiable by anyone, and the 90% rate applies to everyone alike.
- It solves the problem of transfers between centres. Article 2 paragraph (2) moves the entitlement with the person, from the date of transfer, and requires the centre to give written notice within 24 hours, so that payment is neither duplicated nor interrupted.
- It recovers the unpaid period. Article 4 paragraph (8) requires the arrears to be settled from the date of actual relocation, at the first payment, which means the centres that advanced the money are not left out of pocket.
- It settles the question of personal data explicitly. Article 5 refers to Regulation (EU) 2016/679, and in a mechanism that circulates lists of names, personal identification numbers and centre addresses, the mention is not a formality.
What remains a problem
- It does not say how much money or for how many people. The figure of 65 beneficiaries and the sum of 3,078,112 lei appear in the Government’s press release, not in the act. A reader of the act has no way of checking whether the ministry’s budget covers the payment, because Article 6 refers to „the approved budget”, without any figure.
- It does not divide the cost standard by 12. The standards in Government Decision no. 426/2020 are annual, per beneficiary. The decision takes them as they are and pays monthly, without saying how one moves from a year to a month.
- It leaves 10% of the cost of care unallocated. For an older person at dependency level I the difference is 855.62 lei a month, and for an adult with disabilities in a care and assistance centre, 930.93 lei a month. The act does not say who covers it, and the person’s income is taken out of the calculation by Article 2 paragraph (1).
- It covers fewer than one in six of those relocated. The 65 people who ended up in private centres represent 15.9% of the roughly 409 relocated. The rest fall under other mechanisms, about which the act says nothing, so the full picture is not visible from it.
- It sets no deadline for the administration. The private centre has 24 hours to report a transfer and the 10th of the month to submit its request. The template for that request is approved by decision of the director general of the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection, with no deadline written into the act.
- It stops on 31 December 2026, with no solution for the day after. The act does not say what happens to the people who are still in private centres on that date, and their situation does not depend on them.
Practical advice
- If you run a private centre housing people relocated from Dumbrava, submit the payment request by the 10th of the month, for the previous month, to the agency for payments and social inspection of the county where the centre operates. The deadline is monthly and, in the text of the act, carries no extension.
- Ask the agency in writing for the request template, approved by decision of the director general of the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection. The act provides that it is communicated to the private centres, but sets no date by which, and without the template the first request risks being rejected on form.
- At the first payment, check whether the arrears from the date of each person’s actual relocation into your centre are included. Article 4 paragraph (8) provides for them expressly, and Article 4 paragraph (4) sets the start of the period covered at 1 July 2026.
- Report any transfer to another private centre within 24 hours, in writing, with the person’s name, the date of transfer and the new centre. The notification is the condition for the entitlement to move correctly, and the deadline is in hours, not in working days.
- If you are next of kin and are considering taking the person home, bear in mind that the aid ceases on the very day you take them in. Article 2 paragraph (3) places being taken in by next of kin on the same footing as transfer to a public centre and as death.
- Do not assume that this sum is exempt from tax and is disregarded when other social entitlements are assessed. The exemption in Article 84 paragraph (4) of Law no. 196/2016 is written for aid granted „under paragraph (1)”, while the present decision is founded on paragraph (2). If you are in this situation, ask the county agency in writing for a formal position before you file any other social assistance claim.
- If you follow the spending of public money, ask for the minister’s approval memorandum and the payment lists endorsed by the prefect. Those are the documents in which the names, the sums and the centres actually appear, because the decision contains none of them.
Frequently asked questions
Who actually receives the money?
How much does a centre receive for one person?
Does an application have to be filed?
From when and until when is it paid?
What happens if the person dies or leaves in the middle of the month?
Do the person’s pension or other income count?
What about the people who ended up in public centres?
From when does the decision take effect?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 2 paragraph (1), read together with Article 4 paragraphs (4), (6) and (7): the amount is annual, the payment is monthly, and the step from one to the other is written nowhere. The text says that the aid is granted „at the level of 90% of the cost standard applicable to the type of centre”, and the standards in Government Decision no. 426/2020, in the form given by Government Decision no. 6/2026, are expressed in lei per year per beneficiary: 102,674 lei for the care home for older people at dependency level I, 111,712 lei for the care and assistance centre for adults with disabilities. Article 4 paragraphs (4), (6) and (7) instead organise a monthly payment, with a request submitted month by month. Read literally, the monthly amount would be 92,406.60 lei and 100,540.80 lei respectively. The Government announced 7,700 and 8,378 lei, that is exactly the same values divided by 12, yet the division by 12 is nowhere in the act. Between the two readings there is a twelvefold difference, on a sum that decides an entitlement.
- Article 4 paragraph (5): the recalculation formula for an incomplete month cannot give the result it is aiming at. The text provides that „the monthly sum due to the beneficiary is calculated by dividing the sum provided for in Article 2 paragraph (1) by the number of days in the month during which the person was accommodated and cared for”. If the denominator is the number of days of accommodation, the result grows the shorter the stay: for three days out of a 30-day month, the sum would be ten times the full amount. If the denominator is the number of days in the month, the result is the amount for a single day, whether the person stayed one day or twenty-nine, because the operation is nowhere multiplied by the days of accommodation. Correct proration requires both operations, division by the days of the month and multiplication by the days of accommodation, and the second is missing from the text.
Editorial analysis
The act solves a real and urgent problem, with a fitting instrument. The route chosen, the exception in Article 84 paragraph (2) of Law no. 196/2016, is the correct one: a decision that establishes a situation and a methodology, rather than a list of names, was the only way to pay quickly for dozens of people taken out of a centre on the same day. Tying the amount to the cost standard removes arbitrariness from the calculation. The derogation from the application and the social inquiry is, in this case, a matter of common sense rather than a relaxation of control: a person with a psychiatric disability removed from a centre under criminal investigation cannot sign an application and a statutory declaration.
What does not emerge from reading the act end to end is that the tax and social exemption a reader would assume does not apply. Article 84 paragraph (4) of Law no. 196/2016 says that emergency aid „granted under paragraph (1)” is not subject to income tax and is disregarded when other social assistance entitlements are established. The present decision is founded not on paragraph (1) but on paragraph (2), the exceptional route. The letter of the law does not extend the exemption. Combine that with the fact that the holder of the aid is the vulnerable person while the money is transferred to the centre, and you get a situation in which someone could be counted as having received an annual income of more than 92,000 lei, with consequences for other entitlements, without ever having seen a single leu. We do not claim this will be the administration’s interpretation. We claim that the act allows it and that no provision in it rules it out.
The second observation concerns the relationship between the deadlines imposed and the deadlines assumed. The private centre has 24 hours to report a transfer and must submit its payment request by the 10th of each month. The administration has no deadline at all: not for approving the request template by decision of the director general of the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection, not for the prefect’s endorsement of the payment lists, not for the minister’s memorandum, not for the actual transfer of the sums. The asymmetry shows most clearly in this act’s own calendar: the event was on 30 June 2026, the decision appeared on 21 September 2026, 83 days later, and 45.1% of the 184 days of the covered period had already gone on the very day of publication. Private providers kept these people in care at their own expense throughout, on the strength of a promise rather than an entitlement.
The third observation concerns the 10% that is missing. The cost standard is, by the definition in Article 2 of Government Decision no. 426/2020, the minimum annual expenditure needed to provide the service for one beneficiary. The decision grants 90% of it. The difference is 855.62 lei a month for an older person at dependency level I and 930.93 lei for an adult with disabilities in a care and assistance centre. The act does not say who covers it, and the natural source, the beneficiary’s contribution, is ruled out by the phrase „regardless of that person’s income”. That leaves the private provider, that is precisely the party the mechanism is meant to support.
What should be changed
- Write into Article 2 how the annual standard becomes a monthly sum. A sentence such as „the monthly amount is one twelfth of 90% of the cost standard” would remove a twelvefold difference between the literal and the applied reading and would make any administrative interpretation unnecessary.
- Rewrite the formula in Article 4 paragraph (5) with both operations. The correct wording is division of the monthly amount by the number of days in the month and multiplication of the result by the number of days of accommodation. As it now stands, the formula gives either a sum larger than the full amount or the amount for a single day, in both cases unrelated to the care actually provided.
- Extend expressly the exemption in Article 84 paragraph (4) of Law no. 196/2016 to aid granted under paragraph (2). The amendment is a matter for the law rather than the decision, but the practical effect is immediate: vulnerable people would no longer risk losing other social assistance entitlements over sums they neither receive nor can use.
- Set a deadline for approving the request template. Payment depends on a form approved by decision of the director general of the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection, with no cut-off date. A deadline of 10 days from publication would prevent the situation in which the submission deadline of the 10th of the month runs before the form exists.
- Say who bears the difference of 10% of the cost standard. Either the rate is raised to 100%, or it is expressly provided that the difference remains with the provider, or a contribution from the beneficiary’s income is allowed. Any of the three is better than silence, which leaves a cost of 855 to 931 lei per person per month with no one to bear it.
- Align the start date in Article 4 paragraph (4) with the one in paragraph (8). The first sets 1 July 2026, the second refers to the date of actual relocation. Since the operation that triggered the relocation took place on 30 June 2026, the two may not coincide, and a single uncovered day is multiplied by the number of people.
- Provide for what happens after 31 December 2026. The act closes the payment on a calendar date, not on an event in the person’s life. If these people are still there on 1 January 2027, the problem returns unchanged, and solving it will again take 83 days. An extension clause conditional on the county agencies’ report would spare the system a second round of deadlock.
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. 800 of 21 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 182 KB the act starts on page 11
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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.