The tax certificate loses its watermark and UV ink, and tax return 100 gains a new line

The National Agency for Fiscal Administration published on the same day two orders that do the same thing from two angles: they bring its forms up to date. The first takes the tax certificate out of the category of papers printed like banknotes and opens its electronic route to the Virtual Private Space. The second adds to tax return 100 the line called for by the crude oil market crisis law, the same law that produced the cut in the diesel compensation paid to hauliers. Both appeared in Official Gazette of Romania No. 772 of 11 September 2026 and apply from that same day.

The tax registration certificate is the document by which the tax authority confirms that an entity holds a tax identification code. Companies receive it when they are set up, as do authorised natural persons, associations and non-resident entities registering in Romania. The VAT registration certificate does the same for value added tax: it confirms the VAT number and the date from which the person is registered. Until now both were issued on a special-regime form, printed centrally at the National Company „Imprimeria Națională”, with a series and a number.

On the certificates, Order No. 1.074/2026 touches three places in Order of the President of ANAF No. 1.699/2021, the act that holds the models of the tax registration forms. It replaces Annex No. 11, the model of the VAT certificate, and Annex No. 12, the model of the tax registration certificate. It then rewrites, in Annex No. 13, sub-points 4, 6 and 7 under point XI and under point XII, which are precisely the instructions for printing, drawing up and distributing the two certificates.

That is where the substantive change lies. The new sub-point 4 says only this about the paper version: „The certificate issued on paper: two certificates are printed on one A4 sheet.” What has disappeared from that sentence is the obligation to print in six colours, one of them visible only under ultraviolet light, on paper watermarked across its whole surface and with security ink that fluoresces under UV. The tax certificate thus ceases to be a security document and becomes a sheet the tax office can run off on its own printer.

Sub-point 6 confirms the shift. The old text required „one original copy + one copy”, the distinction typical of a special-regime form, where the single original is what counts. The new text says the certificate is drawn up „by the competent tax authority in two counterparts in the case of the certificate issued on paper and is signed by the head of the issuing tax authority”. There is no longer an original and a copy, but two equal counterparts. As a consequence, sub-point 7 no longer sends the original to the taxpayer and the copy to the tax office, but „one counterpart to the taxpayer and the second counterpart to the competent tax authority”.

The second part of the order concerns the electronic version. Sub-point 4(b) says that for the certificate issued in electronic form „IT equipment is used for completion and editing”. Sub-point 6 adds that this certificate „is signed with the extended electronic signature of the Ministry of Finance, based on a qualified certificate”, and sub-point 7 that it „circulates in electronic format and is communicated by electronic means of remote transmission, in accordance with the law, through the Virtual Private Space”.

This text is not entirely new. Order of the President of ANAF No. 411/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 260 of 1 April 2026, had already introduced it word for word, but only at point XII, the one on the tax registration certificate. Point XI, on the VAT certificate, was left untouched. For 163 days a company could receive electronic proof that it had a tax code, but not proof that it was registered for VAT purposes. Only now does the gap close, and the two points receive the same text.

Article II deals with what remains in the warehouse. The special-regime forms „VAT registration certificate” and „Tax registration certificate” held in stock or already ordered from the National Company „Imprimeria Națională” will be used by the tax authorities until they are exhausted. There is no date on which the security paper is to fall out of use, and no rule saying when the electronic version is chosen.

The second order, No. 1.075/2026, concerns an entirely different audience. It amends Order of the President of ANAF No. 587/2016, the act holding the model and the instructions for returns assessed by self-assessment or withholding at source, among them form 100, „Return on payment obligations to the state budget”, code 14.13.01.99/bs. After position 116 of the Nomenclature of payment obligations to the state budget it adds a new position, 117, called „Contribution on exceptional income”, with Law No. 162/2026 as its legal basis.

To make the line usable, the order touches three places in the completion instructions. In Chapter I, in the list of filing deadlines, letter (u), „contribution on exceptional income”, appears after letter (ț). In Chapter II, the list of positions entered in the table of obligations not paid into the single account now ends at 117. And in the same place sub-point 3.2.21 is inserted, saying who files: the economic operators referred to in Article 9(1) of Law No. 162/2026.

What it changes in practice

Both orders apply from 11 September 2026, the date of publication. They are orders of the head of a specialist central body, and for them the three-day rule does not operate: under Article 12(3) read with Article 11(1) of Law No. 24/2000, they enter into force on publication unless they themselves provide for a later date. Neither does.

The first effect of Order No. 1.074/2026 is that the tax certificate can now be produced anywhere, by any tax office, without waiting for a delivery from the printing house. Dropping the watermark, the UV ink and the six-colour printing means the form no longer has to be ordered, transported, stored and tracked by series and number. The printing cost disappears along with the stock.

The second effect is that proof of VAT registration can from now on land straight in the Virtual Private Space. For a company registering for VAT purposes, that can be the difference between waiting for a certificate and starting to invoice with a valid number, supporting document in hand. The electronic form is not mandatory, though, and the taxpayer gets no right to choose: the tax office has two options and picks one on its own.

The third effect is transitional, and it will be felt by anyone going to the counter in the coming months. As long as printed forms remain in stock, the tax authorities will use them. The practical result is that in the same week one company may receive its certificate on the old watermarked paper, another on ordinary paper and a third only electronically. All three are valid, and nowhere is it written which is the rule and which the exception.

A less visible effect concerns checking authenticity. A certificate printed in six colours, on watermarked paper and with ink visible under ultraviolet light, could be checked on the spot by anyone with a UV lamp. A certificate on white paper with a handwritten signature cannot. The electronic one, on the other hand, can be checked better than either, because the extended electronic signature of the Ministry of Finance validates automatically. The means of checking does not disappear, it moves, but it moves only for the electronic version.

The effect of Order No. 1.075/2026 is narrower and more pressing. From 11 September 2026, the economic operators referred to in Article 9(1) of Law No. 162/2026 have somewhere to declare the contribution on exceptional income: in form 100, at position 117, in the table under point II of Annex No. 1 to the 2016 order. Until publication, the obligation existed in the law but the line did not exist in the return.

The contribution falls into the category of obligations not paid into the single account. The money therefore does not go into the treasury account from which the tax authority automatically allocates payments across declared obligations, but is transferred separately, into the account of that particular claim. For a company the difference is concrete: a separate payment order, with its own account, alongside the usual one.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Security paper lasted almost five years. Order No. 1.699/2021 had been published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 1.056 and No. 1.056 bis of 4 November 2021 and had placed the tax certificate in a purely physical logic. A special-regime form, printed centrally, paper watermarked across its whole surface, six colours, one of them visible only under ultraviolet light, security ink fluorescing under UV, a series and a number, one original and one copy. The administrative act was an object, and its authenticity was read off the object.

The first crack appeared on 1 April 2026, through Order No. 411/2026. That order introduced the electronic version, signed by the Ministry of Finance and communicated through the Virtual Private Space, but left the security features of the paper version untouched and operated only on the tax registration certificate. The VAT certificate stayed on security paper for another five and a half months.

The present act does both things at once. It extends the electronic version to the VAT certificate and deletes, from both, the security features of the printing. The two texts can be compared word for word: where in April it read „The certificate shall be printed in 6 colours, one of which is visible only in the UV spectrum”, followed by the watermark and the security ink, there is now nothing. Where it read „one original copy + one copy”, it now reads „two counterparts”.

Who signs has changed too. The new text of sub-point 6 says expressly that the paper version „is signed by the head of the issuing tax authority”, a requirement the special-form regime took for granted without spelling it out, because security lay in the paper. Once the paper guarantees nothing, the signature is the only element of authenticity left on the printed version, and the order raises it to the rank of a written rule. In the new models, the line „Head of the issuing tax authority” carries a footnote tying it exclusively to the certificate issued on paper.

What has not changed are the „Series” and „No.” boxes at the top of both certificates. They come from the special printing regime: the series and the number were assigned by the printing house and tracked in the register of forms, precisely because the physical copy was unique. The new models keep them, even though neither the certificate printed by the tax office on ordinary paper nor the one edited electronically now passes through a printing house, and neither of the two orders says who assigns them from now on.

On tax return 100 the change is an addition at the end of the list. The Nomenclature of payment obligations to the state budget had 116 positions and now has 117. The amended act, Order No. 587/2016, had been published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 94 of 8 February 2016, so it is being changed 3,868 days after publication, which says on its own how often this annex is touched: every new claim of the state budget over the past ten years has asked for its line here.

Finally, the pace has changed. Law No. 162/2026 was published in Official Gazette of Romania No. 642 of 4 August 2026, and the crisis situation on the crude oil market entered into force on 7 August 2026, running until 31 October 2026. The line in the return appeared 38 days after the law was published and 35 days after the crisis window opened, 50 days before it closes.

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