In brief
- The order approves 110,131,922.227 litres of diesel for the second quarter of 2026 and total State aid of 150,126,356.00 lei, that is, 1.363 lei per litre. The amount per litre set by Government decision for the same period is 2.397 lei, and for 1 to 6 April 2026 it is 2.697 lei. At the lower of the two, the aid for these quantities would have come to roughly 264 million lei, some 114 million more than the sum in the order.
- The previous order, for the first quarter, paid the full amount. Order of the Minister of Agriculture no. 209/2026 approved 57,566,719.283 litres and 155,257,683.00 lei, that is, exactly 2.697 lei per litre, the same ratio in each of the three sectors. The quantity has now risen by 91.3%, and the money has fallen by 3.3%.
- This time the three sectors receive different amounts per litre: 1.3645 lei in the crop sector, 1.3574 lei in livestock farming and 1.3509 lei in land reclamation. The gap between the first and the last figure is 1.4 bani, that is, hundredths of a leu, per litre. The order does not say what rule produces these figures, and the sum approved, 150,126,356.00 lei, covers 100.5% of the budget increase approved six days earlier.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, no. 815 of 24 September 2026
In force from: 24 September 2026, the date of publication
From 24 September 2026, the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture has approval for the quantities of diesel for which farmers were waiting on their second-quarter money: 110,131,922.227 litres, with total State aid of 150,126,356.00 lei. Dividing the second figure by the first gives 1.363 lei per litre, while the amount per litre for that very period was fixed six days earlier at 2.397 lei, by the decision that tied the refund to how far the excise duty had been cut. We wrote about it when it appeared: farmers receive less per litre of diesel when the excise duty falls. The difference between the two figures is explained nowhere in the order.
The scheme works by way of a refund. The farmer pays the full excise duty at the pump, and the State later returns to him the difference between the standard excise duty and the minimum level allowed for agriculture by the European rules. In 2026, the standard excise duty on diesel is 2,804.29 lei per thousand litres, and the minimum level for agriculture is EUR 21 per thousand litres, that is, 106.72 lei. The difference, 2.697 lei per litre, was the amount in force until 6 April 2026. By Government Emergency Ordinance no. 24/2026 the standard excise duty came down to 2,504.29 lei per thousand litres for the period 7 April to 30 June, so the refund fell to 2.397 lei per litre. The period covered by the present order, 1 April to 30 June 2026, includes both amounts, but neither of them is 1.363 lei.
The comparison with the previous order shows how unusual the figure is. Order of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development no. 209/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 634 of 31 July 2026, approved for the period 1 January to 31 March 2026 quantities of 57,566,719.283 litres and aid of 155,257,683.00 lei. The ratio between them is 2.697 lei per litre, with a deviation of less than one hundredth of a ban, and it appears identically in each of the three sectors: 2.697 lei in crops, 2.697 in livestock farming and 2.697 in land reclamation. There, the figure in the act was exactly the amount laid down by the scheme.
In the present order, the three sectors no longer share the same ratio. The crop sector receives 127,611,419.00 lei for 93,521,424.020 litres, that is, 1.3645 lei per litre. Livestock farming receives 15,857,531.00 lei for 11,682,304.223 litres, that is, 1.3574 lei per litre. Land reclamation receives 6,657,406.00 lei for 4,928,193.984 litres, that is, 1.3509 lei per litre. The partial sums add up exactly to the totals in the annex, both in litres and in lei, so this is not a figure mistyped on a single line. It is three different values per litre, in an act applying a scheme with a single statutory amount.
One figure from the context matches the approved sum almost perfectly. Government Decision no. 731/2026, published on 18 September 2026, raised the value of the scheme for 2026 from 714.3 to 863.666 million lei, that is, an increase of 149.366 million. The sum now approved, 150,126,356.00 lei, is 100.5% of that increase. On the very day the decision was published, the Ministry of Agriculture had announced that the additional money would allow only part of the second-quarter payments to be made.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is the sum that actually reaches farmers. For a holding that used 50,000 litres of diesel between April and June 2026, the order means 68,150 lei. At the amount of 2.397 lei per litre, the same quantity would have brought 119,850 lei. The difference, 51,700 lei, is larger than the sum being paid.
The second effect concerns what happens to the rest. The order approves quantities „determinate la plată și nedecontate”, that is, determined for payment and not yet settled: applications already checked, on which the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture had taken the procedure as far as the moment of payment. If the sum in the order is a part payment, the remaining entitlement is not extinguished, but it has no deadline written into the act. If, on the other hand, the figure in Article 2 is read as the whole of the aid for those quantities, then there is no longer any basis for claiming the difference of about 114 million lei.
The third effect appears at the level of the scheme’s budget. The two orders of 2026 together cover 167,698,641.510 litres and 305,384,039 lei, that is, 35.36% of the annual value of 863.666 million. That leaves 558.3 million lei for the third quarter, for the fourth quarter and for the unpaid difference from the second quarter. The acting Minister of Agriculture, Tánczos Barna, had spoken in September of a need of at least one billion lei by the end of the year, and the present figures do not contradict that estimate.
The fourth effect is on the accounts of the holdings. The quantity recognised for the second quarter, 110.13 million litres, is almost double that of the first quarter, 57.57 million, which is explained by the spring campaign and by irrigation. The land reclamation sector jumped from 27,000 litres to 4,928,193.984 litres, that is, more than 180 times over. Anyone who pumped water in April and May therefore has the bulk of their file in this quarter and, at the same time, the lowest amount per litre in the annex.
The fifth effect concerns the make-up of the beneficiaries. The crop sector takes 84.92% of the quantity, livestock farming 10.61% and land reclamation 4.47%. In the first quarter, the proportions were 85.69%, 14.27% and 0.05%. The shift of almost four percentage points from livestock farming to irrigation is seasonal, but it shows that the second quarter is the one that decides how much the scheme matters for irrigation.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until 24 September 2026, the only order of this kind for 2026 was the one of 31 July, for the first quarter. There the relation between quantity and money could be checked at once: 57,566,719.283 litres, 155,257,683.00 lei, 2.697 lei per litre, the same ratio in the three sectors. A farmer could recalculate his sum with a single division.
With the present order, that check no longer works. The quantity has risen by 91.3%, from 57.57 to 110.13 million litres, while the sum has fallen by 3.3%, from 155.26 to 150.13 million lei. The ratio has come down to 1.363 lei per litre, that is, to 50.5% of the amount in force in the first quarter and to 56.9% of the one in force from 7 April.
Uniformity has changed too. In July, the three sectors had exactly the same amount per litre. Now they have three different values, within a range of 1.4 bani, and their order matches the order of size: the sector with the largest quantity also has the largest amount per litre, and the one with the smallest quantity has the smallest. No provision invoked in the preamble describes any such mechanism.
What has not changed is the legal basis. The order rests on the same texts as the previous one: Article 2(5), Article 9(3) and (5) and Article 10(13) of Government Decision no. 1.174/2014, and the annex refers to Article 2(4) for the quantity and to Article 9(2) for the rounding of the sum. The only new element in the scheme’s legislation between the two orders is the decision of 18 September, which brought the amount down to 2.397 lei per litre and increased the budget. Neither of those two changes explains 1.363 lei.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It unblocks a payment that was waiting. The 150,126,356.00 lei go to files already checked, for a period that ended on 30 June 2026, that is, 86 days after the quarter closed.
- It officially recognises the quantity, 110,131,922.227 litres, broken down over the three sectors. The recognised quantity is the basis of any later claim for the difference, and it can no longer be disputed.
- The figures in the annex are internally consistent. The three sectors add up exactly to the total, both in litres and in lei, so there are no transcription errors inside the table.
- It confirms that irrigation has entered the scheme in earnest. The 4,928,193.984 litres under land reclamation are the first significant volume from that sector in 2026.
- It comes six days after the budget increase that made it possible, so the ministry did not leave the money in the account until the end of the year.
What remains a problem
- The sum per litre that follows from Article 2, 1.363 lei, corresponds to no statutory amount under the scheme. Neither 2.697 lei, in force until 6 April 2026, nor 2.397 lei, in force from 7 April, fits.
- The order does not say that the payment is partial and uses no word to that effect, although the ministry had publicly announced exactly that. The word used in Article 2 is „aferent”, corresponding to, which means precisely the opposite.
- There is no deadline for the difference of about 114 million lei. The farmer cannot learn from the act whether he will receive it in November, in December or in 2027.
- The three sectors receive three different amounts per litre, with no visible rule. A beneficiary in livestock farming cannot find out why he received 0.7 bani per litre less than one in the crop sector.
- The annex does not show the number of beneficiaries, so it is impossible to check either how the sum was divided among them or whether the division was proportionate.
- The order is signed by an acting minister, and it is the second act in three months to change, in fact, how much a farmer receives per litre, without either of them setting the figures side by side.
Practical advice
- Divide the sum you receive from the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture by the number of litres in your own decision. If the result is around 1.36 lei per litre, you have not received the full amount and the difference remains to be claimed.
- Check which amount applies to you, according to the date on each receipt and each invoice. For diesel bought between 1 and 6 April 2026 the amount is 2.697 lei per litre, and for diesel bought between 7 April and 30 June 2026 it is 2.397 lei.
- Keep your tax documents grouped by the two intervals. The receipt from the filling station does not show what level of excise duty was in force, and the date is the only element that determines the amount.
- Ask the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture in writing for the calculation note for the sum transferred, with the quantity and the amount per litre applied. A written answer pins down the difference you will claim later.
- Do not close your second-quarter file if the sum received is smaller than the quantity multiplied by the statutory amount. The quantity recognised by this order is already approved and remains the basis for a claim for the difference.
- If you use diesel for irrigation, check the quantity in the land reclamation sector separately. There the amount per litre resulting from the annex is the lowest of the three, 1.3509 lei.
- Budget for the third quarter with caution. Out of the scheme’s annual value of 863.666 million lei, 305.38 million have already been allocated by the two orders of 2026, and the unpaid difference from the second quarter competes for the rest.
Frequently asked questions
How much do I receive per litre of diesel for this spring?
Why is the sum smaller than in the July order, although the quantity is almost double?
Do I lose the difference for good if I receive less?
What period does this order cover?
Why do the three sectors have different amounts per litre?
How much is left of the scheme’s budget for 2026?
How is the aid calculated in principle?
From when does the order produce effects?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 2, the ratio between the two figures. The text says that for 110,131,922.227 litres „valoarea totală a ajutorului de stat aferent este de 150.126.356,00 lei”, the total value of the corresponding State aid is 150,126,356.00 lei, which gives 1.363 lei per litre. The statutory amount for the period covered is 2.397 lei per litre from 7 April 2026 and 2.697 lei for 1 to 6 April 2026, and at the lower of the two the aid for those quantities would come to roughly 264 million lei. A beneficiary acting in good faith may read Article 2 either as a part payment out of an entitlement of some 264 million, or as setting the whole of the aid at 150.13 million. The two readings lead to opposite legal conclusions about the difference of about 114 million lei, and the order nowhere uses the word „parțial”, partial.
- The annex, the three sector rows. The crop sector comes out at 1.3645 lei per litre, livestock farming at 1.3574 and land reclamation at 1.3509. The scheme has a single amount per litre at any given time, so three different values cannot result from applying it, and a uniform proportionate reduction would have given three identical values. The previous order, no. 209/2026, has 2.697 lei per litre in all three sectors. Without a written rule, a beneficiary cannot find out why the sector he belongs to receives less per litre than another.
Editorial analysis
On the face of it, the order is a routine act: two substantive articles, an annex with four rows, a signature. Its informative value lies, however, in what becomes visible only when it is set beside its predecessor from the same year. Order no. 209/2026, for the first quarter, has a quantity-to-money ratio that checks out at first glance: 155,257,683.00 lei divided by 57,566,719.283 litres gives 2.697 lei, exactly the excise duty difference under the scheme, and the same figure appears in each of the three sectors, with a deviation of the order of one hundredth of a ban. The present act breaks that relation without mentioning it.
The second observation cannot be seen by reading the order, but by counting what happened between the two. Between 31 July and 24 September 2026 there was, on this question, a single change of amount and a single budget increase, both in the same act, Government Decision no. 731/2026. The change of amount explains a fall from 2.697 to 2.397 lei per litre, that is, 11.1%. The figure in the order, however, is 49.5% lower than the amount for the first quarter. That leaves a gap of 38.4 percentage points which the act does not touch. The budget increase, by contrast, explains it almost exactly: 149.366 million lei of additional funds, 150,126,356.00 lei allocated, that is, 100.5%. In practice, the order allocates the new money, not the entitlements established.
The third observation concerns the three rows of the annex and is the one that rules out the most convenient explanation. If the sum had been cut proportionately, in the same way for everyone, the three sectors would have come out with the same amount per litre, as they did in July. They come out with three distinct values, 1.3645, 1.3574 and 1.3509 lei, and their order follows the order of the size of the sector. That means the cut was not proportionate but operated at the level of each beneficiary, probably through a ceiling or an order of priority. Whichever of the two it is, it is a rule for allocating insufficient public money, and such a rule cannot remain unwritten. Nor does the annex contain the number of beneficiaries, so that check cannot be made from the act either.
The fourth observation concerns seasonality, which is the only part of the act that is entirely coherent. The quantity recognised almost doubled compared with the first quarter, 110.13 million litres against 57.57 million, which matches the spring campaign. Land reclamation jumped from 27,000 litres to 4,928,193.984, that is, more than 180 times over, which matches the start of irrigation. In other words, the quarter with the highest consumption of the year is also the one in which the aid per litre falls by half. The farmer who irrigated in April and May paid the full excise duty at the pump and receives, for the time being, a little over half of the difference due to him.
The fifth observation is a piece of arithmetic on the remaining budget. The scheme’s annual value, 863.666 million lei, minus the 305.38 million allocated by the two orders, leaves 558.3 million. Out of that have to be covered the third quarter, which includes the summer harvest and the second round of irrigation, the fourth quarter, which includes the autumn ploughing, and the difference of about 114 million from the second quarter. The estimate of at least one billion lei by the end of the year, put forward by the acting minister in September, shows that the remaining sum is not enough, and the present order is the first visible consequence of that.
What should be changed
- The order should say expressly whether the payment is full or partial. A single paragraph in Article 2, along the lines of „the sum represents the partial payment of the aid corresponding to the quantities referred to in Article 1”, would close the whole ambiguity and would show every farmer what is left to come. As it stands, the word used is „aferent”, corresponding to, which suggests the opposite.
- The annex should have a column with the amount per litre applied. Three extra figures would make the relation between quantity and money checkable from the act itself, exactly as it was checkable in the previous order. Without it, every beneficiary has to do the division himself in order to find out what he has actually received.
- The rule for allocation where the money is insufficient should be written into Government Decision no. 1.174/2014. Today the scheme provides nothing for the case where the approved value does not cover the entitlements established, so each order can use a different key without announcing it. A single rule, for example proportionate payment, would produce identical amounts by sector and could be verified by anyone.
- The unpaid difference should have a deadline. A paragraph requiring payment to resume within a set number of days of the next budget increase would turn an administrative promise into a right with a date, useful above all to holdings working on seasonal credit.
- The order should state the number of beneficiaries and the number of applications in each sector. These are data the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture holds in any event, and their presence would allow public scrutiny of how 150 million lei were divided.
- The applicable amount should be tied to the date of the tax document, by a statement in the order. The period covered contains two amounts, 2.697 lei per litre until 6 April and 2.397 lei from 7 April, and the receipt from the filling station does not show the level of excise duty on the day. One sentence in the act would prevent hundreds of enquiries at the counter.
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. 815 of 24 September 2026 8 pages PDF, 83 KB the act starts on page 8
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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.