In brief

  • Government Decision no. 775/2026 adds no property to the expropriation corridor of the Târgu Mureș-Târgu Neamț Motorway and changes no compensation sum. It divides the work between two State companies: of the 3,906 entries contained in Annexes nos. 2, 3 and 4 to Government Decision no. 1.040/2025, 1,409 pass to the National Company for Road Infrastructure Administration (CNAIR), while 2,497 stay with the National Road Investment Company (CNIR).
  • Those concerned are owners in 16 localities across three counties. CNAIR takes over the ends of the corridor, that is Acățari, Miercurea Nirajului, Bereni, Măgherani, Chibed and Sărățeni in Mureș County, plus Pipirig and Vânători-Neamț in Neamț County. CNIR keeps the mountain middle: Praid, Joseni, Lăzarea, Ditrău and Tulgheș in Harghita County, plus Grințieș, Ceahlău, Poiana Teiului and Pipirig in Neamț County. The actual division is made by entry numbers in the annexes, not by the name of the locality.
  • The money stays the money approved in 2025: 134,132.38 thousand lei, that is 134.13 million lei, from the State budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. The decision takes effect from publication, 28 September 2026, and the two companies have 15 days, that is until 13 October 2026, to hand over to one another the deposit receipts from CEC Bank and the documents drawn up so far.
Act: Government Decision no. 775/2026 amending and supplementing Government Decision no. 1.040/2025 on starting the expropriation procedures for all privately owned properties forming the expropriation corridor of the public utility works of national interest „Autostrada Târgu Mureș — Târgu-Neamț — Secțiunea II: Miercurea Nirajului-Leghin” situated within the localities of Acățari, Miercurea Nirajului, Bereni, Măgherani, Chibed, Sărățeni in Mureș county, Praid, Joseni, Lăzarea, Ditrău, Tulgheș in Harghita county and Grințies, Ceahlău, Poiana Teiului, Pipirig, Vânători-Neamț in Neamț county, on approving the list of the properties in the public domain of the State, as well as on approving the list of the properties in the public domain of the administrative-territorial units which form part of the expropriation corridor of the public utility works of national interest
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 821 of 28 September 2026, pages 2-3
In force from: from publication, 28 September 2026, because Article 12(3) of Law no. 24/2000 on legislative drafting rules provides that normative acts, with the exception of laws and ordinances, take effect on the date of publication in the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) unless they themselves lay down a later date, and the decision lays down no such date

Government Decision no. 775/2026 takes not one extra square metre out of anybody’s yard and moves not one leu of the compensation already calculated. It does something else, more rarely met with in an expropriation act: it rewrites who deals with the files. The corridor had been opened in December 2025, by a decision of the kind through which the Government starts the expropriations for a motorway, and since then the whole procedure lay with a single State company. From 28 September 2026 it is shared between two.

What is at issue is Section II of the Târgu Mureș-Târgu Neamț Motorway, the Miercurea Nirajului-Leghin stretch, which runs from kilometre 22+000 to kilometre 181+195, that is 159.195 kilometres through Mureș, Harghita and Neamț counties. The technical and economic indicators had been approved by Government Decision no. 1.201/2023, and the expropriation corridor by Government Decision no. 1.040/2025, adopted on 27 November 2025 and published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 1119 of 4 December 2025. That decision put the compensation at 134,132.38 thousand lei, money allocated from the State budget through the budget of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, under chapter 84.01 „Transporturi”, transport, from the programmes financed by the Cohesion Fund for the 2021-2027 financial framework.

What the decision of 28 September 2026 changes can be seen in four points of Article I. The first rewrites paragraph (1) of Article 2 of the 2025 decision: the expropriator remains the Romanian State, represented by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, but from now on through two companies, the National Road Investment Company and the National Company for Road Infrastructure Administration, not through a single one. The other three points add six new paragraphs, two for each of the three annexes with properties, and each pair cuts the list into two ranges of entries.

Annex no. 2, the one with the privately owned properties, that is the only one in which owners and individual sums appear, has 3,178 entries. Entries 1-896 and 2,854-3,178, 1,221 in all, pass to the National Company for Road Infrastructure Administration; entries 897-2,853, that is 1,957, stay with the National Road Investment Company. Next comes the list of the properties in the public domain of the State, Annex no. 3, with 188 entries: 64 to the first company, 124 to the second. The last one, the list of the properties of the communes and towns, Annex no. 4, has 540 entries: 124 to the first, 416 to the second. Added together, the three annexes count 3,906 entries, of which 1,409 go to CNAIR and 2,497 stay with CNIR.

Read on the map, the division has a simple logic: CNAIR takes the ends, CNIR keeps the middle. The six localities in Mureș County, where the section starts, and the two in the north of Neamț County, towards Leghin, go to the first company. The mountain crossing, with the five localities in Harghita and with Grințieș, Ceahlău and Poiana Teiului in Neamț, stays with the second. The commune of Pipirig appears on both lists, because the boundary between the two ranges of entries falls inside it.

Article II deals with the transfer. CNAIR is subrogated to the rights of CNIR as representative of the expropriator for the entries in Annex no. 2 that have been given to it, from the date on which the decision enters into force. The deposit receipts issued by CEC Bank for the compensation already deposited are handed over within 15 days, and the documents drawn up so far in the expropriation procedures are handed over within 15 days as well, under a handover protocol, so that the formalities may be completed. Both time limits fall due on 13 October 2026.

On the same day, in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 822, a companion act on the same motorway also appeared, Government Decision no. 771/2026. That one concerns Section III, Leghin-Târgu-Neamț, which continues exactly where Section II stops, from kilometre 181+195 to kilometre 211+107, and divides nothing: it supplements by 51.75 thousand lei the sum provided as fair compensation and updates 126 entries of Annex no. 2 to Government Decision no. 1.179/2023, of which 88 are new entries, resulting from subdivisions.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is felt by 1,409 owners and administrators of properties: the institution they deal with changes. Anyone with land or a building entered in Annex no. 2 at an entry between 1 and 896 or between 2,854 and 3,178 no longer talks to the National Road Investment Company, but to the National Company for Road Infrastructure Administration. That is the one which notifies, which receives the title deeds, which issues the expropriation decision and which carries the file through to the end.

The second effect is that the procedure does not start again. The documents drawn up until 28 September 2026 are handed over under a protocol, and the subrogation operates by law, so a file halfway through does not go back to the beginning. The figures in Annex no. 2 are not recalculated, the lists are not rewritten, the site stays the one approved in 2025. For the owner, the only change is the name on the letterhead.

The third effect has to do with the calendar every owner goes through, which remains the one in Law no. 255/2010 on expropriation for a cause of public utility. The expropriator notifies in writing the intention to expropriate and posts the list of properties, and the owner has 20 calendar days in which to come forward with the title deeds. The expropriation decision is issued after the time limit expires and constitutes an enforceable title for handing over the property, while the transfer of the right of ownership operates by law, whether or not the owner has come forward. Payment is made within at most 90 days of the date of the decision fixing the amount of the compensation. Anyone not satisfied with the sum may apply to the court, but the action does not suspend the transfer of ownership and does not stop the works.

The fourth effect is one the act does not resolve. Article 3(2) of the 2025 decision is left untouched and still provides that the ministry transfers the individual sums into a treasury account opened in the name of the National Road Investment Company, at the disposal of the owners. For the 1,221 entries of private property moved to the other company, the procedure and the account thus end up at different addresses. The transfer governed by Article II covers only the receipts already issued by CEC Bank, not the payments to come.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Until 28 September 2026 the text said that the expropriator is the Romanian State, represented by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure through the National Road Investment Company, and that was all. A single company, over all 159.195 kilometres and over all three annexes. From publication, the same position is held by two companies, and the line between them is drawn by entry numbers in the annexes, which are separate documents, not by counties or by stretches.

In terms of text, six paragraphs have been added to Article 2: paragraphs (21) and (22) for Annex no. 2, paragraphs (31) and (32) for Annex no. 3, paragraphs (5) and (6) for Annex no. 4. Each pair names the localities and, more importantly, the range of entries falling to each company. That is the only substantive amendment; the rest of the 2025 decision stays as it was.

What has not changed deserves just as much attention. The total estimated sum stays 134,132.38 thousand lei. The individual sums stay those in Annex no. 2. The account into which the money is paid, fixed by Article 3(2), stays open in the name of the National Road Investment Company. Article 4, which leaves the ministry, through the same company, answerable for the accuracy of the data in all three lists, is also left untouched, although a third of the entries are now administered by somebody else.

One detail is worth remembering: the 2025 decision had until now undergone no amendment at all. The act of 28 September 2026 is the first intervention on it since the corridor was opened, which means that dividing the procedures between two companies is the only substantive change the expropriation corridor of Section II has been through.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • The ends of the corridor go to the company that administers the existing road network and that will take over the road once it opens, so expropriation and operation stay in the same hands where the motorway joins the rest of the network.
  • The division is written in ranges of numbered entries, not in descriptive wording. An owner who knows his number in the annex finds out beyond argument who deals with his file.
  • The handover deadline is short and explicit: 15 days for the deposit receipts from CEC Bank and 15 days for the documents, under a protocol, that is until 13 October 2026.
  • The subrogation operates by law for the entries in Annex no. 2, so the documents already drawn up are not lost and the procedures under way do not start again from the beginning.
  • The decision does not touch the sums and does not rewrite the lists, so nobody receives a fresh valuation and nobody leaves or enters the corridor because of it.

What remains a problem

  • The owner cannot find out from the act which group he falls into. Annexes nos. 1 to 4 of the 2025 decision did not appear in the ordinary issue of the Official Gazette of Romania, but in issue no. 1119 bis, which is bought from the Public Relations Centre of the Official Gazette of Romania.
  • Article 3(2) of the amended decision is left unchanged, so the money for 1,221 entries of private property still goes into an account opened in the name of the company that no longer runs those procedures.
  • The subrogation in Article II(1) concerns only Annex no. 2, although Article I also moves 188 entries from Annexes nos. 3 and 4 to the other company.
  • No provision requires anyone to tell the owners concerned that their counterpart has changed. Whoever had an address, a telephone number or an open file with one company finds out on his own.
  • The decision sets no time limit for completing the procedures taken over, so it will not be possible to say, a year from now, whether the division has speeded anything up or has merely moved the paperwork.

Practical advice

  1. Find out the number of the entry under which your property appears in the annex, because the number, not the locality, decides the company. In Annex no. 2, entries 1-896 and 2,854-3,178 fall to the National Company for Road Infrastructure Administration, and 897-2,853 stay with the National Road Investment Company; in Annex no. 3, entries 1-29 and 154-188 go to the first, 30-153 to the second; in Annex no. 4, entries 1-84 and 501-540 to the first, 85-500 to the second.
  2. Ask for the list at the town hall, if you do not want to buy the bis issue of the Official Gazette of Romania. The site plan is brought to public notice by posting at the seats of the local councils concerned and on the website of the expropriator, and the list of properties and owners is posted in the same places.
  3. Do not lodge a second time the documents you have already handed in. They are passed between the two companies under a protocol by 13 October 2026. Ask in writing for confirmation that the file has been taken over, with the registration number.
  4. Observe the time limit of 20 calendar days from the notification, within which you must come forward with the title deeds. Failing to come forward does not stop the expropriation, but it can delay your payment, because the sum is deposited in the owner’s name until the legal situation is clarified.
  5. If the compensation seems too small to you, cash it and challenge it separately. The court action does not suspend the transfer of the right of ownership, and receiving the sum established does not close your right to claim the difference.
  6. Keep the proof of deposit. The receipt issued by CEC Bank is the document showing that the sum has been placed at your disposal, and for the entries moved to the other company it is precisely that receipt which is the object of the handover within 15 days.

Frequently asked questions

Does this decision take my land now?
No. The expropriation had been started by Government Decision no. 1.040/2025, published on 4 December 2025. Decision no. 775/2026 neither adds nor removes any property from the corridor; it changes only the company that runs the procedure for part of the entries.
Does the sum I receive change?
No. The individual sums stay those in Annex no. 2 to the 2025 decision, and the total estimated sum stays 134,132.38 thousand lei. The act of 28 September 2026 contains no compensation figure.
How do I find out whether CNAIR or CNIR handles my file?
By the number of the entry in the annex in which the property appears. The locality is not enough, because some communes, such as Pipirig, appear on both lists. The annexes can be consulted at the seat of the local council or in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 1119 bis of 4 December 2025.
How long until I get the money?
Law no. 255/2010 provides for payment within at most 90 days of the date of the decision fixing the amount of the compensation. Before that, the sum estimated by the expropriator is deposited in the owner’s name, and the proof of deposit is the receipt issued by CEC Bank.
What do I do if I disagree with the compensation?
You may apply to the courts. The action does not suspend the transfer of the right of ownership and does not stop the works, so the expropriation goes on in parallel with the case. The sum already established can be cashed without your thereby giving up the difference claimed in court.
Where does the money for the compensation come from?
From the State budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, under chapter 84.01 „Transporturi”, transport, from the programmes financed by the Cohesion Fund under the 2021-2027 financial framework. The ministry transfers it into a treasury account opened in the name of the expropriating company, within at most 30 days of the approval of the request for the opening of credits.
What happens with Section III of the same motorway?
It has an act of its own, published on the same day, in another issue of the Official Gazette of Romania. That one supplements by 51.75 thousand lei the sum provided as fair compensation on the Leghin-Târgu-Neamț stretch and updates 126 entries of the annex to the 2023 decision that opened that corridor.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Article I points 2 to 4, read against Article 3(2) of the amended decision. Article I moves to the National Company for Road Infrastructure Administration the procedures for 1,221 entries of private property, but leaves untouched Article 3(2) of Government Decision no. 1.040/2025, which provides that the ministry transfers the individual sums „într-un cont de trezorerie deschis pe numele Companiei Naționale de Investiții Rutiere”, into a treasury account opened in the name of the National Road Investment Company, at the disposal of the owners, for the payment of the compensation. To the question who pays the compensation for a property at Acățari, the text gives two answers: the newly introduced paragraph (21) says that the procedures under Law no. 255/2010, payment among them, are carried out by the first company, while Article 3(2) says that the money sits with the second. Article II(2) closes only the past, that is the receipts already issued by CEC Bank, not the account out of which payment is made from here on. The companion act published the same day on Section III shows the form that is missing here: there the sums are transferred into the account of the company that actually runs the procedure.
  • Article II(1). The subrogation is limited to entries nos. 1-896 and 2,854-3,178 in Annex no. 2, although Article I points 3 and 4 move to the same company entries nos. 1-29 and 154-188 in Annex no. 3 and entries nos. 1-84 and 501-540 in Annex no. 4 as well, a further 188 entries of public property. Paragraph (3) of the same Article II hands over the documents for all three annexes, so the intention is visible, but the enumeration in paragraph (1) does not follow it. For those 188 entries the question of who has the capacity of representative of the expropriator remains open.

Editorial analysis

The act solves a real problem and solves it simply. A corridor of 159.195 kilometres, opened in 2025 in the charge of a single company, is divided between the one that builds and the one that administers the network, and the line is drawn by entry numbers, not by wording open to interpretation. It is the exact opposite of the convenient solution, in which someone would have written „pe raza județului Mureș”, within Mureș county, and left the boundary to whoever reads the map. From that point of view, the text is well made.

What cannot be seen by reading the act from end to end is how uneven the division is. By names of localities it looks like a half: eight of the sixteen localities of the corridor pass to the National Company for Road Infrastructure Administration. By entries, however, the company takes over 1,409 out of 3,906, that is 36.1%, and the share differs a great deal from one annex to another: 38.4% of the privately owned properties, 34.0% of those of the State and only 23.0% of those of the communes and towns. The mountain crossing, which stays with the other company, is the part in which the corridor cuts through the largest number of plots. Anyone who reads only the list of localities forms a wrong idea of the volume of work that has been moved.

The second observation comes out of a division. The 134,132.38 thousand lei estimated in 2025 for 3,178 entries of private property mean an average of 42,207 lei per entry and roughly 842,567 lei per kilometre of motorway, for the land beneath it alone. The average is useful mainly as an order-of-magnitude marker: at such a density of plots, what is moved between the companies means a third of a compensation budget of over 134 million lei, together with the responsibility of paying it on time, which goes well beyond a simple handover of files.

The third observation concerns the relationship between the time limits imposed and those assumed. The two companies are given 15 days to hand over the papers to one another, while the owner, in the basic procedure, has 20 calendar days from the notification in which to come forward with the deeds. Between the decision that opened the corridor, adopted on 27 November 2025, and the one that establishes who deals with it, adopted on 24 September 2026, 301 days passed, during which the procedures were already under way. The act sets itself no completion deadline. Haste is demanded of those who receive the paper, not of those who write it.

The last observation is a small one, but it says something about the care with which the text was drafted: the newly introduced paragraph (6) places the locality of Sărățeni among those „din județul Harghita”, in Harghita county, although the same decision assigns it to Mureș county in the title, in paragraph (1) of Article 2 and in paragraphs (21), (31) and (5). Nothing is lost here, because the ranges of entries decide on their own, but a list that contradicts its own title on the fourth reading does not inspire confidence in an act that divides 3,906 files.

What should be changed

  • The account should follow the procedure. Article 3(2) of the 2025 decision ought to be split between the two companies, exactly as the companion act on Section III does. In practice, the 1,221 owners who have been moved would know from whom they receive the money, and the company running the procedure would no longer depend on an account opened in the name of another.
  • The subrogation should cover all three annexes. The enumeration in Article II(1) ought to be completed with the entries in Annexes nos. 3 and 4, as paragraph (3) of the same article does. The practical effect: the 188 entries of public property would pass beyond argument, and a notary or a court would have nothing left to interpret.
  • Responsibility should follow the division. Article 4 of the 2025 decision leaves responsibility for the accuracy of the data in all three lists with the same company, although a third of the entries are now administered elsewhere. Each company ought to answer for the list it carries, otherwise an error in identifying a property has two managers but nobody answerable for it.
  • A written notification to those affected by the change. The act moves 1,409 files without requiring anybody to inform the owners. A notice within the same 15 days in which the documents are handed over would cost as much as an envelope and would spare people trips to the wrong counter.
  • The annexes should be accessible without payment. The entry in the annex decides whom the owner deals with, and Annexes nos. 1 to 4 are bought from the Public Relations Centre of the Official Gazette of Romania, as a bis issue. Publishing them on the expropriator’s website, alongside the site plan already posted there, would make the division a piece of information verifiable from home.

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. 821 of 28 September 2026, pages 2-3 16 pages PDF, 123 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.