Romania

Starting a Business in

Romania

Listed below is a detailed summary of the bureaucratic and legal hurdles an entrepreneur must overcome in order to incorporate and register a new firm, along with their associated time and set-up costs.  It examines the procedures, time and cost involved in launching a commercial or industrial firm with up to 50 employees and start-up capital of 10 times the economy's per-capita gross national income (GNI).

The information appearing on this page was collected as part of the Doing Business project, which measures and compares regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small- to medium-sized domestic business in 183 economies. The most recent round of data collection for the project was completed in June 2011.

  • Standardized Company

  • Legal Form: Societate cu rãspundere limitatã - Limited Liability Company
  • City: Bucharest

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No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs
1 Obtain a certificate from the Trade Registry proving the availability of the proposed company name and make a reservation of the name

For the approval of the Methodological Norms regarding the way of keeping the trade registries, of making the registrations and of releasing information,
- The reservation of the firm name is at the national level - thus, companies will have the guarantee that the names under which they choose to perform their trade activity will be protected at national level
- A firm is available when it does not belong to another company by its previous registration with the trade registry, irrespective of the county in which this firm was registered.
- The firm cannot contain the words "ştiinţific", "academie", "academic", "universitate", "universitar", "scoală", "şcolar" /"scientific", "academy", "academic", "university", "school"/ or their derivatives.
- The firm containing the words "naţional", "roman", "institut" /"national", "Romanian", "institute"/ or their derivatives or words or phrases that are characteristic to the central or local public institutions and authorities may be used only with the approval of the Government's General Secretariat or the prefect.
The certificate obtained is valid for a period of 3 months.
1 day RON 64
2 Deposit funds in a bank and obtain a document confirming bank deposit of sufficient funds


1 day bank commission ranges from zero to 0.5% of capital.
3 Obtain a certificate from the fiscal administration agency giving clearance for the headquarter of the offices

When submitting the incorporation file with the Trade Registry, the applicant should also provide:
(i) the relevant lease agreement bearing the registration stamp of the Fiscal Administration Agency which is competent in the district where the headquarters are located;
(ii) a certificate issued from the aforementioned fiscal agency ascertaining the fact that there have not been other similar agreements registered with the fiscal autorities with respect to the building / premises where the headquarters are located;
(iii) if the certificate mentioned at point (ii) above provides that there have been similar agreements registered for the respective building / premises, than the applicant should provide a notarized affidavit providing that the structure of the respective building / premises permits the functioning of several companies.

 5 days no charge
4 Register with the Unique Office (Biroul Unic) of trade registry Registrul Comertului (BASC), Bucharest Tribunal; obtain court registration, publication of notice, and registration for statistical purposes and social security

The registration certificate also comprises the unique code of fiscal registration, granted by the Ministry of Public Finances The issuing of the code of fiscal registration attests if the respective commercial company is recorded as payer of the corporate and income tax. To obtain the unique code of registration, the data contained in the registration request is transmitted per officio to the Ministry of Public Finances; the Ministry of Public Finances grants the unique code of registration within 8 hours. According to the law, together with the performance of the registration, an excerpt of the certificate of the appointed judge is sent, per officio, to the Regie autonome (Official Gazette) for publication in the Official Gazette, part IV. The registration formalities as a VAT payer are not accomplished with the Trade Registry, but with the Fiscal Administrations within the area of the company’s registered office, based on an affidavit.

 3 days RON 120 (registration fee) + RON 30 for each mandatory element of the basic information of the company to be registered, such as social capital, firm, associates, administrators, headquarters, main object of activity + RON 100 for each 2,000 characters publication fee in the Romanian Official Gazette + RON 30 for filing with the Trade Registry ("ascertaining certificate") + liquidation fund fee (50% of taxes applied by the Trade Registry offices) + RON 10 (Single Registration Code) + bulletin fund tax (5% of taxes applied by the Trade Registry offices) + RON 10 (fee for Trade registry to send the documents that need publishing to the Romanian Official Gazette)
5 Register for VAT

A person subject to taxation established in Romania and has or intends to have an economic activity which implies operations that can be taxed and/or exempted from VAT with deduction rights, must request the registration for VAT purposes from the qualified fiscal authority. The registration code for VAT purpose has the RO prefix, in concordance with the International Standard ISO 3166 - alpha 2 and is obtained by the qualified fiscal authority in a 3-day period from the moment the documentation is submitted. The Trade Registry notifies the Ministry of Finance with regard to the request for VAT registration and the Ministry of Finance issues a separate certificate evidencing the VAT number and the start date for VAT purposes. In addition to this, a Tax Registration Form (Form 010) must be submitted to the Ministry of Finance within the next 30 days as from the company’s registration in order for the new company to register as profit tax and social contributions payer.
3 days no charge
6 Register the employees contracts with the Territorial Labor Inspectorate (TLI) online

Since January 01, 2011 the individual employment contracts should be registered within the internal general register recording the employees, which is conveyed in electronic format to the competent Labor Territorial Inspectorate, at the latest on the working day prior to the commencement of the activity.
1 day no charge
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