How to start a new business in Romania

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If you want to start a business in Romania here is what you should know:

1. Where to address to register your company?

You can register your business at the National Trade Register Office of the county where your firm’s headquarters will be located.

What you should know about the Romanian Trade Register Office is that it is structured and organized at two levels (http://www.onrc.ro/english/recom.php):

• “at local level, represented by 42 territorial offices, under the subordination of the National Trade Register Office, operating as attached to each county Law Court
• at national level, represented by the National Trade Register Office functioning under the subordination of the Ministry of Justice”

    2.     How many days until the business can be operational?
 

In Romania the number of days to start a business is 10 calendar days assuming that you have all required documents ready. 

     3.      How many procedures to start a business?

The number of procedures to start a business in Romania is around 6. The procedures include (http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/romania/):

• Obtain a certificate from the Trade Registry proving the availability of the proposed company name and make a reservation of the name. This usually takes a day to complete and it can cost you around 20$. The name reservation is valid for 3 months. The name you chose for your company will be unique at national level.

• Register your company with the Unique Office of Trade Registry; obtain court registration, publication of notice, and registration for statistical purposes and social security. This takes about 3 working days and it costs around 105USD.

• Deposit funds in a bank and obtain a document confirming bank deposit of sufficient funds. In accordance with the type of company that you decided to register you must deposit a minim amount of money in a bank account. This will be your minim capital. This procedure can be completed in a day and the cost varies depending on the bank’s commission and the type of company you decided to register.

• Register for VAT (not mandatory- depends on your company’s activity). If the projected turnover of your business is below 48.150$/year you can choose not to register your company as a VAT payer. If your company’s projected turnover exceeds the 48.150$ threshold, than you must register your company as VAT payer. This is a free of charge procedure and it takes up to 3 days.

• Obtain a fiscal record for the company associates and the legal representatives from the public finance department of the municipality (not mandatory). If you registered your company as VAT payer than you must address the public finance department for a release of a fiscal record. This can be obtain in 1 working day and it will cost you around 7$.

To sum up if you want to start a business in Romania you should address the Romanian Trade Register Office of the county where your firm will be located, you should wait around 10 calendar days and pay around 150$ on administrative fees.

Welcome to the “land of choice”!