How do you engage a contractor in Romania compliantly in 2026?

Romanian tax law starts from substance, not labels. The Fiscal Code defines a dependent activity as orice activitate desfasurata de o persoana fizica intr-o relatie de angajare generatoare de venituri, any activity carried out by a person in an income-generating employment relationship [Codul fiscal, Art. 7]. An activity is genuinely independent only where it meets at least 4 of 7 statutory criteria.

So the label on the contract does not protect you. ANAF reads how the work actually ran against the criteria below. The more an arrangement leans toward the left column, the more it looks like dependent activity, and the more likely ANAF is to recast it.

Romania does give you a way to remove some of the guesswork in advance. The SFIA is the administrative act issued by the central tax authority to settle the tax treatment of a future factual situation, actul administrativ emis de organul fiscal central in vederea solutionarii unei cereri ... referitoare la reglementarea unor situatii fiscale de fapt viitoare [Legea 207/2015, Art. 52]. Where the question is how an engagement should be treated for tax, the SFIA can address whether it reads as independent or dependent.

Two practical limits matter. ANAF must answer within 3 months of the request, so it is not instant. And the ruling carries an issuance fee, set in euro and payable at the national-bank exchange rate on the day of payment, which puts it out of reach for a low-value engagement. The fee is higher for large and non-resident taxpayers than for other categories [Art. 52].

This is the part that catches buyers out. On reclassification the income tax and the mandatory social contributions are recalculated and owed for the period already worked, then loaded with interest and penalty. Restructuring after the fact does not erase the back-liability [legestart]. Read the layers together.

Read the layers together and the weight falls on the payer. The recalculated contributions cover both the amounts that were never withheld and the employer share, the daily interest and penalty compound across the whole 5-year window, and the gravest cases cross from a fiscal matter into a criminal one. The cost of classifying right up front is small by comparison.

A clean Romanian engagement follows a simple sequence.

1. Assess the status before you sign. Hold the planned arrangement against the 4-of-7 criteria above. If it leans toward your control, your hours, your equipment, and you as the sole client, treat it as employment.
2. Use the advance ruling only where the value justifies it. The SFIA can settle the tax treatment in advance, but it takes up to 3 months and carries a fee, so it suits a high-value, long-running engagement rather than a single short contract.
3. Contract for a result, not a routine. Define deliverables. Avoid imposed hours, a fixed desk, and language that puts the contractor under day-to-day instruction. A contract that describes managed, on-site, hourly work is itself evidence of dependent activity.
4. Keep the contractor independent in practice. Let them use their own assets, set their own schedule, and keep serving other clients. The reality has to match the contract, because ANAF reads the reality.
5. Pay against invoices. The contractor issues an invoice and you pay it. You do not run them through payroll. They handle their own income tax and their own contributions.
6. Keep the evidence. Hold the contract, the invoices, and the record of how the work ran. If ANAF ever audits, that file is your defence.

If any of that feels forced, that is the signal. A genuine contractor is easy to engage as a contractor. A disguised employee is hard work to keep at arm's length, because the relationship keeps wanting to behave like employment. In that case the right answer is employment.

When EOR is the safer route than a contractor

Use an Employer of Record when the engagement is employment in substance: full-time or long-term work, a person integrated into your team and tools, someone who takes instruction on how and when to work, or someone who earns most of their income from you. Teamed becomes the legal employer in Romania, runs payroll and contributions correctly from day one, and you direct the work. The same starting fee from $599 per employee per month applies, with statutory employer cost passed through at cost.

The logic mirrors what buyers may know from the UK's IR35. Classification asks whether the working arrangement is dependent in substance. If you take a contractor who already looked like an employee and put them onto an EOR, you have made the employment explicit. ANAF can read that switch as evidence the relationship was dependent activity from the start, which is exactly the finding you were trying to avoid.

And it does nothing for the past. ANAF's right to establish fiscal claims runs for five years, so the assessment window still covers the months or years the person invoiced as a contractor. Switching them to employment on 1 June does not erase what came before, and the daily interest and penalty keep running on any arrears for that earlier period.

So when is EOR the right move? When the engagement is honestly assessed as employment from day one. If you know the work is full-time, integrated, and instructed, engage the person as an employee through an EOR from the start. Teamed becomes the legal employer in Romania, runs payroll and contributions correctly, and the classification question never arises.

VAT is separate from the classification question, but buyers ask, so here is the short version.

A self-employed contractor in Romania generally charges TVA (VAT) at the standard rate of 21% and shows it as a separate line on the invoice [Codul fiscal, Art. 291]. For cross-border business-to-business work, the reverse-charge mechanism may shift the VAT accounting to the customer instead.

Smaller contractors can use the small-enterprise (intreprindere mica) exemption and charge no VAT while their turnover stays at or below the threshold. Turnover above lei 395,000 triggers mandatory VAT registration, a ceiling raised from 300,000 lei with effect from 1 September 2025 [Codul fiscal, Art. 310]. A contractor under the exemption shows no VAT on the invoice.