Electronic invoice in Romania

Understand Romania’s RO e-Factura requirements, deadlines, formats and penalties—and ensure compliant B2B, B2G and B2C invoicing.

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Overview

Romania operates one of the broadest mandatory e-invoicing systems in the EU. RO e-Factura is a centralised state platform run by the Ministry of Finance and ANAF (the National Agency for Fiscal Administration), through which domestic B2G and B2B invoices pass. It validates the XML, applies the Ministry of Finance's electronic seal and makes the document available to the buyer.

Two things matter more than anything else here. First, this is not Peppol — a Peppol invoice delivered to a Romanian customer does not satisfy the mandate. Second, the penalty for invoicing outside the system is calculated on the full invoice value, not the VAT, and it can hit both parties to the same transaction.

RO_CIUS

the national profile — UBL 2.1 and UN/CEFACT CII 16B both admitted

15% of value

the B2B penalty — payable by sender or by receiver

Not Peppol

the ANAF API is the only compliant channel

Timeline

Romania built its system in stages over four years, starting from high-risk goods and ending with a general mandate. Everything below the last entry is already in force.

Already in force

1 July 2022

B2G and high-risk goods

RO e-Factura becomes mandatory for Romanian-established suppliers invoicing public authorities, and for goods classed as high fiscal risk — fruit and vegetables, alcohol, new buildings, mineral water, sand and gravel, clothing and footwear.

1 January 2024

Domestic B2B reporting begins

All Romanian-established taxpayers must report domestic B2B invoice data to the system. At this stage RO e-Factura often acted as a reporting channel while the commercial invoice still travelled to the buyer separately.

1 July 2024

RO e-Factura becomes the delivery channel

The decisive step. The system is now the mandatory route between Romanian supplier and Romanian buyer, and receiving or booking a domestic B2B invoice outside it becomes an offence in its own right.

1 January 2025

B2C reporting becomes mandatory

Invoices for supplies with a place of supply in Romania must be reported, after a voluntary run-in from July 2024. Penalties for late or missing B2C submissions started on 1 July 2025.

1 January 2026

Deadline changes to five working days

The submission window becomes 5 working days instead of 5 calendar days — Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays no longer count. From the same date, invoices to non-established buyers holding a Romanian VAT registration come into scope where the place of supply is Romania.

29 May 2026

Law No. 88/2026 narrows the scope

Published in Monitorul Oficial 459, it approves emergency ordinance 128/2024 and makes RO e-Factura optional for individuals identified only by CNP, special-regime farmers and foreign cultural institutes, with an opt-in register. See B2C after Law 88/2026.

1 July 2026

The grace period for small businesses ends

Small and micro-enterprises with annual turnover below €500,000 lose their protection from compliance controls and are now enforced on the same footing as everyone else.

Ahead

1 July 2030

ViDA for intra-EU B2B

EU-wide structured invoicing and digital reporting for cross-border B2B. The Romanian transport architecture for that regime has not been settled.

1 January 2035

Alignment of the national CTC system

Existing national digital transaction reporting systems, RO e-Factura among them, must be brought into line with the ViDA model and standards.

B2G

For suppliers established in Romania, the B2G mandate has applied since 1 July 2022. A foreign supplier that is not established in Romania under the VAT rules may register and use RO e-Factura voluntarily — supplying a Romanian public authority does not by itself pull a foreign supplier into the mandatory system.

—Since 1 January 2025, public procurement invoices must carry the relevant CPV codes (Common Procurement Vocabulary)

—A public body may only pay from its budget where the mandatory B2G invoicing requirements have been met

—Paying a non-compliant invoice can expose the responsible official or institution to a fine of RON 500–1,000, with the public funds recoverable plus interest and late-payment charges

That last point is worth knowing as a supplier: a Romanian public customer has a direct financial incentive not to pay you until the invoice is properly in the system.

The B2B mandate

Since 1 July 2024 the full exchange model applies to domestic B2B. Where both parties are established in Romania and the place of supply is Romania, RO e-Factura is compulsory — delivery by e-mail, EDI or Peppol alone does not discharge the obligation.

01 The supplier produces XML conforming to RO_CIUS

02 It is submitted through the API or uploaded via the state web interface

03 RO e-Factura runs syntactic and business validation; on failure the supplier receives an error message and must correct the document

04 On success the Ministry of Finance applies its electronic seal

05 The buyer downloads it; the date of communication is the date the invoice became available in the system

The deadline, precisely

Since 1 January 2026: five working days from the date the invoice is issued, and in any case no later than five working days after the statutory deadline by which the invoice ought to have been issued under the Fiscal Code. The second limb matters — you cannot extend your window by issuing the invoice late.

A parallel PDF may be sent for convenience, but the sealed XML is the original. Both sides carry exposure: the supplier for not submitting, the buyer for receiving and booking a domestic B2B invoice outside the system.

B2C after Law 88/2026

The B2C regime has always been different in kind from B2B: the supplier reports the invoice data to RO e-Factura, while the invoice itself still reaches the consumer directly under Article 319 of the Fiscal Code. It is mandatory electronic reporting of invoices rather than mandatory exchange through a state platform.

What Law 88/2026 changed

The law reclassifies who is in scope. A transaction is treated as B2C where the customer provides no tax identification number, or identifies themselves by their personal numerical code (CNP). Unless that individual has voluntarily registered in the optional RO e-Factura register, the supplier issues the invoice outside the system.

RO e-Factura also became optional, with an opt-in and opt-out mechanism, for individuals identified only by CNP, farmers under the special regime and foreign cultural institutes.

—Where a code is needed but no fiscal identifier exists, a standard 13-zero code replaces it in the beneficiary field

—Retail sales where the customer gives a company tax number for the fiscal receipt do require an e-invoice

—Fiscal receipts meeting the conditions for a simplified invoice are excluded

The practical action is a master-data review. Counterparties that were in scope before may now be optional, and whether a partner remains registered determines whether you can rely on RO e-Factura to deliver to them at all.

Formats and RO_CIUS

The system implements the European standard SR EN 16931-1 through the national specification RO_CIUS, which layers Romanian tax and administrative requirements on top of it.

UBL 2.1Invoice and Credit Note — the more common choice in practice

UN/CEFACT CII 16BAlso officially admitted

Profile identifierurn:cen.eu:en16931:2017#compliant#urn:efactura.mfinante.ro:CIUS-RO:1.0.1

PDF

A PDF is not an electronic invoice for RO e-Factura purposes and cannot replace the structured XML. It may serve as a visualisation of the XML, or be carried as an attachment where it is a supporting document embedded in the XML in a permitted MIME format. The original is the XML bearing the Ministry of Finance's electronic seal — not the visual rendering of it.

Note the consequence for archiving and for VAT: the file you must be able to produce years later is the sealed XML returned by the system, not the XML you originally submitted.

The RO e-Factura model

The most accurate description is a centralised, clearance-style CTC model — a three-party arrangement running supplier → Ministry of Finance and ANAF → buyer.

It is not classic prior clearance, where the tax authority must authorise an invoice before it may be issued. The supplier creates the invoice and then submits it within the deadline. But only an XML that has passed structural validation and carries the Ministry of Finance's seal is the original document in RO e-Factura.

Is this real-time reporting?

Not in the strict sense. The five-working-day window makes it continuous transaction control rather than instantaneous transmission. Once validation succeeds, however, the system seals the document and makes it available to the recipient immediately.

Why it is neither four-corner nor five-corner

There is no supplier access point and no buyer access point in the mandatory chain

The supplier or its software provider connects directly to ANAF, which is the central point

The recipient collects the document through RO e-Factura, the SPV or the API

Peppol certification therefore gives you neither a technical nor a legal connection to RO e-Factura.

Where Peppol does fit

Peppol may be used voluntarily for international exchange, as an additional commercial channel, or as an input format for a provider that then converts the document into RO_CIUS and submits it to ANAF. There is no Romanian Peppol Authority in the OpenPeppol list; in countries without one, OpenPeppol itself acts as coordinating authority. The Peppol code list contains EAS 9947 — RO:VAT for Romanian VAT numbers, but that is not the addressing identifier for RO e-Factura, which identifies participants through Romanian tax identifiers (CIF/CUI, VAT ID, CNP or NIF) and SPV access rights. Code 9926, sometimes quoted for Romania, is the Bulgarian VAT scheme.

Cross-border scenarios

This is where most implementations go wrong, because the answer turns on the place of supply and on whether the supplier is established in Romania — not on who holds a Romanian VAT number.

Romanian → RomanianIn scope. The system is the delivery channel; e-mail, EDI or Peppol alone does not comply

Romanian → foreign company with Romanian VAT IDIn scope since 1 January 2026 where the place of supply is Romania. Dual obligation: report to ANAF and deliver the invoice to the buyer by the ordinary route under Article 319

Intra-EU supply of goodsOutside the current domestic mandate where the buyer gives another member state's VAT ID. Any agreed channel may be used until ViDA applies in 2030

Cross-border servicesDecided by the place of supply. Outside Romania — normally out of scope; inside Romania with a Romanian-VAT-registered foreign buyer — in scope since January 2026

Export outside the EUOutside the domestic mandate. ViDA 2030 targets intra-EU transactions and creates no equivalent regime for exports to third countries

Foreign supplier → Romanian buyerA Romanian VAT registration alone does not always create a full exchange obligation; non-established operators may join voluntarily. A Romanian fixed establishment involved in the supply can bring the transaction into domestic scope under Article 266(2)

Cross-border B2CTied to a Romanian place of supply. A distance sale taxed in another member state under OSS does not become a Romanian B2C transaction merely because the seller is Romanian

The dual obligation in the second row is the one that surprises people. Reporting into ANAF does not deliver the invoice to a foreign buyer who has no SPV access — you still have to send it to them.

Requirements for providers

No national accreditation of e-invoicing providers comparable to the Slovak digitálny poštár has been identified in the legislation, ANAF guidance or the API documentation. ANAF expressly contemplates the use of ERP systems and external service providers without requiring the provider to appear on a special register.

What a foreign provider does need is a genuine national integration. Peppol status is not a substitute for any of it:

—Generation or conversion into UBL 2.1 or CII 16B under RO_CIUS

—The Romanian business validations

—Connection to the ANAF API with OAuth 2.0 and token management

—Submission on behalf of a specific Romanian client, with the client's authorisation

—Download of responses and of the sealed XML, and handling of ANAF error codes

—Separate logic for B2B/B2G clearance and B2C reporting, plus the local-VAT-registration and cross-border cases

—Monitoring of the five-working-day window

SPV and the qualified certificate

The client or an authorised user must have access to the Spațiul Privat Virtual (SPV), the tax authority's private virtual space. ANAF's OAuth authorisation rests on the user's qualified digital certificate, their rights in SPV, their status as legal representative, designated representative or authorised person, the provider's registered application, and the application's Client ID and Client Secret. What a provider needs is therefore not a Romanian Peppol address but a correct authorisation model with each individual client.

Local presence

The RO e-Factura rules examined impose no requirement for a Romanian legal entity, a local office or servers, a Romanian tax representative, a local e-invoicing licence or a proprietary official mailbox. In practice, though, acting on a client's behalf requires that client to be properly registered in SPV and to have granted authorised access through a qualified certificate and OAuth.

Archiving

Romanian general rules require invoices and supporting accounting documents to be kept for ten years from the end of the financial year in which they were drawn up, with longer periods for documents relating to capital goods and for certain categories of accounting record.

Keep the sealed XML — the document returned by the system carrying the Ministry of Finance's electronic seal, which is what makes it the legal original

Keep the submitted XML and the ANAF responses as well, so you can evidence when and how the document was transmitted

A PDF rendering is not the original and does not satisfy the retention obligation on its own

Documents remain available for download from the system for a limited period only — the platform is not your archive. Pulling the sealed XML down and storing it yourself is part of the implementation, not an afterthought.

Penalties

Romania's headline sanction is unusual in Europe because its base is the full value of the invoice rather than the VAT — and because it can be imposed on each side of the same transaction separately.

15% of invoice valueOn the Romanian supplier that did not transmit a mandatory invoice through RO e-Factura, and on the Romanian buyer that received and booked a domestic B2B invoice outside the system

RON 500–1,000On the responsible official or institution where a public body pays a non-compliant B2G invoice, with the funds recoverable plus interest and penalties

Late transmission of B2B and B2C invoices

Where one or more invoices missing the deadline fall within the same calendar month, tiered fines apply by taxpayer size:

RON 5,000–10,000Large taxpayers

RON 2,500–5,000Medium taxpayers

RON 1,000–2,500Other legal entities and individuals

Since 1 July 2026 there is no longer a softer regime for small businesses: micro-enterprises below €500,000 turnover are enforced like everyone else. Late-transmission fines and the 15% penalty are separate exposures and can arise from the same failure.

How we help

Romania cannot be served with a Peppol-only product. It needs a dedicated national connector, and that is what we build alongside the European Peppol connection:

UBL 2.1 and CII 16B generation and conversion under RO_CIUS

Direct connection to the ANAF API with OAuth 2.0 and token management

Upload, status, message list and download flows, with ANAF error handling

Retrieval and retention of both the submitted XML and the sealed XML

Separate handling of B2B/B2G clearance and B2C reporting, including the 13-zero code

Monitoring of the five-working-day deadline against the Romanian holiday calendar

Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 as an input or output channel alongside the ANAF submission

Integration via API, SFTP and CSV, with ERP and IDoc source data

Frequently asked questions

Can I use Peppol to comply with the Romanian mandate?

No. RO e-Factura through the Ministry of Finance and ANAF infrastructure is the legally binding channel, and delivering a Peppol invoice to a Romanian customer does not discharge the domestic obligation. Peppol can be used voluntarily for international exchange or as an input format that your provider converts into RO_CIUS and submits to ANAF — but the ANAF submission is what counts.

How long do I have to submit an invoice?

Five working days from the date of issue since 1 January 2026 — Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays do not count. The window is also capped at five working days after the statutory date by which the invoice should have been issued under the Fiscal Code, so issuing late does not buy extra time. Before 2026 the rule was five calendar days.

What happens if my supplier sends me an invoice outside the system?

Do not book it. The 15% penalty applies to the buyer that receives and records a domestic B2B invoice outside RO e-Factura, entirely separately from the supplier's own exposure. Ask the supplier to transmit it properly first. This is one of the few mandates in Europe where the recipient carries a sanction of the same size as the issuer.

Is the e-invoice the only basis for deducting VAT?

For a transaction inside the mandate, the sealed XML is the only fully compliant original and is what you should hold for booking and deduction. But the right to deduct should not be treated as automatically and permanently lost for a channel breach alone. Romania originally sought a derogation from Article 178 of the VAT Directive, which governs the documents required for deduction; the Council's final decision authorised mandatory e-invoicing under derogations from Articles 218 and 232 — the rules on invoice form and recipient consent — and did not create a general ground for extinguishing the substantive right. The safe practice remains not to book an incoming domestic B2B invoice until the supplier has put it through the system.

Am I in scope as a foreign company with a Romanian VAT number?

As a supplier, a Romanian VAT registration alone does not always create a full exchange obligation, and non-established operators may join voluntarily. If you have a Romanian fixed establishment that takes part in the supply and you count as established under Article 266(2) of the Fiscal Code, the transaction can fall into domestic scope. As a buyer, note that since 1 January 2026 your Romanian supplier must report invoices to you through RO e-Factura where the place of supply is Romania — and must still send you the invoice by the ordinary route.

What changed for B2C in 2026?

Law No. 88/2026, published on 29 May 2026, narrowed the scope. A transaction counts as B2C where the customer gives no tax identification number or identifies by CNP, and unless that person has voluntarily registered in the optional RO e-Factura register, the invoice is issued outside the system with a 13-zero beneficiary code. RO e-Factura also became optional for individuals identified only by CNP, special-regime farmers and foreign cultural institutes. Retail sales where the customer supplies a company tax number still require an e-invoice.

Do I need a Romanian entity to act as a service provider?

No. The rules examined impose no requirement for a Romanian legal entity, local office or servers, a tax representative, a local licence or a proprietary official mailbox, and no national provider accreditation has been identified. What is required is a registered application with ANAF, OAuth 2.0 support, RO_CIUS handling and — critically — that each client is properly registered in SPV and has granted authorised access via a qualified digital certificate.

Who archives the invoices?

You do. Documents stay available for download from the platform for a limited period only, so the sealed XML must be pulled down and stored in your own systems. Romanian rules generally require invoices and supporting accounting documents to be kept for ten years from the end of the financial year, with longer periods for capital goods and certain records. Keep the submitted XML and the ANAF responses too — they evidence when and how you transmitted.

Summary

Romania is fully live and fully enforced. RO e-Factura has been the mandatory delivery channel for domestic B2B since July 2024, the deadline tightened to five working days in January 2026, and the last grace period — for businesses under €500,000 turnover — expired on 1 July 2026.

The system is a centralised CTC platform, not Peppol. Serving Romanian clients requires a national connector: RO_CIUS, the ANAF API, OAuth 2.0, SPV authorisation per client, and retention of the sealed XML. No Romanian entity or licence is needed, but Peppol certification alone gets you nowhere.

The detail worth acting on first is the buyer-side penalty. In most countries a wrongly delivered invoice is the supplier's problem; in Romania booking one costs the recipient 15% of its value. Controls on incoming invoices matter as much as controls on outgoing ones.

Resources

Ministry of Finance — RO e-Factura technical information The official technical pages for the national e-invoicing system efactura.mfinante.ro Technical specifications, schemas and application versions for developers Law No. 88/2026 The text that made RO e-Factura optional for CNP-identified individuals and other categories ANAF — free invoice completion application The state web tool for creating and submitting an e-invoice manually ANAF — the RO e-Factura register Check whether a counterparty is registered, including the optional register European Commission — eInvoicing country factsheets The index of country sheets, including the current Romanian profile

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