⚖️ Comparisons & guides

Withholding Tax in Romania on Services, Management Fees and Royalties Paid Abroad

When a Romanian SRL pays a foreign company or freelancer, it may have to withhold 16% Romanian tax from the payment. The tax applies to management and consultancy fees, royalties, commissions and any service physically performed in Romania. A double tax treaty usually reduces it — often to zero for services — but only if the SRL holds the recipient’s tax residence certificate on the day it pays.

Interest and dividends follow the same mechanism and are covered in our guides to shareholder loans and dividends from a Romanian SRL; this article deals with everything else you pay abroad.

Which payments abroad are taxed in Romania?

Article 223 of the Fiscal Code lists the income a non-resident is taxed on in Romania. For an ordinary trading SRL, five items matter:

Payment to a non-resident	Taxed in Romania?	Where the work is done
Management or consultancy fees, in any field	Yes	Irrelevant — taxed even if performed abroad
Royalties (trademarks, patents, know-how, copyright, software rights)	Yes	Irrelevant
Commissions	Yes	Irrelevant
Fees paid to a foreign company acting as director of the SRL	Yes	Irrelevant
Any other service	Only if performed in Romania	Decisive

The last row is where most everyday invoices fall. A developer in Lisbon coding remotely or a design studio working from its own office abroad is not earning Romanian-source income, and nothing is withheld. International transport is excluded outright.

The first row is the trap: the norms to the Fiscal Code tax management and consultancy income “whether or not performed in Romania” when there is no treaty or no proof of residence. Classification follows the contract, not the invoice title.

What are the rates?

Recipient	Domestic rate
Foreign company	16%
Individual resident in an EU state or a treaty country	10%
Individual resident elsewhere	16%
Payments to an account in a state with no exchange-of-information instrument, where the transaction is found to be artificial	50%

The rate applies to the gross amount, with no deductions, and the tax is final.

Dividends are the exception to the table: they carry 16% whoever receives them.

How does a treaty change the result?

Under article 230, the rate cannot exceed the one in the treaty between Romania and the recipient’s country, and the more favourable of the domestic rate, the treaty and EU law applies.

• Services, management and consultancy fees. Most treaties treat these as business profits, taxable only in the provider’s country unless it has a permanent establishment in Romania. With a valid certificate, the usual outcome is no Romanian withholding.
• Royalties. Treaties normally cap the rate rather than remove it. Read the royalties article of the specific treaty.
• Royalties between associated EU companies. These are exempt under article 255 where one company has held at least 25% of the other directly, or a third EU company holds 25% of both, for an uninterrupted period of at least 2 years. The exemption needs its own attestation, valid for one year.

The certificate rule is strict. The non-resident must give the payer its tax residence certificate, issued by its own tax authority, at the moment of payment, with an authorised Romanian translation. Certificates issued electronically are accepted as originals. If it is missing, the SRL withholds at the domestic rate; when the certificate arrives later, the difference can be adjusted within the limitation period.

When and how is the tax paid?

1. Calculate at payment. The trigger is payment, not the invoice date. The Fiscal Code defines payment broadly, as making funds available to the creditor in whatever way the parties agreed to settle the obligation.
2. Convert at the National Bank of Romania rate for the day of payment. The tax is always computed and paid in RON.
3. Declare and pay by the 25th of the following month, on form 100.
4. Report each beneficiary annually on form 207, due by the last day of February for the previous year. Exempt and treaty-reduced payments are reported there too.

For a December 2026 payment, that means form 100 by 25 January 2027. The monthly rhythm is in our Romania tax deadlines guide.

Two worked examples

A German parent charges a management fee. The GmbH invoices its Romanian subsidiary RON 50,000 for management services delivered from Munich.

	With certificate on file	Without certificate
Rate applied	Treaty — no Romanian tax in the usual case	16% domestic
Tax withheld	RON 0	RON 8,000
Paid to the parent	RON 50,000	RON 42,000

A freelance designer in Spain. A Spanish-resident individual invoices RON 12,000 for brand design produced in Barcelona. This is neither management nor consultancy, and it was not performed in Romania, so it falls outside article 223. Nothing is withheld. Had the same designer spent two weeks on site in Bucharest, the service would be Romanian-source: 10% domestic rate for an EU-resident individual, reduced under the treaty if a certificate is provided.

Why “net of tax” clauses backfire

Contracts often say the foreign supplier receives its fee “net of any withholding”. If the SRL bears the tax itself, two things follow from the norms to article 230:

• the domestic rules apply instead of the treaty — the relief is designed for the non-resident who bears the tax, not for a payer who absorbs it;
• the SRL still files form 207 for that beneficiary.

A clause meant to keep the supplier whole can thus turn a zero-tax payment into a 16% cost. Collect the certificate instead of grossing up.

Two related obligations

Registering contracts. A Romanian company receiving construction, assembly, supervision, consultancy, technical assistance or similar services performed by non-residents on Romanian territory must register those contracts with the tax authority.

Permanent establishment. If the foreign supplier’s people work in Romania long enough, or the SRL is in practice run from abroad, the question shifts to corporate tax — see where a foreign-managed Romanian company is tax resident.

Frequently asked questions

Does a SaaS subscription trigger withholding? A subscription for access to a standard online service is generally a service performed abroad. A payment for the right to use or exploit software can be a royalty. The contract wording decides, so have it checked before the first payment.

What if we already paid in full without withholding? The tax is the payer’s liability. It is declared on a corrective form 100 with late-payment interest and penalties; obtaining the certificate afterwards may still allow the treaty rate to be applied.

Check the contract before the first invoice

We review cross-border contracts for foreign-owned SRLs, collect residence certificates before payment dates and file forms 100 and 207 as part of our accounting services in Romania.

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This article is general information, current as of 16 October 2026, and is not tax advice for a specific transaction.