The EU's Fair Labour Mobility Package: What a Digital A1 Certificate Will Mean for Romanian Employers

On 15 September 2026, the European Commission adopted a Fair Labour Mobility package, a communication accompanied by five legislative proposals aimed at making it easier for workers and employers to operate across EU borders. Among the proposals is the European Social Security Pass, known as ESSPASS, which would allow workers to request and hold social security documents, including the portable document A1, entirely online through the EU Digital Identity Wallet. For Romanian employers who regularly post staff to other EU member states, including Germany, this is a development worth tracking closely, even though the practical change will not arrive for several years.

What the A1 certificate currently requires

The A1 certificate confirms which country's social security system applies to a worker during a cross-border assignment, so that the posted employee continues paying contributions in the sending country rather than being double-covered or falling into a coverage gap in the host country. Under the EU's social security coordination rules, Regulation 883/2004, a Romanian employer posting a worker to another member state needs to obtain the A1 before the assignment begins, and the worker should be able to produce it if a host-country labour inspectorate asks for it on site. Today this process runs through Romania's social security authorities and remains, in the Commission's own description, "a paper-and-portal process that routinely takes weeks."

That processing time has real consequences. A posting that starts before the A1 is confirmed, or a worker who cannot produce the certificate during an on-site inspection in the host country, creates exposure for the employer, since several member states, including Germany, treat missing or late A1 documentation as a compliance failure in its own right, separate from whether the underlying posting itself was legitimate.

What the ESSPASS proposal changes

The Fair Labour Mobility package is not only about the A1 certificate. It bundles a Communication with five legislative proposals, including the ESSPASS regulation itself, a Skills Portability Act, and directives addressing recognition of professional qualifications across the EU. The core promise of ESSPASS is that workers would be able to request and receive social security documents online and hold them digitally in the EU Digital Identity Wallet, with the Commission's stated aim being a document that a host-country inspector could verify in seconds rather than a certificate that has to be carried, checked, or faxed over.

Specifically for posted workers, the Commission has indicated that the portable document A1 would go digital one year after the ESSPASS Regulation itself enters into force, meaning the digital A1 is a second-stage feature of the broader framework rather than something that arrives alongside the initial legislation. The Commission estimates the broader package could generate around five billion euros in benefits by 2040, including roughly one billion euros in simplification gains across the EU.

The realistic timeline

Employers should not expect any immediate change to how A1 certificates are requested or carried. The package still needs approval from both the European Parliament and the Council of the EU before any of its elements take legal effect, and the Commission's own expectation is that practical implementation falls within a 2028 to 2030 window. That means the current paper-and-portal A1 process remains the operative one for assignments planned well into 2027, and employers who are posting staff in the near term should continue to follow existing procedures exactly as they do today.

What makes this worth tracking now, rather than later, is less about this year's compliance obligations and more about planning. Employers who post workers frequently, particularly into Germany where customs authorities have tightened enforcement around A1 documentation and tied it to broader posted-worker notification rules, will eventually be able to streamline that administrative layer once the digital system is live. Building awareness of the coming change into internal compliance planning now avoids being caught flat-footed once implementation dates firm up.

What Romanian employers should do in the meantime

• Continue requesting A1 certificates through the existing Romanian process well in advance of any posting, since current timelines remain measured in weeks rather than days
• Keep a physical or easily producible copy of each worker's A1 certificate available for the duration of a posting, since host-country inspections can occur without advance notice
• Monitor the legislative progress of the ESSPASS Regulation through the European Parliament and Council, since the one-year countdown to a digital A1 only begins once the regulation itself is adopted, not once it is proposed
• Treat the current proposal as a planning input for 2028 onward rather than a near-term compliance change, and avoid assuming any existing A1 requirement has been relaxed

How Nestlers Group supports employers posting workers abroad

Nestlers Group's Tax Services team manages A1 certificate applications for employers posting staff from Romania into other EU member states, including the coordination with Romanian social security authorities that current paper-based processing still requires. Our Immigration Services team handles the related ITM notification obligations for secondment entry and exit, so that posting compliance is addressed as a single coordinated file rather than separate, disconnected filings. As the ESSPASS framework moves through the EU legislative process, our Consultancy advisors track the implementation timeline on behalf of clients with regular cross-border assignment volume, so that internal compliance processes can be updated as soon as the digital A1 becomes operative rather than only once it becomes mandatory.

Sources: European Commission, Fair Labour Mobility package communication and legislative proposals, 15 September 2026; remoteworkeurope.eu, EU Fair Labour Mobility Package: ESSPASS and the digital A1 certificate (2026); Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the coordination of social security systems; Fragomen, A1 Certificate of Social Security Coverage guidance on cross-border postings.