Payroll Setup for Non-EU Employees in Romania: What Employers Must Do Before Day One

Hiring a non-EU worker in Romania does not end once the work permit and long-stay visa are approved. Before that employee's first day, the employer still has to complete a separate chain of payroll and registration obligations, and getting any link wrong now carries real financial exposure. Since Emergency Ordinance No. 32/2026 (GEO 32/2026) came into force on 27 April 2026, Romania has tightened reporting deadlines, mandated new contract formats, and raised fines for employers who treat foreign hires the same way they treat domestic ones. As of 1 January 2026, failing to register an employee before their start date carries a fine of RON 40,000, and it applies per worker.

For HR teams managing their first non-EU hires in Romania, or scaling up a team that already includes them, payroll setup is best treated as a compliance project with a fixed sequence of steps, not an afterthought to the immigration file.

Confirm the CNP Before Payroll Can Start

Every foreign employee needs a Cod Numeric Personal (CNP), Romania's personal identification number, before they can be legally paid. The CNP is issued alongside the D/AM1 visa (for highly qualified workers, which is registration-based and not subject to quota) or the D/AM2 visa (for general labour, which draws against Romania's annual quota and the List of Shortage Occupations). The number appears on the visa sticker and residence documentation, and it is the identifier payroll software, the tax authority, and the health insurance system will all use going forward. Employers should confirm the CNP is correctly recorded before generating a single payslip, since a mismatch at this stage tends to surface weeks later as a rejected tax filing.

Register the Employer and the Employee on the Right Platforms

GEO 32/2026 requires employers of non-EU nationals to be listed in the Register of Employers of Foreign Nationals (R.A.S.) and to operate through WorkinRomania.gov.ro, the digital platform that now centralises recruitment, placement, and authorisation for third-country workers. A transition period ran through 7 August 2026, during which the government registered employers and tested the platform; full operational implementation began 8 August 2026, meaning any employer without an active R.A.S. registration is now out of step with the law, not just early in a rollout.

Separately, employee-level registration has moved from the old REVISAL system to REGES-ONLINE, a digital register maintained by the Labour Inspectorate. REGES-ONLINE carries its own reporting clock:

• Certain contract changes must be reported within 3 days
• Others within 5 days
• Remaining categories within 20 days

The distinction matters because the fine structure treats late or missing registration as a per-worker violation, not a single administrative slip.

Use the Mandatory Contract Templates

Since 11 June 2026, under Order 655/2026 (Official Gazette No. 484), employers recruiting non-EU staff through a placement agency must use one of three approved framework contracts: the service provision contract, the placement contract, and the individual employment contract. Each must be drafted bilingually, in Romanian and in the worker's own language or another language they understand, with the Romanian text controlling in the event of a discrepancy. A contract that skips the bilingual requirement is not simply non-compliant, it is null and void, and a contract that is not drafted bilingually at all carries a separate RON 6,000 fine. Payroll cannot legally run against a contract that has not been executed correctly, so this step needs to close before the first payslip, not alongside it.

Set Up Salary Payment the Way the Law Now Requires

From 8 August 2026, salaries paid to non-EU workers must go exclusively through bank transfer. Cash payment arrangements that may have been common for smaller employers are no longer an option for this category of worker, and payroll processes should be updated to confirm each non-EU employee has an active Romanian bank account before their first pay cycle, since delays here can push a worker's first payment past the point regulators expect it.

Run the Contributions Correctly From the First Payslip

Once registration and contracts are in place, Romanian payroll math applies the same way it does for local hires. Employers pay a 2.25 percent CAM contribution on gross salary. Employees contribute 25 percent to social insurance (CAS) and 10 percent to health insurance (CASS), with a flat 10 percent income tax applied after contributions and any personal deduction. These figures feed into the monthly D112 declaration filed with ANAF, alongside the employer's REGES-ONLINE reporting obligations. Foreign employees are covered by Romanian social security from their first day of employment through ordinary payroll contributions, except where a certificate of coverage, such as an A1 form for seconded EU nationals, applies instead.

Build a Pre-Day-One Checklist

Employers who have gone through this process successfully tend to work from a fixed sequence: confirm the CNP, verify R.A.S. and WorkinRomania.gov.ro registration status, execute the bilingual contract using the Order 655/2026 template, confirm the employee's Romanian bank account, register the contract in REGES-ONLINE within the applicable window, and only then run the first payroll cycle. Skipping the sequence, for example running payroll before REGES-ONLINE registration is confirmed, is one of the more common ways employers end up exposed to the RON 40,000 fine even when every other part of the hire was handled correctly.

How Nestlers Group Supports Payroll Setup for Non-EU Workers

Nestlers Group's Payroll and HR Compliance team manages the full payroll onboarding sequence for non-EU hires in Romania, from CNP verification and REGES-ONLINE registration through monthly D112 filings and social security contributions, so employers are not tracking multiple regulatory deadlines manually. For companies that would rather not establish a Romanian legal entity at all, our Employer of Record service lets Nestlers Group act as the legal employer, handling payroll, the mandatory bilingual contracts under Order 655/2026, and statutory registrations on the client's behalf. Our Work Permit and Visa Support team works alongside payroll setup to manage D/AM1 and D/AM2 applications through WorkinRomania.gov.ro, ensuring the CNP and permit status are confirmed before payroll needs them.

Sources: Emergency Ordinance No. 32/2026 (Official Gazette No. 335, 27 April 2026); Order of the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity No. 655/2026 (Official Gazette No. 484, 11 June 2026); Register of Employers of Foreign Nationals (R.A.S.) and WorkinRomania.gov.ro platform documentation; Labour Inspectorate REGES-ONLINE reporting guidance; ANAF D112 payroll declaration requirements; KPMG Romania Tax Newsflash, April 2026.