Pension and Health Contributions for Non-EU Employees in Romania: What Employers Must Withhold in 2026

A non-EU employee hired directly onto a Romanian employment contract is subject to the same pension and health withholding as a Romanian national, in full, from the first payslip. There is no reduced rate for foreign staff and no grace period. The only way to change that outcome is a bilateral social security agreement that puts the employee under their home country's system instead, and employers who assume one applies without checking the paperwork are the ones who end up correcting payroll months later.

Getting this wrong is not a minor accounting slip. Romania withholds pension and health contributions at source, declares them monthly, and reconciles them against the employee's Romanian tax number. A missed exemption, or a wrongly claimed one, shows up in the ANAF record under that employee's CNP, not in a general company ledger, which makes it harder to quietly fix later.

What gets withheld, and from whom

Under the Fiscal Code (Law 227/2015), two contributions apply to employment income in Romania:

• CAS, the pension contribution, at 25 percent of gross salary
• CASS, the health contribution, at 10 percent of gross salary

Both are employee contributions. The employer's role is to calculate, withhold, and remit them through the monthly D112 declaration; the employer does not pay a matching CAS or CASS on top of the salary in a standard office-based role. The combined 35 percent is deducted from the employee's gross pay before it reaches their account, and there is no salary ceiling that caps the base for either contribution on employment income.

An employer-side CAS addition does exist, but only for roles the Labour Inspectorate classifies as uncommon (an extra 4 percent) or special (an extra 8 percent) working conditions. These classifications are tied to the nature of the job, not the employee's nationality, and rarely apply outside specific industrial or hazardous occupations.

Pillar II: the part employers sometimes forget to flag to new hires

Of the 25 percent CAS, 4.75 percentage points are routed automatically into the employee's individual Pillar II private pension account rather than the state pension fund. Until 1 January 2025, several sectors, including IT, construction, agriculture, and food production, carried exemptions from mandatory Pillar II enrolment. Those sector exemptions were repealed as of that date, so every employee under a standard Romanian employment contract, Romanian or foreign, is now enrolled in Pillar II by default.

For employers relocating staff from markets where private pension participation is optional or employee-elected, this is worth explaining proactively. A foreign employee who expects their full pension contribution to go into a single state system, and later discovers part of it sits in a separate privately managed account, tends to raise it as a payroll query rather than a pension question, and it lands on HR's desk either way.

When a totalization agreement changes the picture

Romania's bilateral social security agreements exist precisely to prevent an employee from paying into two countries' systems for the same work at the same time. The mechanics differ by treaty, but the general pattern is consistent: an employee on a genuine, time-limited posting can remain under their home country's social security system, evidenced by a certificate of coverage, instead of being enrolled in Romanian CAS and CASS.

The Romania-United States Social Security Agreement is a useful recent example of how this works in practice. Signed on 23 March 2023, the agreement entered into force on 1 September 2026, after both governments completed their internal ratification procedures. It allows employees on temporary assignment between the two countries to remain under their home system for up to five years with a certificate of coverage, combines contribution periods across both countries for workers who would otherwise fall short of a minimum qualifying period, and extends coverage to third-country nationals who have been subject to either country's social security legislation. Employers with US-Romania assignments in progress around the entry-into-force date need to confirm which system applies and update assignment letters and shadow payroll calculations accordingly, since single-country affiliation applies going forward rather than being optional.

The practical takeaway for HR teams is that a totalization agreement only changes withholding when the posting is structured and documented correctly. An employee simply hired locally in Romania, rather than posted under a certificate of coverage, falls under ordinary Romanian CAS and CASS from day one, regardless of which country they came from or whether their home country has an agreement with Romania at all.

What this means for payroll setup before day one

Before a non-EU employee's first payslip, the employer needs clarity on three things: whether the employee is being hired directly on a Romanian contract or posted under an existing employment relationship elsewhere, whether a social security agreement with the employee's home or posting country is in force and applicable to their situation, and whether a certificate of coverage has actually been obtained, rather than assumed. Each of these determines whether CAS and CASS apply in full, apply partially, or do not apply at all for the posting period.

How Nestlers Group Supports Payroll Compliance for Non-EU Employees

Nestlers Group's Tax Services team manages monthly tax liability calculation and statement submission for foreign employees on Romanian payroll, tax registry notifications on arrival, and the practical paperwork tied to bilateral social security agreements, including determining whether a posting qualifies for home-country coverage before payroll is set up rather than after a correction is needed. The Payroll and HR Compliance team handles the underlying CAS and CASS withholding, Pillar II enrolment, and D112 reporting for each new hire. Where relocation and global mobility planning both touch the same move, our Global Mobility service coordinates immigration, tax registration, and payroll setup as one sequence rather than three separate workstreams that an HR team has to reconcile themselves.

Sources: Romania Fiscal Code, Law 227/2015 (CAS and CASS rates and employment income base); repeal of sector-specific Pillar II exemptions effective 1 January 2025; Romania-United States Social Security Agreement, signed 23 March 2023, entered into force 1 September 2026 (totalization, certificates of coverage, third-country national coverage, US embassy in Bucharest confirmation of 19 May 2026).