E-invoicing in Romania

Mandatory E-Invoicing in Romania: What Businesses Need to Know

Romania is one of the European countries that has directly linked e-invoicing to tax audits. The national RO e-Factura system serves as the central infrastructure for sending, receiving, and reporting electronic invoices.

The implementation took place in several phases. E-invoicing for transactions with the government became mandatory starting in 2022. For domestic B2B transactions, an initial reporting phase began on January 1, 2024. Since July 1, 2024, electronic B2B invoices must actually be sent to and received from the customer via RO e-Factura.

As of January 1, 2025, the system has been further expanded to include B2C transactions. There is one important difference here: for B2C transactions, the invoice is reported to RO e-Factura, but the supplier remains responsible for providing the invoice to the consumer.

Starting January 1, 2026, invoices must be submitted to RO e-Factura within five business days of issuance, but no later than five business days after the statutory deadline by which the invoice should have been issued.

What changes as a result of the Romanian requirement?

RO e-Factura changes both the format and the route of an invoice. For domestic B2B transactions covered by the mandate, it is not sufficient to send an invoice as a PDF or XML file directly to the customer.

The supplier creates a structured electronic invoice and sends it to RO e-Factura. The system performs technical checks and then makes the validated invoice available to the customer. This places the Romanian government directly within the electronic invoice flow.

As of July 1, 2024, for the relevant domestic B2B transactions, the invoice sent through the system in accordance with the RO e-Factura rules is considered the relevant electronic invoice. Simply sending a PDF via email in parallel therefore does not satisfy this requirement.

Furthermore, RO e-Factura provides the Romanian tax authority with highly detailed and rapid insight into business transactions. As a result, e-invoicing in Romania is an integral part of a broader digitization of VAT compliance.

What is RO e-Factura?

RO e-Factura is the national electronic invoicing system of the Romanian Ministry of Finance and the ANAF tax authority. The platform has been operational since 2021 and is used for B2G, B2B, and B2C processes.

For regular domestic B2B e-invoicing, RO e-Factura acts as the central link between the supplier and the customer. The supplier submits the structured invoice to the system. After technical processing, the document is provided with the Ministry of Finance’s electronic seal and made available to the recipient.

Businesses can use ANAF’s online services, but for larger volumes, RO e-Factura is typically integrated with ERP, invoicing, or e-invoicing systems via software or API integration.

Through this integration, organizations can, among other things:

create structured invoices;
validate invoices according to Romanian specifications;
automatically send invoices to RO e-Factura;
process status and error messages;
retrieve incoming invoices;
transfer invoice data to the financial system.

What is an e-invoice according to Romanian regulations?

According to Romanian regulations, an electronic invoice is an invoice that is issued, sent, and received in a structured electronic XML format that enables automatic electronic processing.

A PDF does not meet this requirement. Even when a PDF is created digitally and sent via email, it does not contain the structured invoice data required for RO e-Factura.

The Romanian specifications are based on the European standard EN 16931. Romania uses a national Core Invoice Usage Specification ( RO_CIUS) for this purpose. This specification defines how the European invoice fields and rules must be applied within the Romanian context.

The technical infrastructure supports structured XML syntaxes such as UBL and UN/CEFACT CII. In practice, UBL plays an important role in the interfaces and tools that ANAF makes available for RO e-Factura.

How are Romanian B2B e-invoices exchanged?

In a standard domestic B2B transaction, the invoice flow generally proceeds as follows:

The supplier creates the invoice in the ERP, accounting, or invoicing system.
The invoice data is converted into a structured XML format that complies with RO_CIUS.
The invoice is sent electronically to RO e-Factura.
The system performs technical and formal checks.
The validated invoice is made available to the customer via RO e-Factura.
The customer retrieves the electronic invoice and processes it in their financial records.

With this, Romania has opted for a central platform model. The supplier and customer do not exchange the tax-relevant electronic invoice exclusively with each other directly: RO e-Factura serves as a mandatory link in the process.

Which transactions are subject to the B2B requirement?

Mandatory B2B e-invoicing primarily applies to transactions between taxpayers established in Romania, for supplies and services that take place in Romania according to Romanian VAT rules.

A taxpayer established in Romania is not limited to a company whose headquarters are located in Romania. A foreign company with a permanent establishment in Romania may also be considered established there if it has sufficient technical and personnel resources to carry out taxable transactions on a regular basis.

For Dutch corporate groups with a separate Romanian subsidiary, this generally means that the Romanian entity is directly subject to RO e-Factura.

A Dutch company that has only a Romanian VAT number and does not have a place of business or relevant permanent establishment there is in a different position. Companies not established in Romania may voluntarily register for RO e-Factura under certain conditions, but are not automatically subject to the same domestic B2B issuance requirement as Romanian entities.

What changed for foreign companies in 2026?

As of January 1, 2026, the scope of RO e-Factura has been expanded in one key respect.

A supplier established in Romania that provides a supply of goods or services with the place of taxation in Romania to a company not established in Romania but registered for VAT in Romania must, in principle, also submit the relevant invoice via RO e-Factura.

Exceptions apply, including for certain intra-Community supplies of goods where the customer uses a VAT identification number from another EU member state.

For international organizations, therefore, it is not only the supplier’s place of establishment that matters. The customer’s VAT status and the tax jurisdiction of the transaction can also determine whether invoice data must be submitted via RO e-Factura.

B2C: e-invoicing or e-reporting?

Since January 1, 2025, taxpayers based in Romania have also been required to report invoices for domestic B2C transactions to RO e-Factura.

This process differs significantly from B2B e-invoicing. A consumer does not need to be connected to RO e-Factura and does not necessarily receive their invoice through the system.

The supplier:

prepares the invoice in accordance with applicable tax regulations;
provides the invoice to the consumer through the usual channel;
also sends the relevant invoice data to RO e-Factura.

For B2C transactions, RO e-Factura thus primarily functions as a tax reporting channel. The transaction data is made available to ANAF without RO e-Factura serving as the primary delivery channel to the consumer.

Since 2025, simplified invoices have also been subject to the reporting requirement in many cases. Receipts that themselves meet the conditions of a simplified invoice are exempt from this requirement under specific conditions.

The submission deadline: five business days

An important change effective January 1, 2026, is the deadline for submitting invoices to RO e-Factura.

The deadline is now five business days from the date the invoice is issued. The invoice must not be submitted later than five business days after the tax deadline by which it should have been issued.

Until the end of 2025, this period was calculated based on five calendar days. The change to business days gives businesses more practical processing time, but still means that invoices must be processed by the tax infrastructure shortly after issuance.

The deadline applies to both relevant B2B invoices and B2C invoices that must be reported to the system.

Validation and Error Handling

Because the invoice passes through a government platform, technical validation is an essential part of the Romanian model.

RO e-Factura checks whether the submitted XML document complies with the required structure and validation rules. If the file does not comply, the error must be corrected and the invoice resubmitted.

For automated invoicing processes, therefore, format conversion is not the only important factor. The financial process must also account for:

technical validations prior to submission;
acknowledgments of receipt;
error and status messages;
reprocessing of rejected documents;
monitoring of the statutory submission deadline.

With large invoice volumes, the quality of master and transaction data thus becomes a direct component of VAT compliance.

Penalties for Non-Compliance

Romania imposes specific penalties for non-compliance with e-invoicing rules.

If a B2B transaction is incorrectly invoiced outside the RO e-Factura system, the supplier may be subject to a fine based on the total value of the invoice. The recipient may also be penalized if they accept and process an invoice outside the mandatory electronic system.

In addition, there are separate fines for failing to submit invoices on time. The amount of these fines varies depending on factors such as the size and category of the taxpayer.

For organizations, this means that it is not only important to be able to generate a correct XML file. Timely transmission, status checks, and the handling of any errors must also be systematically incorporated into the invoicing process.

E-invoicing to the Romanian Government

The public sector in Romania was ahead of the general B2B requirement. Since July 1, 2022, mandatory electronic invoicing via RO e-Factura has been in effect for relevant transactions based on public procurement contracts.

As of July 1, 2024, the use of electronic invoicing was further expanded to include other transactions with public institutions.

B2G invoices must also be prepared in a structured format and sent via RO e-Factura. For public organizations, the central system thus also serves as the infrastructure for receiving and processing these invoices.

The Romanian specifications align with the European standard EN 16931 but include additional national implementation rules via RO_CIUS.

What role does Peppol play in Romania?

Peppol is not the central infrastructure for Romania’s mandatory e-invoicing requirement. For transactions covered by the national mandate, RO e-Factura is the designated platform.

This distinguishes Romania, for example, from Belgium, where Peppol serves as the primary infrastructure for mandatory B2B exchange.

An international e-invoicing provider can use Peppol for other markets and document flows, but must be able to communicate specifically with RO e-Factura and support the RO_CIUS rules to ensure compliance in Romania.

RO e-Factura as Part of Digital VAT Compliance

RO e-Factura does not stand alone. Romania is digitizing various components of its tax information system, including RO e-TVA, SAF-T, and other electronic reporting systems.

The data from electronic invoices can be used by the tax authority to better compare transactions and VAT returns. The expansion of RO e-Factura to B2C was partly intended to make more transaction data available for the broader RO e-TVA process.

As a result, tax audits are shifting increasingly away from relying solely on periodic VAT returns toward auditing underlying transaction data.

Romania is thus a clear example of a broader European trend: e-invoicing is used not only to digitize invoicing processes but also as a source for transactional VAT compliance.

What does ViDA have to do with Romania?

The Romanian requirements are national measures and were already implemented before the key European Digital Reporting Requirements under VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) took effect.

Starting July 1, 2030, ViDA will introduce harmonized Digital Reporting Requirements for relevant cross-border B2B transactions within the European Union. This reporting will be based on structured electronic invoices.

Romania is therefore not waiting for the European mandate. For domestic transactions, ANAF already has access to detailed, structured invoice data thanks to RO e-Factura.

However, the national system will need to align with the European standards being introduced under ViDA. The implementation date of the national reporting system is relevant in this regard: ViDA includes various transitional rules for existing and newer national digital reporting systems.

For international companies, this results in a combination of national Romanian e-invoicing and reporting rules and, starting in 2030, European rules for relevant cross-border transactions.

The Romanian Roadmap for E-Invoicing

The key steps are:

November 2021: RO e-Factura becomes operational for electronic invoice exchange.
July 1, 2022: Mandatory e-invoicing via RO e-Factura is introduced for relevant B2G transactions and for certain B2B transactions involving goods posing a tax risk.
January 1, 2024: The general B2B requirement begins with a reporting phase for domestic invoices.
July 1, 2024: Full mandatory electronic B2B invoicing via RO e-Factura takes effect. Electronic invoices must be sent and received through the system.
July 1, 2024: Voluntary reporting of B2C invoices via RO e-Factura becomes possible.
January 1, 2025: Reporting of domestic B2C invoices via RO e-Factura becomes mandatory.
July 1, 2025: The system will be further expanded to include various additional categories of organizations and transactions.
January 1, 2026: The submission deadline changes from five calendar days to five business days.
January 1, 2026: Romanian suppliers must also submit certain invoices to non-established businesses that are registered for VAT in Romania via RO e-Factura.
July 1, 2030: ViDA’s European Digital Reporting Requirements will apply to relevant cross-border B2B transactions.

What does this mean for organizations?

For organizations with a Romanian entity, e-invoicing has now become an integral part of financial and tax operations. Outgoing and incoming B2B invoices must be processable via RO e-Factura, and B2C invoices must be reported to the system within the statutory deadline.

To achieve this, the financial infrastructure must do more than just generate a structured invoice. RO_CIUS validation, communication with RO e-Factura, status processing, incoming invoices, and error handling must also be part of the process.

For international organizations, the combination of different national models requires particular attention. Belgium uses Peppol, France works with accredited platforms, Poland with KSeF, Italy with SdI, and Romania with RO e-Factura. Ultimately, the underlying ERP system must be able to translate the same financial reality into a different technical and tax exchange model in each country.

An international e-invoicing solution is therefore increasingly serving as the connecting layer between ERP systems, local invoice formats, national infrastructures, and tax reporting obligations.