Self Employment

Hi all:

Im picking up  self-employed contract in Bucharest soon.  Im doing alot of research on taxes at the moment, and I cant seem to find what the payments are for self employed persons.  I know that income tax is 16%, but for social security the information is not really clear if you are self employed.

I know I need to get proper advice, and I expect this back in the next few weeks, but any bits of information about taxes and payments would be very welcomed.

Anyone else out there self-employed?  Whats your experience?

Regards, ainhk

I assume you're talking about a PFA, which is the usual system for self-employment in Romania (although there are a couple of other methods I think). If that's the case, last time I looked into it you have to pay three taxes:

Income tax - 16%
Health insurance - 5.5%
CAS (pensions) - this is trickier to calculate, but assuming your average monthly profit is more than about 750RON, you can pay about 230 RON monthly. You can opt to pay more if you like, I think.

You can also opt to pay unemployment benefit at about 0.5% and I think there is another optional payment of around 0.8%.

Maybe someone else who currently works on a PFA can confirm or give updated or more accurate figures.

ainhk wrote:

Hi all:

Im picking up  self-employed contract in Bucharest soon.  Im doing alot of research on taxes at the moment, and I cant seem to find what the payments are for self employed persons.  I know that income tax is 16%, but for social security the information is not really clear if you are self employed.

I know I need to get proper advice, and I expect this back in the next few weeks, but any bits of information about taxes and payments would be very welcomed.

Anyone else out there self-employed?  Whats your experience?

Regards, ainhk


Hi ,

I can recommend you this site witch is helpful in your situation

http://www.onrc.ro/
here you'll find contacts person , informations , anything you need

Good luck

Hi Shawarma,

To be honest, I'm not sure of the rules in that case. When you say he's on a family residence permit, is he married to a Romanian or other EU citizen? I would have thought, according to the rules I've read about spouses of EU citizens, that he would have the same rights as an EU citizen, but I'm only guessing. I suppose there might be rules in place that say he can't have a PFA, or maybe, as is often the case, the bureaucrat he dealt with was simply making their job easier by refusing him. I've always found that most of the people you deal with in local administration are rarely up-to-date with the latest changes to the rules.

Maybe I am wrong, but why use the PFA route?

Isnt it more simple to use ”Civil Contracts” (between the private individual and the company). According to article 52 of the Romanian Fiscal Code and other tax regulations, the company who pays the individual has to retain certain taxes at source.

http://legeaz.net/legea-571-2003-cod-fiscal/art-52

The individual person (not PFA) receiving the renumeration, then has to declare income from civil contracts using Tax form 112

http://www.anaf.ro/public/wps/portal/!u … FAGtMq2Y!/

I am not an accountant, and perhaps someone can correct me if I am wrong...

Mark_W wrote:

Maybe I am wrong, but why use the PFA route?

Isnt it more simple to use ”Civil Contracts” (between the private individual and the company). According to article 52 of the Romanian Fiscal Code and other tax regulations, the company who pays the individual has to retain certain taxes at source.

http://legeaz.net/legea-571-2003-cod-fiscal/art-52

The individual person (not PFA) receiving the renumeration, then has to declare income from civil contracts using Tax form 112

http://www.anaf.ro/public/wps/portal/!u … FAGtMq2Y!/

I am not an accountant, and perhaps someone can correct me if I am wrong...


Not a good idea to hope that someone will agree to pay you based on a Civil Contract as it is highly interpretable and in general companies avoid this kind of agreement.

The contributions mentioned above by Maykal are correct.
As a PFA there is always a risk to be reclassified as an dependent activity and forced to pay all the social contributions applicable for an employment contract but, since the law was changed, 3 years ago I did not heard of any PFA who was reclassified (and there are more than 100.000 in Romania).
As for PFA for non-EU, please check this link:http://ori.mai.gov.ro/detalii/pagina/en/Activitati-profesionale/72

Hello,
You could also decide on a limited liability company, which is recognized by the laws of Romania, in romanian is a SRL (ro. societate cu răspundere limitată).  You could choose also an income tax of 3% (  if the revenues do not exceed the amount of 65.000 Euro/year and depending of the object of activity).