Setting up a business in Romania for non-EU citizens

What non-EU founders need to know before setting up

For a non-EU citizen setting up business Romania, the legal path runs through the Romanian SRL — the limited liability company that the vast majority of foreign founders use. The good news is that Romanian company law does not reserve SRL ownership for EU nationals. A third country national can be the sole shareholder and the administrator of a Romanian SRL, and there is no minimum residency requirement attached to ownership itself. What changes for non-EU founders is not your right to register a company, but the document and identity-verification work that sits around it: how your passport is read, which papers need certified translation, and how you sign.

This page deals strictly with the company formation process and the document review behind it. It does not address visas, residence permits, or the right to live or work in Romania, which are separate immigration matters decided by other authorities. Many of our clients form and run a Romanian SRL while living abroad, so it is worth separating the two questions early. If you also want the broader picture of the entity itself, our overview of the Romanian SRL for foreigners walks through structure, taxation basics, and what the company can and cannot do.

Documents and translations for a third country national

The most common reason a third country national business setup takes longer than expected is documentation, not the law. As a non-EU founder you will be identified by your passport rather than an EU ID card, and depending on your country of origin certain documents may need to be apostilled or super-legalised before Romania will accept them. After document review we tell you exactly which of your papers, if any, fall into that category, because the requirement varies by citizenship and by the nature of each document.

In many standard cases, the file a Romanian SRL non-EU founder needs to prepare includes the following, with sworn Romanian translations where applicable:

• A valid passport for each non-EU shareholder and for the administrator
• The proposed company name (we run availability checks and reserve it)
• The registered office address and supporting proof for that address
• An administrator declaration confirming they meet the legal conditions to hold the role
• Shareholder declarations and, for a corporate shareholder, the foreign company's incorporation documents

Where a shareholder is a foreign legal entity rather than an individual, expect an additional layer: the parent company's certificate of registration, its constitutive documents, and proof of who is authorised to represent it, again translated and, where applicable, apostilled. This is one of the main factors that moves a quote, so it is helpful to tell us up front whether the shareholder is a person or a company.

How non-EU founders sign and form remotely

You do not generally need to be physically present in Romania to set up your SRL. Non-EU founders most often sign through a power of attorney, which authorises a representative in Romania to file the incorporation documents with the Trade Register on their behalf. The power of attorney is prepared, signed in front of a notary in your current country of residence, and then translated and legalised for use in Romania. This is the route that makes a remote setup workable, and our guide to company formation remotely explains the signing logistics in more detail.

The administrator declarations deserve particular attention. Romanian law requires the person who will manage the company to declare, on the record, that they meet the statutory conditions for the role. For a non-EU administrator we make sure the wording, translation, and signing route are handled correctly the first time, since an error here is a frequent cause of rejected files at the registry.

Costs and what affects your quote

Romanian SRL formation for foreign citizens starts from €300. A registered office, which you will need if you do not have a qualifying address of your own, starts from €150 per year, and the two are often taken together as a remote SRL plus registered office package from €450. If you later need to amend the company — change the administrator, the address, the activity codes, or the shareholding — company changes start from €200. These are starting points only.

Your final quote depends on your citizenship, the documents you can provide, the number of shareholders, whether sworn translations are required, and whether the shareholder is an individual or a foreign legal entity. A single non-EU individual founder with a clean passport and a straightforward activity sits at the simpler end; a multi-shareholder structure with a foreign corporate parent and several documents needing apostille and translation sits at the other. We confirm the figure after we have reviewed your file, not before.

Check your non-EU scenario

Every non-EU citizen setting up business Romania starts from a slightly different position, so the fastest way forward is to let us look at yours. Send us your citizenship, your current country of residence, whether you need a registered office, and the business activity you have in mind, and tell us whether the shareholder will be you as an individual or a foreign company. Message us on WhatsApp or use the contact form, and after we review your details we will set out the document list, the likely signing route, and a clear quote so you know exactly where you stand before anything is filed.