When a foreign worker can change employer in Romania: the 6 month block and the new permit

A foreign worker can move to another employer in Romania only on a fresh employment permit issued by the General Inspectorate for Immigration (IGI). Emergency Ordinance 32/2026 added a general 6 month block from the start of work, counted from the registration of the contract in REGES-ONLINE. Under one year of contract, written consent from the first employer is also required.

The base rule: the residence permit stays, the work permit is rebuilt

Article 17 of Government Ordinance 25/2014, as amended by Emergency Ordinance 143/2022, allows a foreign national to take a new job with the same employer or with a different employer during the validity of the single permit or the EU Blue Card, on the basis of a new employment permit. The residence document is not cancelled the day the contract ends, but it does not carry the right to work across to the new company on its own. The right to work comes from the employment permit, and that permit is tied to one named employer, one job title and one salary level.

For the incoming employer this means the job is not to check that the worker holds a permit. The job is to file a full permit application with IGI, much as it would for a worker recruited from abroad. The one difference is that the worker is already in the country, so for a new permit with a different employer IGI also asks for the Romanian criminal record certificate, a document that came from the country of origin the first time round.

The second condition sits in the same Article 17 of Ordinance 25/2014. If the individual employment contract has been registered for less than one year at the time of the application, the move to another employer requires the written consent of the first employer. That is a signature the new employer cannot produce on its own and the former employer is under no duty to give. Files that stall here stall completely: without the written consent, IGI does not reach the substance of the application.

The 6 month block introduced by Emergency Ordinance 32/2026

Emergency Ordinance 32/2026 layered a general prohibition on top of the consent rule: a foreign worker cannot change employer for 6 months from the start of work. The clock does not run from the visa date, nor from the date the single permit was printed. It runs from the date the individual employment contract was registered in REGES-ONLINE. For an employer planning a takeover, that is the only date that matters, and it is verified in the register rather than in the immigration file.

The ordinance leaves one exit before the term expires: an earlier change is allowed where the employer has committed a serious and documented breach of the contract. The word carrying the weight is documented. A verbal complaint does not open that route; inspection reports, a complaint filed with the territorial labour inspectorate, payroll records and written correspondence do.

Holders of a D/AM2 visa sit under a tighter regime of their own. They may change employer only through the placement agency that brought them in, until they complete 2 years of activity. An employer that takes such a worker on directly, without that agency, is building a file IGI will refuse however clean the rest of the documentation is.

Timeline and cost carried by the incoming employer

The IGI procedure follows the ordinary employment permit route: the application is filed with the territorial immigration office, the permit fee is 100 euro for a permanent worker, paid in lei at the day's exchange rate, and the decision term is the 30 days set by Ordinance 25/2014, extendable by a further 15 days where IGI calls for additional checks. On top of those days sit the time to obtain the Romanian criminal record certificate and, where it applies, the time needed to secure the former employer's written consent, which has no statutory deadline at all.

Plan an internal takeover in Romania across roughly two months, from the decision in principle to the first legally worked day, not across two weeks. The full cost structure of a hire is set out in the cost of hiring a non EU worker in Romania, and the document list for the permit file is in the employment authorisation procedure.

The most expensive failure mode is starting work before the new permit is issued. The worker is physically in the country, holds a single permit that is valid for the previous employer and looks compliant at a glance, but a new contract without a permit is unauthorised employment, with the penalties described in employer obligations towards foreign workers. Build the permit file in parallel with the negotiation, not after the contract is signed.

For an employer taking on workers already resident in Romania, the order of checks is fixed: the REGES-ONLINE date, the age of the contract, the visa route, then the permit file. Corridor and case support sits on the employers page.