Posting workers to Romania and the detachment authorisation
The Romanian service beneficiary obtains the detachment authorisation in 30 days for 100 euro, and a posting cannot exceed one year in any five year period.
Posting is the route by which a worker stays employed by a company abroad and temporarily performs work in Romania. The detachment authorisation is obtained by the Romanian service beneficiary from the General Inspectorate for Immigration, within 30 days of filing, extendable by 15 days, for a fee of 100 euro.
The most expensive confusion on the Romanian market is treating posting as a faster version of hiring. It is not. The two regimes have different holders, different contracts and different duration limits, and the wrong choice is usually corrected at inspection.
What separates posting from hiring
In a hire, the individual employment contract is concluded with the Romanian company and the authorisation covers one post and one location. In a posting, the contract stays with the employer in the origin state, and the Romanian company is the beneficiary of the service rather than the employer.
| Element | Employment authorisation | Detachment authorisation |
|---|---|---|
| Who applies | the employer in Romania | the service beneficiary in Romania |
| Where the employment contract sits | with the Romanian company | with the company in the origin state |
| Duration | validity of the single permit, with renewal | at most one year in any five year period |
| Matching visa | long stay visa for employment | long stay visa for posting |
| Fee | 100 euro | 100 euro |
| Decision period | 30 days, extendable by 15 | 30 days, extendable by 15 |
Ordinance 25/2014 on the employment and posting of foreign nationals in Romania governs both authorisations. It was amended by Ordinance 6/2024, published on 25 January 2024, which allowed authorisations to be transmitted electronically to the applicant and adjusted the penalty regime. If the authorisation is refused, the 100 euro fee is refunded under the conditions set by law.
Workers posted by companies established in the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland who present a residence permit issued by the home state are exempt from the detachment authorisation, as are persons holding free labour market access under treaties concluded by Romania.
The European rules that sit on top of the Romanian authorisation
The detachment authorisation is the immigration document. The posted worker's employment conditions come from elsewhere: from Directive 96/71/EC on the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services, revised by Directive 2018/957 and transposed in Romania by Law 16/2017 on the posting of employees in the framework of transnational service provision.
The practical consequence is that a worker posted to Romania is owed the host state's hard core of working conditions, remuneration included, rather than the minimum wage of the origin state. After twelve months of posting, a period extendable to eighteen months by a reasoned notification, essentially all host state working conditions apply, subject to the exceptions the directive allows.
Intra-corporate transfer runs on its own regime, derived from Directive 2014/66/EU on the conditions of entry and residence of third country nationals in the framework of an intra-corporate transfer. It addresses managers, specialists and trainee employees, not production or construction roles, and mistaking it for ordinary posting produces refused files.
Where a posting breaks
The first failure mode is duration. The one year in five limit does not reset by changing the Romanian beneficiary, nor by pausing the activity for a few weeks. A worker posted for eleven months on an industrial commissioning cannot be posted again the following year to service the same installation.
The second is the real nature of the relationship. If the worker takes daily instructions from the Romanian company, works its hours, on its equipment, inside its teams, inspectors can reclassify the relationship as disguised employment. The consequence is not an administrative correction but the application of the regime for taking on a worker without an employment authorisation, with the penalty attached to each person.
The third is pay documentation. A posting in which remuneration stays at origin state level, without applying the Romanian level, breaches Law 16/2017 even where the detachment authorisation is valid and the visa is in order.
For stable long term roles, the correct route stays direct employment, described in the employment authorisation procedure. The common European document behind the Romanian permit is explained in the single permit explained, and the liability of an employer sponsoring a worker is covered in the employer compliance chain.
Posting remains the right instrument for installation, commissioning and short term transfer of know-how, and the one year in five limit is precisely the definition of that purpose. The working framework for employers is set out on the employers page.
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