Business Permits & Incorporation for Foreigners in Bucharest

Good to Know

• A foreigner can be 100% owner and sole director of a Romanian SRL — no Romanian co-founder, resident director, or local sponsor is legally required.
• You don't have to be physically in Bucharest to incorporate: it can be done remotely via a notarized (and apostilled/legalized) power of attorney to a local representative, though this adds a few extra business days versus doing it in person.
• Company ownership and personal residency are separate tracks — setting up the SRL does not by itself grant you the right to live in Romania; if you plan to relocate here yourself, you'll need to look into residence permit requirements separately.
• The company name must contain at least one Romanian word, so a fully English or foreign-language name will be rejected by ONRC's automated similarity/naming check.
• Opening a Romanian business bank account can be the slowest part of the process for non-residents — some banks require an in-person branch visit even after remote incorporation, so budget extra time for this step.
• The 1-3% microenterprise tax regime (versus 16% standard corporate tax) is available to qualifying small SRLs with revenue under the EU-aligned threshold, which is a major reason many nomads and small foreign-owned firms choose the SRL structure.
• The 1% micro-enterprise rate almost always requires having at least one employee on payroll — the common workaround foreign owner-directors use is to formally employ themselves at the Romanian minimum wage.
• Romania's tax rules have shifted substantially for 2026 (lower micro-enterprise turnover cap, higher dividend tax, new mandatory bank-account and e-invoicing rules), so figures and thresholds you find in older blog posts may already be outdated — always confirm current numbers with ANAF or a local accountant before incorporating.
• A non-resident foreigner can own and run an SRL entirely remotely via power of attorney, but a PFA generally requires you to already hold Romanian residency, so the two structures aren't interchangeable options for someone not yet living in the country.
• Setup-cost and setup-time estimates for an SRL vary a lot between sources (a few days vs. several weeks; a few hundred euros vs. over a thousand) depending on whether you handle registration yourself or use a formation agency — budget for the longer, pricier end if you're incorporating from abroad.
• e-Factura electronic invoicing is now mandatory for Romanian companies, so budget for basic accounting/invoicing software or a local bookkeeper from day one rather than treating it as optional admin.