The immigration process for non-EU citizens who want to move to Romania is not straightforward, especially when you are planning to move to Romania on your own. It even gets more complicated if you want to make certain business investments, and need to prove you are a reliable entrepreneur, with a solid business investment plan.
If you are a citizen of a country from outside the EU and want to move to Romania for starting a new business here, you must know that, for the purpose of obtaining the necessary long-term visa and residency permit for business purposes you must follow some important procedural steps. We explain these steps below, in the chronological order they should be completed.
You need to set up a Romanian company first
As first basic condition, the applicable Romanian law provisions say that, for obtaining legal right of residence as business investor, you must be a shareholder in a Romanian company, and be also appointed as director of the same company. So, the first step you must fulfil is the incorporation of a company in Romania. Any type of company can be used for setting up a business. If you need a flexible and an easy-to-setup company, you may want to choose a limited liability type of company (in Romanian: SRL which comes from “Societate cu Răspundere Limitată”).
For more details on this type pf company and the procedural steps and required documents for setting up a SRL, you can check our short guide here: How to register a new company in Romania.
Once the company is set up (with you as one of the shareholders, and director/member of the Board), the second procedural step will be to obtain the approval of the Romanian Foreign Investment General Directorate (FIGD), which is a state agency under the Romanian Ministry of Economy. Please see some guidance below regarding this step.
Applying for Romanian Foreign Investment General Directorate’s approval
The approval that you must obtain from FIGD is the procedural step that takes most of the time, documentation, and patience. The FIGD’s approval is given under the form of a technical expertise on your company’s business plan.
The technical expertise for the business plan given by FIGD is an intermediary approval without which you cannot further apply and obtain the Romanian long-term visa for investment purposes (visa type D/AC). So, we recommend to give it significant importance and focus when preparing your business plan. If you need, for the purpose of obtaining this approval, the FIGD can also offer you specialized consultancy and support services, which they say are free of charge.
What you will actually need to prepare as part of this step is a set of documentation, which will include also a business plan for your company. The plan must genuinely detail your business investment plans in Romania for the next 3 years.
The main conditions that you must fulfill with your business investment plan is that during the following 12 months (from the moment of getting the Romanian long-term visa for investment):
At the same time, the minimum financial investment of 100,000 EUR or 150,000 EUR must be proved through a bank account statement issued by a Romanian bank. So, this actually means that, at the moment of applying for the FIGD’s technical expertise, you must also prove that you dispose of cash in one of the minimum investment amounts mentioned above, as per your case, amount which must already be in a Romanian bank account.
The main elements that the 3 year business plan must comprise are as follows:
Please note that FIGD may also require that your company’s business plan be also signed by a certified accountant. Actually, you may want an accountant to help you with the business plan, as the financial planning part should observe also the Romanian accounting rules.
Once you have FIGD’s approval, you can apply for the Romanian long-term visa for investment (type D/AC). The visa is released by the Romanian diplomatic missions and consular offices abroad. Below you can find more information on the visa application step.
Visa application with the Romanian consulate
The visa application is an essential step before getting your Romanian residency permit. The application must be done only at the Romanian consulate in your home country or a country where you have long-term residency (if the case). Please note that individuals of certain nationalities (i.e., US nationals, Canadian nationals, etc.) may be exempt from getting the visa in their passport, and they can directly travel to Romania and apply for the Romanian residency permit. Please check this aspect with the authorities.
Anyone who is applying for the Romanian long-term visa for investment (type D/AC) must submit the following documents to the Romanian consulate:
You will also have to pay a visa fee, which is 120 EUR.
After you submit the application with the consulate, as part of the authorities’ internal procedure the long-stay visa must be approved by the Romanian National Visa Center, but only after the approval of the General Inspectorate for Immigration is also given. Thus, the approval is generally issued within approximately 30 – 45 days from the date of the application.
The visa is granted for a maximum period of 90 days, with one or multiple entries. Once you get the visa, the next and final step will be to extend the visa with a Romanian residency permit. More details on this step follow below.
The residency permit application
The residency permit will give you the legal right of residence on Romanian territory for a period of 12 months. This step must be accomplished in Romania, with the Romanian General Immigration Inspectorate.
To get the residency permit, you must submit an application file comprising a series of documents. Please keep in mind that your application must be submitted to the Immigration Inspectorate with at least 30 days before your visa expires.
The residency permit application must first be done online, on the Romanian Immigration Office’s web portal, here: Online submission service of the General Inspectorate for Immigration.
After your online application files are check by the police inspector, you will be scheduled for the hardcopy submission of the file, directly at the local Immigration Office where you live in Romania (where you have your residing address).
Documents required to obtain the residency permit
The following documents must be submitted for obtaining the residency permit:
The residency permit application is generally solved within 30 to 45 days from the date of its hardcopy submission. But there are also specific situations when additional checks are needed by the immigration officers. In such cases, the approval period may be extended.
The Romanian residency permit for commercial activities (investment) can be extended successively for periods of validity of maximum 12 months. Nevertheless, if you prove that you made investments of at least 500,000 euros in Romania, or that you created more than 50 full-time jobs, then the law allows for the extension of the residency permit for a validity period of 3 years.
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