ROMANIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Cosmina Maria Simion, Alina Tace and Petruș Partene, WH Simion & Partners
WH Simion & Partners 10A-10B Intrarea Chefalului Street
Bricklofts, 1st Floor Bucharest 020333 Romania
Tel: +40 314 206 225 Fax: +40 314 206 225 Email: office@whsimionpartners.ro Web: www.whpartners.eu
Introduction The Romanian gambling market faced numerous challenges over the past few years, generated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and several rounds of tax increases. The restrictions experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by the local market were sim- ilar in nature to the measures applied in other jurisdic- tions, as the shut-down of operations or restrictions of day-to-day activities were, unfortunately, common throughout the world. The trend of legislative inflation affecting the gambling industry from various (and in some cases, unexpected) angles started in 2022 and continued until mid-2025. Following a significant increase in the taxes to be paid by actors in this sector in mid-2022, and after the noteworthy changes applied to the primary gam- bling legislation at the beginning of October 2023, 2024 was marked by two rounds of modifications. The first one, on 29 April 2024, mainly affected land- based gaming through limiting the operation of slot- machine premises to towns with a population of at least 15,000 inhabitants. The second modification, of 28 June 2024, added more details to this limitation by describing the measures which can be taken by the regulator and by operators. These trends continued in 2025. Through Law 141/2025 (enacted on 28 July 2025), authorisa- tion fees for gambling operators were substantially increased, while new reporting obligations were introduced for B2B suppliers. The stated rationale behind these amendments was twofold: addressing
budgetary constraints by boosting tax revenues, and strengthening the fight against the black market. In this respect, specific categories of B2B operators (eg, software providers, platform providers and payment processors) are now required to block any attempt to access their services from Romania when such access is made via unlicensed online operators. In addition, Law 141/2025 introduced enhanced tracea- bility requirements for land-based gaming equipment. AML After a considerable delay, Romania has finally imple- mented the EU’s Fourth and Fifth AML Directives. The gambling regulator was required to issue the sectorial norms/instructions clarifying how the AML regime should be implemented in the gambling field in Romania, and this piece of legislation should have been enacted at the end of 2019. However, the regu- lator’s instructions were issued two years later, being published at the end of 2021 and coming into force in January 2022. These AML Instructions are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the instructions clarify that the AML regime applies to all operators licensed in Romania, irrespective of their country of incorporation. This has enabled the regulator to put an end to a debate that had lasted several years, since in the past the AML office stated that the regime applied only to legal enti- ties incorporated in Romania (it is important to note in this context that the majority of B2C online licences issued by the Romanian regulator until now have been granted to non-Romanian companies).
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