ROMANIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Alexandru Stanescu, Simina Negulescu, Stefan Gheorghe and Ioana Vișan, Lexters
As regards the national framework on preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing, it shall not be repealed outright but shall require sub- stantial amendment. The AMLR displaces, without transposition, the substantive rules currently imple- mented by Romanian AML law, while AMLD6 requires Romania to adopt or update national legislation for the institutional and procedural framework. Romanian CASPs should already be reviewing their onboarding processes, screening tools and record-keeping poli- cies against the AMLR to identify and close any gaps before July 2027. Crypto Tax in Romania 2026: DAC8 Reporting, the Income Tax Rate and VAT In 2025, Romania transposed Directive (EU) 2023/2226 on administrative cooperation in taxation as regards crypto-assets (DAC8) through Government Emergen- cy Ordinance No 71/2025, introducing annual report- ing obligations for CASPs and other crypto-asset operators. The first reporting cycle concerns 2026 transactions, with reporting to the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) due by 15 March 2027. Reportable information covers user identifica- tion, reportable transactions and aggregated values. The DAC8 obligations should be implemented in close co-ordination with know-your-customer and AMLR- readiness processes. Gains from transfers of virtual currency by individuals in Romania are taxed at 16% from 1 January 2026 (increased from 10%), subject to the small-transaction exemption. For companies, crypto-asset transactions follow ordinary corporate tax or microenterprise tax rules, but Romanian accounting guidance on clas- sification, valuation and recognition of crypto-assets remains limited. The exchange of crypto-assets for fiat currency and related intermediation services is VAT-exempt in Romania by direct application of EU law (CJEU, Hedqvist , C-264/14). The exemption covers any cryp- to-asset functioning purely as an alternative means of payment (bitcoin-type and general-purpose cryp- to-assets); it is unaffected by MiCA. For EMTs, the exemption follows from the electronic money and pay- ment services framework, given existing PSD2/Elec- tronic Money Directive 2 (EMD2) authorisation. This
aligns with the EBA’s position that exchanging crypto- assets for funds is not a payment service: the same transaction is neither a regulated payment service nor a VAT-taxable supply. For CASPs and token issuers, tax data architecture should be designed at product launch and kept consistent across AML, DAC8 and customer tax statements. Stablecoins, Payment Cards and the PSD2/MiCA Interplay A key 2026 development for crypto businesses in Romania is the end of the EBA’s no-action transi- tion period on the PSD2/MiCA overlap (deadline: 2 March 2026). The EBA confirmed that EMT transfers, custodial EMT wallets and similar payment-adjacent activities require PSD2 authorisation independently of MiCA – a MiCA licence alone is not sufficient. Crypto card products are the most commercially vis- ible expression of this overlap: a card funded from an EMT balance involves either an EMT transfer or a custodial wallet functioning like a payment account – exactly the activities that the EBA has brought within the PSD2 perimeter. In practice, crypto card programmes involve a suite of interconnected services beyond the card itself, each touching a different point on the MiCA/PSD2 bound- ary: • on-ramp funding via bank transfer or third-party wallets; • real-time swap and conversion at point of sale – simultaneously an exchange service under MiCA and a payment transaction under PSD2; • cross-border transfer and remittance functionality; and • yield or credit products secured by the underlying digital-asset balance. Where non-MiCA-compliant stablecoins are used as the funding mechanism, an additional EMT compli- ance layer applies on top. The compliant market structure separates two func- tions: a licensed electronic money institution (EMI) carries the card and payment layer, while the CASP manages the wallet and conversion layer separately.
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