The account was opened in 2013, at a bank in a European state, for a project that ended long ago. Some money stayed in it, along with the habit of not talking about it. On 24 June 2026, ANAF announced a new wave of notices to people who obtained income from abroad in 2025, identified through the automatic exchange of information. This time, silence is no longer a strategy; it is a procedural stance.
The profile is common and widespread: a Romanian tax resident with an account, an investment portfolio or an investment-linked policy at a financial institution in another state. Interest, dividends, gains from the sale of securities, none of it has ever appeared in the Declarația unică (Form 212), Romania's single annual return for income tax and social contributions owed by individuals.
Sometimes because the holder believed the tax withheld abroad ended the matter. Other times because they genuinely assumed “Romania has no way of knowing”. This article deals with the bridge between tax and criminal law, the most poorly understood area in the whole subject.
The basic rule: a Romanian tax resident is taxable in Romania on income from any source, domestic and foreign. Tax paid in another state does not remove the obligation to declare it in Romania; it is credited, under the applicable double-taxation treaty, as a tax credit or through an exemption, but only after the income has been declared.
The Common Reporting Standard (CRS), applied in the EU through Directive 2014/107/EU (DAC2), requires financial institutions in participating states to identify clients who are tax resident in other states and to report their data annually. For each reportable account of a Romanian resident, ANAF receives the full identification of the holder (including the CNP, the personal numeric code), the institution and the account number, the balance at 31 December, gross interest, and, for custody accounts, dividends and gross proceeds from the sale or redemption of financial assets. What reports is not only traditional banks, but also brokers, custodians and fintechs authorised in other jurisdictions, detailed in the analysis on exactly what banks report through CRS/DAC2.
From 2026, OUG nr. 71/2025 (transposing DAC8) extends automatic reporting to crypto-assets, through DAC8, with the first reporting due in 2027 for the year 2026.
Previously, the tax authority had to find out; today it receives, annually and automatically, a full picture of balances and income, and the notification campaign of 24 June 2026 is the direct product of this data.
On the undeclared income, applying the relevant double-taxation treaty: a tax credit or an exemption, as the case may be.
Interest and penalties, calculated over the whole period. They accumulate quietly and often make the difference between a problem and a crisis.
If the source of the sums cannot be substantiated: the 70% rate on income from unidentified sources, applicable since 1 July 2024, established following a personal tax situation review, plus late-payment charges.
From 2026, the institutional pressure has increased: through Ordinul ANAF nr. 768/2026, the power to conduct a personal tax situation review was extended to the Anti-Fraud Directorate's own structures. A VSFP (verificarea situației fiscale personale, personal tax situation review) is typically triggered when the difference between the income estimated by the tax authority and the income declared exceeds 10%, and at least 50,000 lei.
A balance is not income. An account holding EUR 400,000 reported through CRS does not mean EUR 400,000 of taxable income; what is taxable is the income: the interest, the dividends, the gains. Confusing balance with income is one of the most common mistakes in approaching this, and correcting it is often the first line of defence.
This is where the nuance that decides everything lies, and it needs to be said plainly. Article 9(1)(a) of Legea nr. 241/2005 criminalises concealing the taxable asset or source, committed for the purpose of evading tax obligations. The text therefore requires two things that mere omission does not, by itself, contain: an act of concealment and a special purpose.
Case law has built the distinction on a practical criterion: if the taxable source was knowable to the tax authority, reflected in the accounts, in registered contracts, in public records or in other documents accessible to the tax authority, there is no concealment, even if the income was not declared. You cannot “conceal” something the state could find out through a simple check. If, on the other hand, the taxable source existed only in economic reality and nowhere else, with no record, no official trace, non-declaration can be regarded as concealment.
Applied to foreign accounts, the reasoning is delicate: an account held in one's own name, at an institution in a state that participates in the CRS and reports annually to the Romanian state, is hard to classify as a “concealed source”. This is not a guarantee of acquittal; it is a serious argument, one that must be supported by evidence and that does not work in every configuration.
When it does, nonetheless, become criminal. What moves a file from tax to criminal is not the omission, but active concealment:
Companies in non-transparent jurisdictions, trusts, foundations interposed between the real holder and the asset, built precisely to break the link.
Accounts opened in the name of relatives, friends or employees, with the real beneficial owner concealed.
Declaring an inaccurate beneficial owner when the account is opened, in order to avoid CRS reporting in your own name.
Documents that “explain” the origin of the funds: non-existent loans, backdated contracts. Usually fabricated after the notice arrives.
This is the line. An account in one's own name, in a state that reports, with income undeclared out of negligence or ignorance, is a tax problem. An arrangement built to make the holder invisible is something else. On the exact tipping point, at length, in the analysis on when a tax audit becomes a criminal file.
The most dangerous moment is not receiving the notice, but reacting to it. A rushed response, with improvised explanations, a “loan from a friend”, a contract reconstructed after 8 years, a gift that never actually happened, turns a tax file, where you have genuine arguments, into a criminal file in which you have manufactured the prosecution's own evidence.
Falsification in statements (Article 326 of the Criminal Code) and backdated documents are separate offences, punished independently of any discussion about tax. The rule: do not respond to an ANAF notice on foreign accounts without first establishing what real evidence exists.
If the sums in the foreign account come from a predicate offence, tax evasion, embezzlement (delapidare), EU-funds fraud, corruption, then transferring, holding or using them can attract a separate charge of money laundering as an autonomous charge, under Article 49 of Legea nr. 129/2019, punishable by imprisonment from 3 to 10 years.
1. Not all undeclared money is “dirty” money. Money laundering requires a proven predicate offence, not merely an unmet tax obligation. Lawful income, obtained legally and simply not declared, does not become the proceeds of crime merely because it was not declared.
2. A transfer, by itself, is not money laundering. The prosecution must prove both the unlawful origin and the subjective element, knowledge of that origin and, for certain forms of conduct, the special purpose of concealment.
This is, nonetheless, why the order of operations matters. Moving money hastily out of a notified account, to another jurisdiction or another holder, is exactly the factual pattern that criminal investigation bodies read as concealment.
The statement of assets: the formal trap. If you end up in a VSFP, the tax authority can require you to submit a statement of assets and income (Article 138(7) of the Tax Procedure Code). Failure to file it is a regulatory offence, punishable by a fine of 10,000 to 50,000 lei. Inaccuracy, however, is a risk of a different kind: the form expressly warns that false statements constitute a criminal offence. Omitting a foreign account from an officially requested statement is no longer passive silence; it is an assertion. And a false assertion is a criminal offence, independent of any discussion about tax.
It must be said plainly: as of July 2026, Romania has no formal “voluntary disclosure” programme of the kind used in other states, with a flat tax rate, criminal immunity and a fixed deadline. In 2026, public proposals for a “tax amnesty” for voluntarily declaring undeclared wealth circulated, discussed even at government level, but they remain proposals, not positive law. Decisions are not made on the basis of a programme that does not exist.
The basic tool. It is filed on the same form, ticking the correction box, on your own initiative, whenever the information does not match what was previously declared. For 2025 income obtained abroad and not declared, ANAF has expressly pointed to this route.
Article 140¹ of the Tax Procedure Code. This is the window: an individual identified as tax risk has 30 days from communication to file or correct their returns, a period during which the tax authority does not take steps to select them for an audit. After it expires, the rule reverses: high-risk individuals who have not remedied the situation are mandatorily subject to an audit.
As rewritten by Legea nr. 126/2024, if an inspection with an individualised loss has already taken place: full coverage of the loss increased by 15%, plus interest and penalties, within a maximum of 30 days of the inspection being completed, for losses of up to EUR 1,000,000, results in exemption from punishment, and the competent authorities do not refer the matter to the criminal investigation bodies. A narrow door, with short deadlines and strict conditions.
On one side: the tax owed + late-payment charges + the cost of advice. On the other: the same tax + the same charges + the risk of the 70% rate + precautionary measures + a possible criminal file + the cost of the defence + time.
The decisive difference is not arithmetic but qualitative. In a voluntary regularisation, you control the narrative, the documents and the timetable; once an audit has started, someone else controls them. That is why the 30-day period in the compliance notice is worth, in practice, more than the next two years of proceedings.
Inheritances and gifts. A common and mistakenly handled situation: an account abroad coming from an inheritance from a relative who emigrated, or from a gift received there. These are not taxable income in the usual sense, but they must be proven, and that is where the whole problem lies. What counts as evidence: the certificate of inheritance or its foreign equivalent, the will, the deed of gift, bank correspondence from the time of the transfer, the succession documents from that state. What does not count: your own statement that “that is how it was”. In a VSFP, sums with no documented origin are treated as income from unidentified sources, at 70%. A genuine but undocumented inheritance is, for tax purposes, indistinguishable from a suspicious sum.
Old accounts, from before the CRS. An account opened in 2008 and abandoned raises three separate issues, which must not be mixed up. The tax limitation period, the tax authority's right to establish claims, lapses, as a rule, after 5 years; the period has its own rules on how it runs and cases of suspension, and where criminal implications are involved a separate regime applies. The criminal limitation period is calculated according to the penalty provided by law and, for continuing or continuous offences, runs from completion. The balance existing today, whatever the age of its origin, risks being treated as income from unidentified sources in a VSFP if it cannot be substantiated. That is why “it is old, it has lapsed” is not a conclusion but a hypothesis to be checked, year by year, sum by sum.
No transfer, no closing of the account, no change of holder after receiving a notice. This is the most costly reflex there is.
Accounts, periods, yearly balances, actual income, tax withheld abroad. On paper, not from memory.
And identify the corresponding evidence, not the explanation, the evidence.
Tax, late-payment charges, exposure to the 70% rate, plus an honest assessment of the criminal risk, based on the specific elements of the file.
A corrective return, a response to the compliance notice, or preparing the defence within a VSFP. And meet the 30-day deadline: it is the most perishable resource you have.
The tax adviser optimises the return. The lawyer assesses the criminal risk and benefits from legal professional privilege. When a situation has both faces, and undeclared foreign accounts nearly always do, the analysis must start from the criminal side and only then move down into the tax side. The reverse order frequently produces statements that end up as evidence.
No. The notice is an administrative-tax compliance act, not an act of criminal prosecution. It informs you that a discrepancy exists and gives you a window to correct it. That is precisely why this stage is valuable: until the deadline expires, the file remains within the tax sphere, where there are more options, and cheaper ones.
The charge under Article 9(1)(a) requires concealment of the taxable source and the purpose of evading tax. An account in one's own name, at an institution that automatically reports to the Romanian authority, is difficult to classify as a concealed source, and this is a solid defence argument. What remains, however, is a real tax problem: Romanian tax is still owed, and the foreign tax credit is granted only if the income was declared.
No, it makes it worse. The CRS also reports the fact that an account was closed during the year, and the earlier balances have already been transmitted. Closing it after a notice does not erase the data; it merely adds an element of conduct that will be read as an attempt at concealment.
Yes: be able to prove it. An inheritance is not taxable income in the usual sense, but in a personal tax situation review the burden of substantiating the origin of the sums falls, in practice, on you. Without succession documents, a genuine inheritance looks identical to an unsubstantiated sum, and is taxed at 70%.
As of July 2026, no. Public proposals for a tax amnesty for voluntarily declaring undeclared wealth have circulated, discussed even at government level, but they remain proposals, not positive law. The instruments that actually exist are the corrective return, the 30-day window under the compliance notice and, if an inspection with an individualised loss has already taken place, the mechanism under Article 10 of Legea nr. 241/2005.
Informative material, updated on 18 July 2026. It does not constitute legal or tax advice; individual situations must be assessed on their own facts. Every person under investigation is presumed innocent until the conviction becomes final.
If the matter involves a criminal complaint or an open file, the related analyses are grouped under economic criminal law. For how such charges are handled, see defence in tax evasion cases.
Time limits run from the date of communication. A first conversation clarifies what is being alleged, what you need to substantiate and how the defence is built, before an estimate becomes a tax assessment decision.