The file, the five methods and the comparability study, ANAF adjustments to the median and the advance pricing agreement: what OPANAF Order 828/2026 requires and how a group's position is defended at inspection.
When two companies from the same group transact with each other, whether services, loans, goods or royalties, the price is no longer a simple private arrangement. It must correspond to the value two independent parties would have agreed: the arm's length principle under Article 11 of the Tax Code, around which the whole of transfer pricing is built.
The section brings together the analyses dedicated to this field and reads them not as a theory for multinationals, but as a concrete risk for any group of companies, however small. Since 2026, OPANAF Order 828/2026 has rewritten the rules for the file: annual filing through the SPV (Spațiul Privat Virtual), the tax authority's secure online portal, for large taxpayers, thresholds assessed for each transaction and each related party, the threshold for services cut to EUR 100,000 and, above all, treating an “incomplete file” as a file not filed at all, the gateway to an ex officio estimate, usually set at the median.
The material is organised on four levels. Fundamentals set out what the file is, how the five methods are chosen and how the comparability study is built to determine the “arm's length” range. High-risk transactions, intra-group services, management fees and loans, are the areas the inspection checks most often. Inspection and defence shows how multi-million adjustments arise, what happens without a file and how a group's position is supported during an inspection. Certainty and cover deals with the advance pricing agreement and the underestimated position of the small subsidiary within a large group.
It is addressed to entrepreneurs with groups of companies, local subsidiary directors and their advisers, accountants and lawyers, who need verifiable benchmarks, not formulas. Each analysis starts from the applicable text and from ANAF's practice, with the conclusions stated as such, with their limits. The point at which a technical adjustment comes close to a criminal issue is marked explicitly, but developed in the economic criminal law section.
18 September 2026
Recurring losses combined with significant intra-group transactions are a declared selection criterion ANAF uses for transfer pricing inspections. The analysis comes down to one question: what risks did the entity assume. The contradiction between a file describing a limited-risk distributor and the financial statements of an entity absorbing all of the group's shocks is exactly what the inspection exploits. Which justifications hold, from materialised risks to loss-making comparables, why the adjustment hits twice, and how the defence is built before the file is requested.
18 July 2026
Since 2026, a group of companies with transactions between entities has faced far stricter documentation obligations. Who prepares the file under OPANAF Order 828/2026 (annual filing through the SPV for large taxpayers, the threshold for services cut to EUR 100,000), how “related party” under Article 7 is read, the thresholds assessed per transaction and per related party, the deadlines, and why an “incomplete file” is treated as not filed at all.
18 July 2026
Three companies from the same group, three different methods, because the right method is not chosen by preference, but by the nature of the transaction. The five OECD methods (CUP, resale price, cost plus, TNMM, profit split) worked through examples, how the “most appropriate” method is chosen, the role of the functional analysis and the tested party, the interquartile range, and what ANAF checks about the method.
18 July 2026
At inspection, ANAF opens the comparability study, rejects some of the comparables, rebuilds the range and brings the margin to the median, and from there every percentage point becomes taxable income. What benchmarking is, how the tested party and the profit-level indicator are chosen, why the extremes are cut at the interquartile range, what the tax authority actually checks, and what a study needs to contain to withstand scrutiny under OPANAF Order 828/2026.
18 July 2026
“What, in concrete terms, did you get for this money?”, the question that most often defeats a management fee. Why intra-group services are ANAF's favourite target, the OECD's two-step test (benefit first, then price), shareholder activity that is not chargeable, the documentation that saves the deduction (deliverables, an allocation key), the fatal errors, and the link to deductibility (Article 25), VAT and economic substance.
18 July 2026
Interest set “as at a bank”, written into the contract with no analysis, triggers two separate checks at inspection. The transfer pricing test on the rate (what an independent lender would require, the debtor's rating and the group's “implicit support”) and, separately, the limit on deducting excess borrowing costs (ATAD, Article 40²). Plus the interest-free loan from a shareholder, guarantees, cash pooling and DAC6.
18 July 2026
A multi-million adjustment usually comes not from fraud, but from a calculation. How the inspection rebuilds the range after rejecting comparables, why it adjusts to the median (the amplifying effect), the typical situations (below-market margins, management fees, interest, royalties), the estimate made when there is no file (Article 106 of the Tax Procedure Code), and eliminating double taxation through a corresponding adjustment and MAP.
18 July 2026
The fine that many believe is the main consequence is, in fact, the smallest problem. Without a file, ANAF estimates “arm's length” prices ex officio (Article 106 of the Tax Procedure Code) and adjusts the result to the median, for every year not yet time-barred. Why the burden of proof (Article 73) works against you, what a late file does not fix, how the fine, the adjustment and the late-payment charges add up, and why prevention is the only strategy that works.
18 July 2026
A transfer pricing inspection does not “cut” an invoice; it rebuilds the “arm's length” price and imposes the difference across the entire flow of the years under review, which is how multi-million adjustments arise. How the inspector tracks the market value, the coherence of the file and the substance; the four lines of defence; what is attacked and how to answer each point; the role of the party-appointed expert and the response to the draft report; and the corresponding adjustment through MAP, against double taxation.
18 July 2026
For large, repeated transactions, the recurring uncertainty of an inspection can be replaced with certainty agreed in advance with ANAF. What an APA is and why, once observed, it blocks an adjustment on the transactions it covers; what OPANAF Order 827/2026 (Official Gazette 543 of 2 July 2026) changed through the roll-back mechanism of up to five years; the unilateral, bilateral and multilateral types; the procedure, duration and cost; and when, in fact, it is not worth it.
18 July 2026
“We are a small company, transfer pricing is for multinationals”, the myth that produces adjustments worth hundreds of thousands of lei. The underlying obligation (observing the arm's length principle, Article 11) comes from being a related party (Article 7), not from size. What triggers the obligation, what the 2026 thresholds look like per transaction and per related party, the typical situations of a small subsidiary, the underestimated risks, the minimal documentation that changes the inspection, and why the subsidiary bears the consequence of a group policy it did not control.
The tax inspection procedure, from the compliance notice to the tax assessment decision and the appeal against it. Including the review of an individual's tax position and the 70% tax.
38 analysesTaking ANAF to court: what you challenge and within what time limit, how to stop enforcement, which evidence wins the case and how the money comes back after a final judgment.
12 analysesTax evasion, embezzlement, money laundering and the related economic offences: from the figure in the findings report to a defence built on evidence.
30 analysesTax residence, double taxation treaties, foreign income and property, exit tax and DAC6, for interests in more than one jurisdiction.
17 analysesEconomic substance, jurisdictions and anti-abuse rules: what remains lawful after BEPS, ATAD and CRS, and where the line into criminal liability is crossed.
10 analysesSeparating personal wealth from business risk: principles, liability, the instruments that actually protect, and the line between lawful planning and fraud.
10 analysesTrusts and the Romanian fiducie, family foundations, international succession and forced heirship: how wealth is transferred lawfully between generations.
7 analysesParty-appointed and out-of-court tax expertise: the technical challenge to the loss calculation in an inspection, in litigation and in the criminal file, from objections to counter-expertise.
20 analysesThe complete list of the 125 published analyses, in chronological order, with filters by area.
Go to InsightsFor the obligations and deadlines in short form, see transfer pricing in Romania.
An initial discussion clarifies what ANAF actually tests in your case: the file's thresholds, the method, the comparables and the substance of the transactions, and whether the documentation you have, or are about to prepare, would withstand an inspection.