If ANAF opens a transfer-pricing audit on your Romanian subsidiary, it is not looking for a missing invoice or a single non-deductible expense — it puts in question the very price at which the company transacted with its related parties. When the ANAF team rejects the taxpayer's position, it does not "cut" an amount: it reconstructs the "market" price and imposes the difference across the whole flow of the audited years. That is how a file of a few dozen pages produces adjustments of millions of lei. The group's position is defended with documents, functional analysis and benchmarking — not with rhetoric. Under the new 2026 framework, the stakes are higher still: a weak file is treated as non-existent.
The signal that the audit is touching the transfer-pricing area is, almost always, the request for the file. For large taxpayers, under OPANAF No. 828/2026 (Official Gazette No. 543 of 2 July 2026, applicable to 2026 transactions and to administration procedures initiated after 1 January 2027), the file is filed annually, through the Virtual Private Space; for the rest, it is presented at the tax authority's request, within a fixed deadline from the communication of the request.
A file already prepared, complete and coherent, places you on the defensive footing; an absent or incomplete file leaves you at the mercy of the estimate made by the audit. Preparation does not begin at the request, but well before. Whoever treats the audit order as the zero hour of the defence has already lost precious time: the file, the contracts and the benchmarking study must exist and be defensible before the audit knocks at the door.
The arm's length principle in Article 11 of the Fiscal Code: whether prices between related parties produce the same result as between independent parties. Here the tested party's margin is tested against the comparison range.
Whether the functional analysis, the chosen method and the benchmarking study support one another — or whether the file contradicts its own premises.
Whether the invoiced services were actually rendered, whether the royalty corresponds to a real asset, whether the loan has an economic rationale. A transaction without substance is doubly vulnerable — to a price adjustment and to recharacterisation.
A complete file, filed or presented within the deadline, shifts the discussion from "missing documentation" to "interpretation of the documentation" — far more favourable ground for the taxpayer.
The exact description of functions, assets and risks determines the profile (routine vs. complex) and the margin due to the tested party. It is the shield that justifies the level of the margin.
A benchmarking study with a documented search strategy and a correctly built range is the heart of the file. This is where the adjustment is won or lost.
The business rationale of each transaction — why the service, loan or royalty exists and what benefit it brings the Romanian company — ties the figures to reality.
It narrows the range and raises the margins. The response is the alternative benchmarking: showing why the rejected companies were comparable and why those added have a different profile. The range is rebuilt correctly.
It proposes another, which produces an adjustment. The response is the justification of the most appropriate method: why the one in the file fits the tested party's profile and why the alternative does not hold.
As non-deductible or overstated. The response is proof of actual rendering: contracts, deliverables, correspondence, reasonable allocation keys and proof of the benefit. A management fee without proof of the service is the first target.
As not being "at market". The response is the rating analysis and the comparable rate: the debtor's creditworthiness, market conditions and a reference rate showing that the level applied falls within range.
The most dangerous moment is not challenging a comparable, but the inadvertent admission. A remark that slips out in conversation — "we didn't really use that service anyway", "we set the interest at whatever the group told us" — can turn a technical dispute, winnable on the range, into a substance problem that is far harder to defend. After the audit has begun, communication is conducted through documents and written, coordinated positions, not in free-flowing conversation. What you say counts as much as what you write in the file.
Transfer pricing is the classic ground of the party-appointed tax expert. The specialist adviser re-runs the database search, checks the filters and the range, tests whether the audit's rejections hold, defends the method and, if an adjustment is nonetheless justified, shows that the correct level is not the median but another point in the range. The expert is also the "translator" who renders the group's position into the language of the OECD Guidelines, so that the arguments are recognisable to the audit and, later, to the court.
The key technical moment is the point of view on the draft audit report. It is the last window in which a well-built position can stop the adjustment before it becomes a tax assessment. Here you file the alternative benchmarking, the arguments on method, the evidence of service rendering and the interest analysis — structured, with references to the file and to the OECD Guidelines. A sound point of view can reduce or eliminate the adjustment at source; a formal, generic one lets it pass into the decision, from where recovery becomes far harder.
If ANAF adjusts the Romanian company's taxable base upward, the same profit remains taxed in the state of the other related party too — economic double taxation arises. The remedy is not to pay twice, but the corresponding adjustment: the state of the other party reduces its taxable base in mirror image, so that the profit is taxed only once.
The instrument for obtaining it is the mutual agreement procedure (MAP) — between the administrations of the two states, on the basis of the double-taxation treaty or, for EU states, the dispute-resolution mechanism of EU Directive 2017/1852, transposed into the Tax Procedure Code. The time limits for initiation and resolution are strictly regulated, and a recent amendment to the Code has allowed a MAP request independently of the domestic remedies. The practical conclusion: an adjustment accepted in Romania without activating MAP lets double taxation become final.
If the adjustment is issued anyway, the defence continues by administrative and judicial means — the challenge against the tax assessment, then litigation, where the central evidence is the court-appointed transfer-pricing expert report; and if the amount is large, suspension of enforcement is assessed, especially when the audit closes with a large amount due. Prevention, however, remains the best defence: a sound file, prepared in good time, and — for large and recurring flows — an advance pricing agreement, which takes the covered transactions out of the risk zone.
The local position must be consistent with the group's position: the functional analysis invoked in Brașov must be the same as in the group's master file, and the margin defended here must connect to the group's pricing policy. Inconsistency across jurisdictions is one of the audit's most effective weapons — and one of the easiest to avoid through coordination.
Rebuilding the range is technically challengeable. You show why the rejected companies were comparable and why those added have a different profile, then rebuild the correct range. Often the margin already falls within it — and the adjustment collapses. Even where an adjustment remains justified, automatic positioning at the median can be challenged in favour of a lower point in the range.
The contract alone is not enough. You prove the service actually rendered (deliverables, reports, correspondence), the concrete benefit to the Romanian company and the reasonableness of the cost-allocation key. A management fee without proof of the service is the most common and most easily attacked adjustment.
Through the corresponding adjustment, obtained in the mutual agreement procedure (MAP) — on the basis of the double-taxation treaty or, between EU states, the mechanism in Directive 2017/1852. The state of the other party reduces its base in mirror image. Without MAP, double taxation becomes final.
Yes. The most effective moment is the point of view on the draft report, where an alternative benchmarking study and a technical justification of the method can stop the adjustment before the tax assessment. An expert brought in only in litigation has to overturn a decision already issued — a harder position than one prevented in time.
Informational material, updated on 18 July 2026. It does not constitute legal or tax advice; individual situations must be analysed on their specific facts.
Time limits run from the moment of communication. An initial discussion clarifies what is being alleged, what you must justify and how the defence is built — before an estimate becomes a tax assessment.