You invoice a single client every month, work to that client’s team schedule, on a laptop the client gave you, and report to a “team lead” like any other employee on the payroll, except that you operate as a PFA (persoană fizică autorizată), the authorised sole-trader form. From the perspective of ANAF, Romania’s national tax administration, such an arrangement can amount to a disguised employment relationship, and the consequence is called the reclassification of independent activity as dependent activity. It is one of the costliest tax risks for freelancers and contractors, because it looks not to the future but to the past: up to 5 years back, with income tax on wages plus CAS (the state pension contribution) and CASS (the health insurance contribution), and penalties. And the tax audits carried out in 2024-2026 show that the subject is firmly back on the tax authority’s agenda.
The Tax Code splits income from work into two worlds. Dependent activity (Article 7(1)), any activity carried out by an individual within an employment relationship that generates income, is taxed as a salary, with full contributions withheld at source. Independent activity (Article 7(3)), activity that meets at least 4 of the 7 statutory criteria, is taxed far more lightly: 10% on net income, with CAS and CASS capped.
The difference in tax burden between the two regimes is the reason for the whole debate. And ANAF’s tool is a powerful one: under Article 11(1) of the Tax Code and Article 14 of the Tax Procedure Code, the tax authority may disregard the form of a transaction and reclassify it according to its real economic substance. It makes no difference that, on paper, you hold a “services agreement”: if, in fact, the relationship functions as an employer-employee one, the income can be treated retroactively as salary.
The phenomenon is not new. The first wave of reclassifications, in 2012-2015, hit so hard that an “amnesty” law became necessary, Legea nr. 209/2015, which cancelled the differences established through reclassification for periods before 1 July 2015; at the same time, the new Tax Code (in force from 1 January 2016) introduced the current 7 criteria. A decade later, the same pattern repeated: the tax incentives for employees in IT, construction and agri-food were removed entirely from 1 January 2025 (OUG nr. 156/2024), the temptation to move to a PFA or an SRL increased, and the pressure to collect revenue brought reclassification back to the forefront.
Article 7(3) of the Tax Code requires at least 4 of the following 7 criteria to be met, genuinely and throughout the entire collaboration:
You decide where, how and when you work. Agreed delivery deadlines are natural; a 9-to-5 schedule imposed by the client, compulsory attendance at the client’s premises, and detailed instructions on how to carry out the work are not.
The criterion does not require a minimum number of clients, but the genuine freedom to have them: an exclusivity clause is a direct negative signal, and total dependence on a single client, year after year, without objective justification, undermines the criterion in practice too.
An employee is paid for time worked, at the employer’s risk; an independent contractor is paid for the result, at their own risk. Fixed, monthly pay regardless of outcome, with no contractual guarantees or penalties, makes the criterion hard to sustain.
The laptop, the tools, the vehicle, the licences, the workspace, are yours. Using the client’s infrastructure requires an objective justification (data security, specialised equipment), otherwise it becomes an indicator of dependence.
Performing the work through your own intellectual and/or physical capacity, easy to tick for the freelancer who genuinely does the work themselves; the criterion is aimed at excluding shell entities that merely intermediate other people’s work.
Lawyers, doctors, architects, tax advisers, accounting experts and so on. For most freelancers in IT, transport or construction, this criterion is unavailable, so 4 of the other 6 must be met.
The right to subcontract or to hire staff. A clause requiring you to perform the work exclusively in person, “intuitu personae”, brings the contract closer to an employment contract.
Essential: ANAF does not read only the contract. During an inspection, the facts are examined: emails, timesheets and access logs, tasks in the client’s internal applications, organisational charts, statements from the parties. The criteria are assessed on substance, and they must be met simultaneously and continuously, not merely on paper.
The classic pattern: a former employee “moved onto a PFA” with the same employer, or working predominantly or exclusively for a single client; invoicing the same fixed amount every month; integrated into the client’s teams, with fixed hours, a line manager and equipment provided by the client. Each element on its own can have a legitimate explanation; taken together, they draw exactly the picture inspectors are looking for. Recent practice confirms both the direction and the sectors:
After the salary incentives were removed from 1 January 2025, this area is being explicitly monitored. In April 2025, ANAF publicly announced that its Anti-Fraud Directorate (Antifrauda) had reclassified as employment relationships the “outsourcing” of services by an IT company in Iași county to entities that, in reality, met the criteria of an employee, with more than 1 million lei in additional liabilities. The specialist press also documented individual inspections of IT professionals operating through a PFA.
In 2025, ANAF assessed liabilities of more than 3.7 million lei against firms partnering with delivery platforms, for hours worked and not declared. In June 2026, an operation by the Labour Inspectorate (Inspecția Muncii) in alternative transport, online retail and courier services found more than 2,000 people working undeclared, with fines exceeding 23 million lei.
A sector where the incentives were also removed from 1 January 2025, and which has a tradition of work done “in crews” invoiced through a PFA or day labourers (zilieri), a combination consistently targeted in inspections.
ANAF has published a tax guide dedicated to beauty activities (updated in 2024), and the “collaborator” model, someone working permanently in another person’s salon, is widespread, and exposed to reclassification.
Reclassification does not stop at PFA level: recent practice shows reclassifications also of single-member SRLs, with no employees, an unpaid director and a single client, on the reasoning that the legal personality was artificially interposed and can be disregarded (Article 193(2) of the Civil Code).
If the activity is reclassified, the income becomes, for tax purposes, salary: 10% income tax, 25% CAS, 10% CASS and the 2.25% labour insurance contribution (CAM), calculated for every month of the period under review, which can cover the entire 5-year limitation period (prescripție) (Article 110 of the Tax Procedure Code).
A simplified example, strictly illustrative, built on the premise, common in the practice of the tax authorities, that the invoiced amounts represent gross salary income: for invoicing of 10,000 lei/month (120,000 lei/year), the annual liabilities would be approximately 30,000 lei CAS, 12,000 lei CASS, about 7,800 lei income tax and 2,700 lei CAM, a total of around 52,500 lei a year, more than 40% of the amounts invoiced. Over three years under review, the principal exceeds 150,000 lei. The actual way the assessment base is built can, however, differ from one case to another, so the real figures can only be established on the documents of each case.
On top of the principal come the late-payment charges (accesorii: interest and penalties): for liabilities established by a tax inspection, the non-declaration penalty of 0.08% per day (about 29.2% a year), capped at the level of the principal debt but which, for older periods, can come close to equalling it, reducible by 75% if the principal is paid by the deadline set in the decision; in other configurations, interest of 0.02% per day and late-payment penalties of 0.01% per day.
Who pays? The rule for salaries is withholding at source: the obligations to calculate, withhold, declare and pay fall on the payer of the income, treated retroactively as the employer, and the tax assessment decision (decizie de impunere) is, as a rule, issued in its name. That does not, however, take you out of the equation: the company may try to recover from you, through civil proceedings, the part that should have been borne out of the gross income; the tax and contributions already paid as a PFA for the same income are adjusted, under a dedicated ANAF procedure. For large amounts or organised schemes, the file can also acquire a criminal dimension (tax evasion), for both parties. And a painful asymmetry: tax reclassification does not retroactively give you an employee’s rights, leave, protection against dismissal, or the other guarantees under the Labour Code.
A solid defence is built before any inspection, on two levels: the contract and the practice.
The contract should reflect a relationship between professionals: a subject matter defined by deliverables and results, not by “making available” a number of hours; payment per project or on acceptance, not an identical fixed monthly amount indefinitely; genuine clauses on risk, warranty, remedial work at your own cost, late-payment penalties, contractual liability, possibly professional indemnity insurance; the right to subcontract; the absence of exclusivity and of disciplinary-type mechanisms (clocking in, leave requests, hierarchical appraisals).
Practice, however, is what decides, because inspectors check the facts, not the wording. What matters is being able to prove: multiple clients, or at least genuine efforts to obtain them (quoting, your own website, negotiations, declined projects); your own equipment and licences, your own running costs; correspondence showing that you negotiate deadlines and prices rather than receiving tasks; invoicing linked to deliverables, not to the “month worked”. Avoid visible integration into the client’s structure: an email address on its organisational chart, internal HR processes, leave requests. Keep this evidence organised, a genuine “independence file”, because, at inspection, the burden of demonstrating the 4 criteria will, in practice, fall on you.
Caution. An impeccably drafted contract will not save a working relationship that functions, in fact, as an employment relationship: inspectors will read the emails and the access logs, look at the tasks in the internal applications, and take explanatory statements from the parties. It is precisely these explanatory statements, given under pressure and without preparation, that frequently become the central evidence for reclassification. If an inspection has started at your business or at your main client’s, do not respond in writing “straight away”; ask for time, reconstruct the facts, and run everything past a professional before signing anything.
Reclassification is not inevitable: it is an interpretation by the tax authority, which can be challenged with evidence and arguments, at every stage.
During the inspection, both the client company and you have the right to submit documents and to express a position on the findings, including at the closing discussion. This is where most ground is won or lost: a criterion-by-criterion analysis, backed by documentary evidence (contracts, invoices to other clients, proof of your own equipment, negotiation correspondence), can overturn the conclusion before it becomes a decision. This is also the stage at which the parties’ positions need to be coordinated; contradictory statements between the service provider and the beneficiary are a gift to the inspection.
After the tax assessment decision is issued, you have the administrative appeal (contestație) available, within 45 days of notification (Article 268-270 of the Tax Procedure Code), a deadline that leaves no room for error. The appeal does not suspend enforcement; suspension can be requested separately, in court, on payment of a bond. If the outcome is unfavourable, an action follows before the administrative and tax court, where the merits are reheard: whether the criteria are met, the correctness of the assessment base, the adjustment of amounts already paid as a PFA, the late-payment charges. The full procedure, deadlines, bonds and strategy, is covered in the dedicated analysis of appealing a tax assessment decision.
In cases with high stakes, a party-appointed tax expert report, prepared by a tax adviser or a forensic tax expert, carries real weight: it reworks the calculation of the liabilities, checks for double taxation and technically builds the matrix of the 7 criteria. The golden rule, however, remains the same: the earlier professional involvement begins, ideally at the first requests for information, not after the decision, the more options remain open.
No. The law requires the freedom to have multiple clients, not a minimum number, and reclassification requires that at least 4 of the 7 criteria, assessed as a whole, are not met. A single client is, however, risk pattern number one, which makes it all the more important for the other criteria (risk assumed, your own assets, freedom of organisation) to be solid and documented.
Salary-related obligations are withheld at source, so the tax assessment decision is, as a rule, addressed to the payer of the income, treated as the employer. The company can then try to recover part of it from you through civil proceedings, and the amounts already paid as a PFA are adjusted. In practice, both parties need a defence, ideally a coordinated one.
Not necessarily. Practice from 2025 shows reclassifications also of single-member SRLs, with no employees and a single client, on the reasoning that the legal entity was artificially interposed. The legal form helps less than the substance: the actual way you work remains the decisive test.
Within the 5-year limitation period, which runs from 1 July of the year following the one for which the liability is owed. An inspection in 2026 can therefore cover income from 2020-2021 onwards, with late-payment charges for the whole period.
Informational material, updated on 17 July 2026. It reflects the state of the legislation at the time of writing; it does not constitute legal or tax advice and does not replace an analysis of your specific situation, based on documents and facts.
If you have an inspection under way, or have just received a notice, the related analyses are grouped under tax inspections and the verification of individuals. For how such cases are handled, see tax assistance.
Deadlines run from the moment of notification. An initial discussion clarifies what you are being accused of, what you need to justify and how the defence should be built, before an estimate becomes a tax assessment decision.