You have not lost, because nothing has been decided. And the usual reflex, ‘there is nothing for me to challenge, I have not received any act’, is exactly the mistake that keeps a case stuck for years. Silence and refusal are treated as equivalent to an administrative act and can be challenged in court.
A VAT return with a reimbursement option for 600,000 lei, filed in October. In December, a request for ‘clarifications’. In February, another one. In April, a letter stating that the file is ‘under review’. In July, nothing. No reimbursement decision, no refusal, no act that can be challenged. In the meantime, the company pays interest on the loan it took out to cover the cash-flow gap.
The Administrative Litigation Law was built exactly for this situation: silence and refusal are treated as equivalent to an administrative act and can be challenged in court, with an order that the authority issue the act, with damages, and, if even the judgment is not complied with, with a daily fine imposed personally on the head of the authority.
Legea nr. 554/2004 defines them separately, in Article 2(1).
‘The fact of not answering the applicant within 30 days of the request being registered, unless the law provides for a different time limit.’ Pure silence.
‘The explicit expression, involving an excess of power, of the intention not to deal with a person's request.’ A refusal openly owned. The provision adds a situation that is very useful in practice: failure to implement an act issued following a favourable decision on the request is also treated as an unjustified refusal, the situation where ANAF rules in your favour on paper and then does nothing.
The keystone provision is Article 2(2): ‘Also treated as equivalent to unilateral administrative acts are the unjustified refusal to deal with a request concerning a right or a legitimate interest or, as the case may be, the fact of not answering the applicant within the legal time limit.’ If silence is treated as equivalent to an act, it can be challenged as an act.
An underrated distinction: ‘unjustified refusal’ does not mean ‘unreasoned refusal’, but a refusal expressed with an excess of power, defined in Article 2(1)(n) as ‘the exercise of the discretionary power of public authorities in breach of the limits of competence laid down by law, or in breach of citizens' rights and freedoms’. A response of the type ‘the request cannot be decided at this time’ is, formally, a response, but if it postpones matters sine die without a legal basis, it is a refusal.
This is where most actions are lost, as premature. The 30 days under Article 2(1)(h) apply only ‘unless the law provides for a different time limit’, and in tax matters, the law almost always provides for a different time limit.
The basic time limit for deciding on the taxpayer's requests, running from the date of registration.
The time limit is extended by the period between the request for further information and its receipt: 2 months if it is requested from you; 3 months from public authorities or third parties in Romania; 6 months from tax authorities in other states. For the latter two, the tax authority is required to notify you of the extension.
If the risk analysis requires a tax inspection, the time limit becomes no more than 90 days from registration, with the extensions applying accordingly; you are informed of the applicable time limit within 5 days of the risk analysis being completed.
The relationship with O.G. nr. 27/2002 on handling petitions: this is the general law on petitions, 30 days, extendable by no more than 15 days at the decision of the head of the authority where the matters raised require closer investigation. It applies subsidiarily, for whatever is not a ‘taxpayer's request’ within the meaning of Article 77: notifications, requests for information, memoranda. For an actual tax request, relying on the 30 days under O.G. nr. 27/2002 leads to the action being dismissed as premature.
WARNING: Do not confuse silence with a lawful extension. A letter in which ANAF asks you for further documents is not stalling: it genuinely suspends the running of the time limit, within the limits of Article 77(2). The 6-month time limit for bringing the matter before the court runs from the expiry of the legal time limit for a decision, calculated with the applicable extensions, not from when the request was filed.
The practical consequence: every letter from ANAF must be dated, logged and entered in a calendar. Without that calculation, you risk either a premature action or a late one, in both cases dismissed without the merits being examined. And if the tax authority has requested information from a foreign tax authority and has notified you, the time limit can lawfully extend by up to 6 months: during that interval, the silence is not unlawful.
The situation with its own regime, the most useful and the least used: Article 281(5) of the Tax Procedure Code allows a taxpayer who has not received a decision on an administrative appeal within 6 months of filing it to go directly to court, with an action against the tax acts under appeal. Watch the calculation: the 6 months exclude the extension periods under Article 77(2) and the periods of suspension under Article 277 (typically, a criminal referral).
VAT returns showing a negative amount with a reimbursement option are decided under Article 169 of the Tax Procedure Code and the procedure approved by O.P.A.N.A.F. nr. 352/2022, as amended by O.P.A.N.A.F. nr. 506/2026 (Official Gazette no. 338 of 28 April 2026). The blockage almost always occurs at the preliminary control stage, extended beyond any reasonable time limit, without any act being issued, which is why the statutory duration of the inspection itself becomes an argument.
Article 158 of the Tax Procedure Code: it must be issued within no more than 3 working days of the request being filed. The time limit is short precisely because transactions, tenders and deregistrations depend on it. Exceeding it is, in itself, a failure to decide within the legal time limit.
Article 187 of the Tax Procedure Code: the request is decided within 60 days of registration. The tax authority issues the tax clearance certificate of its own motion (within no more than 5 working days), then communicates either the rejection decision or an agreement in principle, from the communication of which 30 days run for putting up the guarantees, extendable, on a reasoned request, by no more than a further 30 days.
VAT registration, reinstatement of rights, removal of an entry, reactivation. The refusal is usually explicit, but dressed up in formulas such as ‘you do not meet the criteria’, without stating which criterion, without showing the evidence. Exactly the excess-of-power situation under Article 2(1)(n).
You won the administrative appeal, the decision orders the act to be set aside and the inspection to be redone, and nothing happens. Article 2(1)(i), second sentence, expressly treats this situation as equivalent to an unjustified refusal.
The registration number and date are, in the litigation that follows, the central piece of evidence: Article 12 of Legea nr. 554/2004 requires you to submit a copy of the request certified by the registration number and date. The receipt from the Spațiul Privat Virtual (SPV), the tax authority's secure online portal, or an acknowledgement of receipt, serves the same purpose.
Article 77 of the Tax Procedure Code, with the notified extensions. Not the time limit that seems reasonable to you, the legal one.
A letter to the regional general directorate, then to ANAF's head office, is not mandatory, but it is cheap, quick and unblocks a surprising number of cases. It also produces evidence: either an answer that can be challenged, or a second silence, which reinforces the excess of power.
Counter-intuitive, but correct: Article 7(5) expressly provides that, in the situations under Article 2(2), unjustified refusal and silence, a prior administrative appeal is not mandatory. The rationale: it makes no sense for someone already ignored to be put through the same procedure a second time. ÎCCJ case law has been consistent for almost two decades.
WARNING: The rule above does not apply to an assessment decision. If you are unhappy with an issued tax act, typically, a large amount established after an inspection, the prior procedure remains the administrative appeal governed by Articles 268 to 281 of the Tax Procedure Code: special, mandatory, with a 45-day time limit. The exception under Article 7(5) concerns only actions based on silence or refusal, not actions for the annulment of an act. Confusing the two is the most costly mistake in this area: challenging an assessment decision directly, without an administrative appeal, is sanctioned with inadmissibility.
The legal basis is Article 8(1), second sentence: the court may also be seised by a person harmed ‘by a failure to decide within the time limit or an unjustified refusal to decide on a request, as well as by a refusal to carry out a specific administrative operation necessary for exercising or protecting the right or legitimate interest’.
The time limit for bringing the matter before the court is 6 months (Article 11(1)), running from: point (b), communication of the unjustified refusal, where the refusal is explicit; point (c), expiry of the legal time limit for a decision, where there is silence; point (d), expiry of the time limit under Article 2(1)(h), calculated from communication of the act issued as a favourable decision on the request, in the case of failure to implement it. The general rules of the tax litigation action, including jurisdiction and stamp duty, apply in addition.
The heads of claim, in order: (1) a finding that the refusal was unjustified or that the request was not decided within the legal time limit; (2) an order against the authority to issue the act, release the document or carry out the administrative operation, Article 18(1); (3) fixing a time limit for compliance and, cumulatively, a fine, Article 18(6) allows the court to set both in the operative part, at the request of the interested party; (4) a penalty per day of delay, Article 18(5); (5) pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages, Article 18(3). All must be expressly requested: none is granted of the court's own motion.
In a case of a blocked reimbursement, the loss can be quantified: interest on the bridge loan, contractual penalties, lost contracts. And Article 16 allows the claim also to be brought against the person at fault for the refusal to deal with the request, where damages are sought; if the claim succeeds, that person can be held liable jointly and severally with the authority. A rarely used lever and, precisely for that reason, an effective one.
A useful tool from the very first hearings: Article 13(4), if the authority does not send the requested materials within the time limit set by the court, its head is ordered, by interlocutory ruling, to pay a judicial fine of 10% of the national gross minimum wage for each day of unjustified delay.
This is the part the tax administration takes seriously.
The time limit. If, as a result of the action being allowed, the authority is ordered to issue or amend an act, release a document or carry out administrative operations, compliance takes place voluntarily within the time limit set in the judgment, and, failing that, within no more than 30 days of the judgment becoming final (Article 24(1)).
The fine and the penalties. At the creditor's request, the enforcement court imposes on the head of the authority, or the person under the obligation, a fine of 20% of the national gross minimum wage per day of delay, payable to the state budget, and awards the claimant penalties under Article 906 of the Civil Procedure Code (Article 24(3)). For an obligation that cannot be valued in money, Article 906 sets penalties of between 100 and 1,000 lei per day. The concrete figure, as of July 2026: the national gross minimum basic wage is 4,325 lei from 1 July 2026 (H.G. nr. 146/2026), up from 4,050 lei previously, so the fine works out at around 865 lei per day, borne personally by the head of the authority.
The second stage. If, within 3 months of communication of the judgment imposing the fine, the debtor culpably fails to comply, the enforcement court, at the creditor's request, fixes the final amount owed to the state and the penalties owed to the creditor, and determines, under Article 892 of the Civil Procedure Code, the damages for failure to perform in kind (Article 24(4)). Failing such a request, the civil enforcement department takes up the matter of its own motion.
The procedure. Jurisdiction lies with the enforcement court, the one that decided the merits. Applications are heard in chambers, as a matter of urgency, and are exempt from stamp duty; there is no need for the judgment to be vested with an enforceable formula, nor for enforcement to be authorised by a bailiff. Decisions are subject only to an appeal on points of law, within 5 days of communication.
The right of recourse. Article 26: the head of the authority may bring a claim against those actually at fault for the non-compliance. This provision explains, better than anything else, why cases unblock after the first application based on Article 24: the fine is not paid from the institution's budget, but out of the pocket of a person who, in turn, has someone to pursue. When enforced collection is running against you in parallel, the contrast becomes all the more visible.
The tax administration's silence is not a procedural obstacle. It is a challengeable act, provided you know from which day the time limit runs.
Yes, if the legal time limit has expired, but check the calculation first: Article 77 of the Tax Procedure Code provides for 45 days, extended by the period of any request for further information (2, 3 or 6 months, depending on the source), or 90 days if the risk analysis required a preliminary inspection. If you were notified of an extension, the silence during that interval is not unlawful. After the real time limit expires, you have 6 months to bring the matter before the court, without a prior administrative appeal.
No. Article 7(5) of Legea nr. 554/2004 expressly excludes the requirement of a prior administrative appeal in the situations under Article 2(2), unjustified refusal and failure to decide within the time limit. You may still file one, as a pragmatic way of unblocking matters, but it is not a condition for the action and does not extend the 6-month time limit.
It can order the issuing of the act and the carrying out of the administrative operation, Article 18(1), which includes issuing the reimbursement decision. The court does not, however, substitute itself for the tax authority in the substantive review the law reserves to it. In practice: if all that is missing is the decision, the order targets the decision; if the review has not been carried out at all, the order targets a decision on the request within a time limit set by the court, on pain of the fine and the penalties.
An application under Article 24(3), to the court that decided the merits, in chambers, exempt from stamp duty: a fine of 20% of the national gross minimum wage per day of delay (around 865 lei/day at the July 2026 rate), imposed on the head of the authority, plus penalties of 100 to 1,000 lei/day for you. After 3 months of culpable non-compliance, a second application fixes the final amounts and the damages.
Informative material, updated on 18 July 2026. It does not constitute legal or tax advice; individual situations must be assessed on their own facts.
If the appeal period is already running, the other analyses on this subject are grouped under tax litigation. For the concrete stages of a dispute, see tax disputes.
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.