You went through a tax inspection, you paid or you challenged it, the file seemed closed, and after a year or two ANAF announces that it is coming back: the same period, the same taxes. The legal rule, however, says the opposite: the inspection is carried out once. Coming back is the exception, allowed only in two situations, subject to strict conditions and to acts that can be challenged.
Many taxpayers' first reaction is resignation: “if they want to, they can, any time”. This is exactly the wrong reaction, and the one that turns a narrow exception into a tolerated practice.
Article 118(3) of the Tax Procedure Code sets out the principle of the single inspection: a tax inspection is carried out only once for each type of tax claim and for each period subject to taxation. The rationale is legal certainty: a check concluded by a report and a decision (or by a decision not to change the tax base) exhausts the tax authority's right to examine the same matter again.
What the principle protects: the period and the type of claim already checked. VAT for 2021-2022, once inspected and closed, cannot be inspected again outside the statutory exceptions.
What it does not protect: other types of claims (after a VAT check, an inspection on corporate income tax for the same period does not breach the single-inspection rule), other periods, and forms of control that are not a tax inspection: the unannounced control and the anti-fraud control, a documentary check or a simple compliance notice. These do not “use up” the single-inspection right, but nor can they be used as a disguised inspection to re-establish liabilities for a closed period.
One further point on timing: the inspection, and any return to the same period, may only take place within the 5-year limitation period for establishing tax claims (Article 110), which as a rule runs from 1 July of the year following the one for which the liability is owed.
The head of the inspection body may decide to re-verify certain types of tax obligations for a given taxable period only as a result of the emergence of additional data unknown to the body on the date the inspection was carried out, of a kind capable of affecting its results (Article 128(1)).
What “additional data” is. The law defines it exhaustively as information, documents or other records obtained subsequently: from unannounced controls carried out on other taxpayers, communicated by criminal investigation bodies or other public authorities, or obtained in any way by the inspection body, on the essential condition that they be capable of changing the results of the earlier inspection (Article 128(2)). Typical examples: invoices and contracts seized from a business partner in the course of a later control, findings from a criminal file concerning a supplier, information received through the international exchange of data.
The re-inspection decision: a mandatory act that may be challenged separately. Reverificarea (re-inspection) cannot begin informally. The inspection body must notify you of the re-inspection decision, an administrative tax act that is communicated under the same regime as the notice of tax inspection (Article 122(2)-(6): in principle 30 days beforehand for large taxpayers, 15 days for others) and which stands in place of the notice; a separate notice is no longer issued (Article 128(3)). The decision must state reasons and may be challenged separately, under the Code, within 45 days of communication, pursuant to Articles 268 to 270.
This is where the defence is won or lost: the re-inspection decision must set out the specific additional data on which it relies. A decision that invokes “new information” in generic terms, without showing what actually emerged, when, and why it could not have been known at the first inspection, is vulnerable.
WARNING. A re-inspection decision left unchallenged for 45 days becomes final at administrative level, and the unlawfulness of starting the re-inspection is much harder to raise afterwards. Treat this act with the same seriousness as a tax assessment decision (decizie de impunere): challenge it in time if the basis is weak, ask in writing for the “additional data” to be specified, and do not settle for generic wording. Passivity at this stage is paid for at the end of the re-inspection, once the amounts have already been set.
The statutory definition and case law together yield a clear catalogue of false “additional data”. Each of them is, in practice, a ground for annulment.
Re-assessing the same documents that have been on file since the first inspection is not new data, it is a second reading of the same records.
Opinions of specialist directorates, methodological guidance, changes in administrative practice arising after the inspection. Courts have annulled re-inspection decisions based solely on a legal opinion obtained afterwards by the tax authority, holding that a new interpretation is not additional data.
If the records were accessible at the first inspection with ordinary diligence, the inspection cannot cover its own shortcomings through a second control.
Without new factual elements capable of changing the results of the inspection, the existence of a criminal file or of a collection target does not open the right to come back.
If the lawfulness of the assessment for a period has been established by a final judgment, res judicata bars a return to the same issues.
The second situation in which ANAF comes back is, paradoxically, the result of a partial win for the taxpayer: the administrative appeal (contestație) allowed by setting aside the tax assessment decision (Article 279). Setting the decision aside does not finally close the dispute; the inspection body reissues the inspection, issuing a new act. The rules, however, are strict.
The reopening covers only the periods, obligations and issues that led to the decision being set aside, and must follow exactly the reasoning of that decision (Article 129). The official position of the resolution body is to the same effect: the reopening cannot cover other facts, other contracts or transactions than those in the first inspection.
The reopening is carried out by a team other than the one that issued the act that was set aside (Article 129), a statutory guarantee of impartiality that is frequently ignored in practice and, precisely for that reason, the first thing to check.
Your own appeal cannot leave you worse off (Article 276(3)): the new act cannot establish higher liabilities than the act that was set aside, for the same period and the same subject matter.
For a given type of claim and period, a decision setting the assessment aside may be issued only once (Article 279); the mechanism cannot become a carousel of repeated controls.
The decision setting the assessment aside must be put into effect within 30 days of communication, and the new act must relate strictly to the same period and the same subject matter (Article 279). The Code does not set a special deadline for completing the reopening, but it remains bound by the limitation period and by the rules on the duration of the inspection (Article 126).
The practical distinction from re-inspection: reopening does not require “additional data”, the basis is the resolution decision itself, but the scope is far narrower: only what was set aside, only as the decision says, with no higher amounts.
Neither re-inspection nor reopening resets the limitation period. The 5-year period (Article 110) runs from its statutory starting point, and suspensions are set out exhaustively in Article 111: among others, for the period between the start of the inspection and the issuing of the decision, but only if the inspection stayed within its lawful duration (Article 111(2)(b)). An initial inspection that exceeded its time limits did not suspend the limitation period, and the time elapsed up to the re-inspection or reopening counts in full.
The practical consequence: at every return by ANAF, the first calculation is the limitation period, tax year by tax year. It is not uncommon for the “reopened” period to be, wholly or in part, already time-barred, with the liabilities set for it voidable on that ground alone.
Add the rule on duration: an inspection (including a reopened one) that is not completed within double its lawful duration, 180, 90 or 45 days depending on the taxpayer's category, ceases automatically, without a report and without a decision, and may be resumed only once (Article 126). On the second round, these time limits are counted with the same rigour as on the first.
The tax inspection report, the decision, the annexes, the inventory of documents handed over, the explanatory notes, the position statement, the entries in the single control register. These mark out what was checked and what was known on the date of the inspection, the key evidence that the “additional data” is not new at all.
What the additional data is, where it comes from, why it was not known at the first inspection, or, for a reopening, what considerations in the resolution decision justify it and why the team is different.
Separately from any later tax assessment decision. Typical grounds: no real additional data, generic reasoning, issues already decided, limitation, unlawful communication of the decision.
The defect in the re-inspection or the reopening (the same team, exceeding the limits of the setting-aside, higher amounts) carries over to the subsequent acts and can be raised again as a ground for annulment, including through the position statement on the draft of the new report.
After the mandatory prior procedure: an action for annulment within 6 months of communication of the resolution decision, before the tribunal or the court of appeal depending on the 3,000,000 lei threshold, with the advantage, confirmed by the High Court of Cassation and Justice (Decision RIL no. 20/2023), that the grounds of unlawfulness are not limited to those raised in the administrative appeal. For large amounts, combine the action with an application to suspend enforcement (Articles 14 to 15 of Law no. 554/2004).
The combined duration of the controls, the operational disruption, the guarantees put up, all useful both for suspension and in any later discussion of the tax authority's liability.
The rules above have a counterpart in the control aimed at individuals: the review of personal tax affairs is likewise carried out only once for income tax and for each taxable period, with a return possible only on the basis of additional data unknown on the date of the review (Article 138 of the Tax Procedure Code).
Individuals subject to reviews of their wealth, including those carried out by the anti-fraud bodies, with the prospect of a 70% tax on income from an unidentified source, therefore have the same line of defence: the single-review rule, challenging an unjustified return, and a careful calculation of the limitation period. Data from the wealth and income statement, once filed and reviewed, form part of what the tax authority “knew” at the first review.
WARNING. Keep the file of every control as if a return were certain: the report and decisions, signed inventories of the documents handed over, correspondence from the SPV, the explanatory notes given, the single control register kept up to date. In disputes over re-inspection, the party who can prove what the tax authority actually had available at the first control wins. Without this record, ANAF's claim that it “did not know” certain data is hard to rebut; with it, that claim is often untenable.
Yes. The single-inspection rule operates separately for each type of claim: a VAT inspection does not use up the right to check corporate income tax for the same period. This is not a re-inspection and does not require additional data. Always check, however, the limitation period for the period concerned, and whether the new control does not, in fact, repeat findings already settled.
Not as such: the anti-fraud control and the unannounced control are forms of control distinct from a tax inspection and do not, formally, fall under the single-inspection rule. It becomes problematic if such a control is used as a disguised inspection, ending with liabilities being established for the closed period, or if its results are later relied on as “additional data” even though they bring nothing factually new. Each situation is assessed on the documents.
No. The reopening takes place within your own appeal, and your position cannot be made worse: the new act is confined to the periods and issues that were set aside and to the reasoning of the resolution decision, with no higher liabilities than in the act that was set aside. A “reopening” that extends the period, adds new transactions or increases the amounts can be challenged for exceeding its statutory limits.
The decision setting the assessment aside must be put into effect within 30 days of communication, and the reopening must stay within the limitation period, calculated with no “reset” and with suspensions checked strictly. In practice, a late or excessively long reopening is sanctioned by raising the limitation period and the rules on the duration of the inspection; every month of delay by the tax authority works, here, in the taxpayer's favour.
Informative material, updated on 17 July 2026. It does not constitute legal or tax advice; individual situations must be assessed on their own facts.
If you have an inspection under way or have just received a notification, the related analyses are grouped under tax inspection and the review of individuals. For how such matters are handled, see tax assistance.
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.