You bought two flats in 2023, renovated them and sold them in 2024. Or you buy cars in Germany and sell them here, a few a year. The notary withheld the tax, nobody asked you for anything on the cars, and everything looks settled. For the tax authority, the question is not how many sales you made. It is whether you behaved like a trader.
Under Article 269 of the Tax Code, a taxable person is anyone who independently carries out economic activities, whatever their purpose or result. The methodological norms specify that an individual is considered to carry out an economic activity through the exploitation of assets if they act as such, independently, for the purpose of obtaining income of a continuing nature.
Personal dwellings, holiday homes, assets used for personal purposes and assets inherited or acquired through the restitution of ownership rights are expressly excluded. For other assets, more than one supply in a year is treated by the norms as having a continuing character. The Court of Justice added the criterion that matters most in practice: trader-like conduct, that is, the mobilisation of means that a private individual does not use.
Point 4 of the methodological norms issued for the application of the VAT title sets out the rule and the exceptions. An individual does not carry out an economic activity when obtaining income from the sale of their personal dwelling or of other assets used for personal purposes. Such supplies are disregarded both for establishing continuity and for the threshold. By contrast, for assets that were not used personally, making more than one supply a year leads to the conclusion that the activity has a continuing character.
The Court of Justice of the European Union, in joined cases C-180/10 and C-181/10, Słaby and Kuć, held that the mere exercise of the right of ownership by its holder cannot, by itself, be regarded as an economic activity, and that the number and scale of the sales are not, alone, distinguishing criteria. What turns the transactions into an economic activity is the taking of active steps to market the assets, through the mobilisation of means similar to those used by a producer, trader or service provider: development works, parcelling out land, advertising, structuring the sale.
The two sets of rules complement each other. The norms offer a simple quantitative criterion, more than one supply a year, for assets that are not personal. European case law offers the qualitative criterion, conduct, which can turn a single complex transaction into an economic activity and, conversely, can explain why several successive sales from personal assets remain outside the scope.
Once that status is acquired, what matters is the 395,000 lei exemption threshold and the nature of the supplies. Old buildings are exempt, under Article 292(2)(f), but count towards continuity and the threshold. New buildings and building land are taxable. Cars are taxable, with a question that is often overlooked: whether the special scheme for second-hand goods can still be applied retroactively.
The transfer of real property from personal assets has its own regime, with the tax withheld by the notary. If the activity is reclassified as an independent activity, the net income is taxed under that regime's rules, with social contributions, and the tax withheld by the notary becomes, at most, an item to be offset. For cars, in the absence of a notarial regime, the reclassification starts from scratch.
A person can be regarded as a taxable person for VAT without their income being reclassified for income tax purposes, or the other way round. Each angle has its own criteria, thresholds and defences, and the case has to be built for both.
Large sums passing through the accounts of an individual with no declared activity are exactly what the review of personal tax position looks for. Repeated sales not declared as an activity raise, besides VAT and income tax, the further question of where the funds used to buy the assets came from.
Published decisions on appeals show a constant pattern. The tax authority identifies, from notarial or vehicle registration records, a number of transactions per person over a period of several years. It finds that the assets were not used for personal purposes, that the transactions have a continuing character, and that the person exceeded the exemption threshold without registering. It assesses VAT for the period from the date on which the person should have registered, together with late-payment charges (accesorii: interest and penalties).
In one of these decisions, Decision no. 648 of 4 December 2017 of the appeals body, concerning transactions in used vehicles carried out between 2011 and 2016, the taxpayer's argument that the special scheme for second-hand goods should have applied was rejected, on the ground that the scheme requires prior registration and specific records, which were missing. The result was tax calculated on the full sale price, not on the margin.
The real defence, in such cases, is not denying the number of transactions, which follows from the registers. It is proving, asset by asset, personal use where it existed, the absence of marketing steps where none existed, and, for the period in which taxable-person status cannot be disputed, the correctness of the calculation: the taxable base, the rate, the right of deduction, the limitation period.
All sales and purchases of this type of asset over recent years, with dates, prices and provenance. The tax authority has the list; you need to have it too, before it does.
For each asset, evidence of personal use: address, utilities, insurance, holding period. Personal assets fall outside the calculation, but only if the use can be proved.
For the remaining assets, how many supplies per year. More than one means, under the norms, a continuing character. This is checked year by year.
What steps were taken: renovations for resale, advertisements, intermediaries, purchases in series. These are the elements the Court regards as decisive, and the ones the tax authority will look for in contracts and accounts.
If the activity has an economic character, turnover is calculated under the threshold rules, including exempt supplies, and the day the threshold was exceeded is identified. From that day the obligation to register runs.
Separately, the risk of reclassification as an independent activity is assessed, with net income and contributions, and what can be offset against the tax withheld by the notary. For cars, the applicable regime is established from scratch.
If the analysis shows an economic activity, voluntary regularisation before a notification costs less than an inspection. If it shows personal assets, the evidence file is prepared now, for the moment it is requested.
The notarial tax relates to personal assets. Reclassification as an activity replaces it with a different regime, and VAT is a separate analysis.
An individual becomes a taxable person through conduct, not through legal form. ANAF decisions are full of individuals with VAT assessed retroactively.
The scale of the sales is not the criterion. Two supplies a year of non-personal assets amount to continuity, under the norms.
Vehicle registrations are records. Checks on vehicle resales start from exactly that, going back whole years.
It depends which flats. The personal dwelling, the holiday home, inherited assets and assets used for personal purposes are expressly excluded by the norms and are disregarded for continuity. Two flats bought for resale, however, in the same year, are more than one supply made for income, which the norms treat as an activity with a continuing character.
Exactly that conduct. According to the Court of Justice of the European Union, the mere exercise of the right of ownership is not an economic activity, but mobilising means similar to those of a trader, such as development works or marketing steps, turns the transactions into an economic activity, regardless of their number.
Yes, in two ways. Supplies of old buildings, exempt under Article 292(2)(f), count both towards establishing continuity and towards the exemption threshold. And taxable-person status, once acquired, also has effects for other transactions, even though no registration obligation arises for the exempt supplies themselves.
ANAF's appeal decisions show how these situations are treated: repeated transactions in used vehicles, over several years, are classified as an economic activity with a continuing character, with an obligation to register for VAT once the threshold is exceeded and with tax assessed retroactively, sometimes without the possibility of applying the special scheme for second-hand goods.
No. They are two separate analyses, with their own criteria. For VAT, what matters is taxable-person status and the threshold. For income tax, what matters is whether the income remains under the regime for the transfer of real property from personal assets or is reclassified as income from independent activities, with tax on net income and contributions. A person can be reclassified on one angle and not on the other.
Real property transactions are reported by notaries, and vehicle transactions appear in registration records. Checks usually start from the number of transactions per person over a period, then from the sums that passed through the accounts.
Informative material, updated on 18 September 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 personal taxation.
An initial discussion goes through the inventory of transactions, separates personal assets from the rest, and establishes, on each of the two angles, VAT and income tax, whether there is exposure and what can be done about it before a notification.