If you are a Romanian tax resident with an account at Interactive Brokers or eToro, a few US shares paying dividends, perhaps a deposit at an Austrian bank — the withholding in the source state does not discharge the Romanian obligation. At most it reduces it, through the foreign tax credit. And where the tax nets to zero, the duty to declare remains intact.
The broker withheld 15% of the dividends, based on form W-8BEN. The conclusion seems obvious: the tax has been paid, so there is nothing more to do in Romania. The conclusion is wrong, and the error has two layers.
The first. As a Romanian tax resident, you are taxable on worldwide income (Article 59 of the Fiscal Code). The withholding in the source state does not discharge the Romanian obligation — at most it reduces it, through the foreign tax credit, and only if you meet the conditions and hold the required documents.
The second. Even where the tax nets, through the credit, to zero, the duty to declare remains. Undeclared income is a problem in itself, independent of the amount payable.
And 2026 is the first year in which the rates changed significantly. The dividend tax rose to 16% under Law no. 141/2025, and Law no. 239/2025 rewrote the taxation of gains from securities, deepening the difference between a Romanian and a foreign intermediary. This article explains how to declare and how to calculate. On how ANAF (the Romanian tax authority) learns of this income — the CRS/DAC2 automatic exchange of information — there is a separate analysis.
The rule is in Article 130 of the Fiscal Code: taxpayers who earn foreign income must declare it in the annual income return (Declarația unică, form 212), calculate and pay the tax due, within the same deadline, taking into account the double-taxation-elimination method provided in the applicable treaty. Foreign income is taxed by applying the rates to the base determined under the rules specific to each income category — the logic is "what it would have been if the income had been Romanian". Symmetrically, foreign income of a kind that is non-taxable in Romania enjoys the same treatment.
The deadline for income earned in the previous year is 25 May inclusive. For 2025 income, the deadline was 25 May 2026. Filing is done online, through the SPV ("Virtual Private Space", ANAF's online portal).
ANAF provides a pre-filled version of the D212, with the data received from income payers. Foreign income and independent-activity income not in the system are entered manually, and verification remains your responsibility.
For filing and paying in full by 15 April inclusive. It does not apply to taxes withheld at source. Check each year whether it is active.
Dividends: 16% from 2026. For income earned from 1 January 2026, the dividend tax rate is 16% (Law no. 141/2025), up from 10% previously. Transitional rule: dividends distributed on the basis of interim financial statements drawn up during 2025 remain at 10%, with no later recalculation after the regularisation based on the 2025 annual financial statements.
Do not confuse the years. The return filed in spring 2026 concerns 2025 income — so dividends at 10%. The 16% rate applies to 2026 income, which you will declare in 2027. For dividends from a foreign company, the mechanism is: the source state usually withholds a tax at source (15% in the United States under W-8BEN, 5% or 15% in many European treaties, depending on the shareholding). You declare the gross dividend in the D212, apply the Romanian rate and deduct, as a foreign tax credit, the tax withheld abroad.
Interest: 10%, unchanged. This is one of the few rates that did not change. For deposits at Romanian banks, the tax is withheld at source. For interest from foreign banks or from bonds issued on markets outside Romania, the rate is still 10%, but the duty to declare falls on you, through the D212. Interest from the government-securities programmes for retail investors is non-taxable, and gains from trading securities issued by the Ministry of Finance and listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange are exempt from tax on gains.
Capital gains: this is where the biggest change occurred. The difference from Romanian brokers is now considerable, for income earned from 1 January 2026:
3% (was 1%) — withheld at source by the intermediary, final tax. You do not file a D212 for this income.
6% (was 3%) — withheld at source by the intermediary, final tax.
16% (was 10%) — no one withholds anything here. You determine the annual net gain, apply the rate and pay by 25 May of the following year, through the D212.
16% — declared by you, through the D212.
The difference is not just the rate. Under the withholding-at-source regime, losses are final — they are neither offset nor carried forward. Under the self-assessment regime, losses during the year are deducted from gains, and the annual net loss is carried forward, on the conditions below. The base for the CASS (health contribution) threshold also differs: at a Romanian intermediary the gross gain is taken into account, at a foreign one the net gain.
IMPORTANT: The fact that the foreign broker withheld tax in its own state does not exempt you from declaring in Romania. Moreover, in many situations the source-state withholding on capital gains is not even due under the treaty — Article 13 of the OECD Model attributes, as a rule, the right to tax gains from shares to the seller's state of residence.
A tax withheld without a treaty basis does not generate a tax credit in Romania: Article 131 conditions the credit on application of the treaty. In that case you are left with the full tax to pay here and a refund claim to make in the source state. Check what the broker actually withheld before assuming it offsets.
The amounts entered in the annual return are expressed in lei. For income earned abroad, the conversion is made at the annual average exchange rate of the currency market communicated by the National Bank of Romania (BNR), for the year the income was earned. The same rule applies to the tax paid abroad, for determining the tax credit.
It is a simplification, but also a trap: if you build your records on the rate of the day of each transaction, you will arrive at figures different from those the administration expects. Consolidate in the foreign currency, convert at the end, at the annual average rate.
The tax credit is the mechanism by which tax paid abroad is deducted from the tax due in Romania, so that you do not pay twice on the same income. It is not automatic.
The limit. The credit is set at the level of the tax paid abroad on the foreign-source income, but it cannot exceed the part of the Romanian income tax attributable to the foreign taxable income. In other words, if the source state withheld more than Romania would, the difference is not refunded and not recovered here — it is recovered, if at all, in the source state.
The conditions are cumulative: the double taxation treaty between Romania and the foreign state applies (without an applicable treaty, there is no credit on the basis of Article 131); the tax was actually paid by the individual; and the payment is proven by a supporting document issued by the competent authority of that state or, where it does not issue such a document, by the income payer or the agent who withheld at source.
Calculation per source. When you earn income from several states, the credit is calculated for each country and each income category separately. No averages are made and an excess credit from one country is not offset against a shortfall from another.
Check whether Romania has a treaty in force with it, and the method provided — credit or exemption.
Establish it under the Romanian rules (dividend, interest, gain from transfer of securities) and identify the applicable rate.
Convert the gross income and the foreign tax into lei, at the BNR annual average rate for the year earned.
Calculate the tax due in Romania on that income, under the rules of the corresponding category.
The lower of the tax paid abroad and the Romanian tax attributable to the foreign income.
The tax residence certificate, the document attesting the tax paid, the annual broker reports, the account statements and the proof of receipt.
The documents are generally not attached to the return — they are presented at the tax office's request. Which means they must exist when the request comes, often two or three years later.
CASS — the health-insurance contribution — is not a tax on gains but a contribution due when income exceeds certain annual thresholds. For investments, dividends, interest, gains from the transfer of securities, income from intellectual-property rights, from letting property and from other sources are counted cumulatively.
The thresholds are set by reference to the national minimum gross wage in force on 1 January of the year the income is earned. On 1 January 2026 that was RON 4,050. The increase to RON 4,325, applicable from 1 July 2026, does not change the thresholds for 2026 income: the reference rule is the minimum wage in force on 1 January of the year earned. The rate is 10%, applied to the fixed base of the bracket, not to actual income.
CASS due: RON 0.
Base RON 24,300 → CASS RON 2,430.
Base RON 48,600 → CASS RON 4,860.
Base RON 97,200 → CASS RON 9,720. This is the maximum annual cap.
CAS — the pension contribution — is not due on investment income. Here comes the most frequent surprise: the dividend tax withheld at source does not cover CASS. Someone who received RON 30,000 of dividends net of tax may owe, in addition, RON 2,430 of CASS, to declare and pay through the D212.
For gains determined through the annual return — hence including those from brokers with no permanent establishment in Romania — the annual net taxable gain is set as the difference between the annual net gain and the losses carried forward from previous tax years resulting from these operations (Article 119 of the Fiscal Code).
The carry-forward rule is more restrictive than is often thought. Under Article 119(2), the annual net loss established through the annual return is recovered within 70% of the annual net gains obtained in the following 5 consecutive tax years. The carry-forward is done chronologically, by the age of the loss; the right to carry forward is personal and non-transferable; and a loss not offset after the 5 years expire becomes a final loss.
For the reader of this article, the paragraph that matters most is Article 119(4): annual net losses arising from abroad are carried forward and offset within 70% of the annual net gains of the same nature and source, earned abroad, per country, in the following 5 consecutive tax years. Three overlapping restrictions, then: the 70% cap, the 5-year limit and the per-country segmentation — a loss recorded at a broker in one state is not offset against a gain earned in another.
Under the withholding-at-source regime through resident intermediaries, the tax is final and losses are not offset at all.
IMPORTANT: The annual net loss is established through the annual return. Undeclared, it does not exist in the tax records and cannot be carried forward. Filing "at a loss" is not a formality — it is the condition for using the loss later, within the 5 years and the 70% cap.
In brief, since the subject is treated at length in the dedicated analysis on foreign accounts. Through CRS/DAC2, ANAF receives each year, from financial institutions in more than 100 jurisdictions, balances, interest, dividends and gross proceeds from the sale of financial assets belonging to Romanian residents. Through DAC1, information arrives on salaries, pensions and real-estate income from EU states. From 2026, Emergency Ordinance no. 71/2025 (transposing DAC8) extends automatic reporting to crypto-assets, with the first reporting in 2027.
The notice campaign announced by ANAF on 24 June 2026, for 2025 income, is the direct product of these flows. Domestically, ANAF Order no. 768/2026 extended the competence for personal tax-position reviews to the Antifraud structures, and income whose source cannot be identified is taxed at 70%.
Yes. Declare the gross dividend in the D212, apply the Romanian rate and deduct the US tax as a foreign tax credit, up to the Romanian tax attributable to that income and provided you hold the document attesting the withholding. If the withholding was 15% and the Romanian rate is 16%, you will have the difference to pay. If the withholding exceeded the Romanian rate, the difference is not refunded in Romania.
Yes, if you want to use the loss. The annual net loss is established through the annual return; undeclared, it does not exist in the tax records. The carry-forward is within 70% of the annual net gains, over the following 5 consecutive tax years — and for losses from abroad, separately per country.
File corrective returns for each year, with the relevant documents. You will owe the tax, CASS if the thresholds were exceeded, interest of 0.02%/day and late-payment penalties of 0.01%/day. Acting on your own initiative, before an audit, avoids the 0.08%/day non-declaration penalty and completely changes the tone of the discussion.
The Fiscal Code also accepts as proof the document issued by the income payer or by the agent who withheld the tax at source, where the competent authority of the foreign state does not issue such a document. In practice, the broker's annual tax report — form 1042-S in the US case, "tax statement" reports in the European case — is the document presented. Request it in good time: it cannot be obtained in May.
Informational material, updated on 18 July 2026. It does not constitute legal or tax advice; individual situations must be assessed case by case.
Time limits run from the moment of communication. An initial discussion clarifies what is alleged, what you need to justify and how the defence is built — before an estimate becomes a tax assessment.