Did you work remotely for a company based in Spain in 2022? Did you rent out an apartment in Barcelona on a short-term basis? Did you trade crypto on a European platform? This summer, in 2026, you open your post box and find a tax assessment notice from ANAF, Romania's National Agency for Fiscal Administration, covering income earned in 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2024. With penalties that can reach 70% of the assessed amount.

It sounds alarming. But it is real. This is happening right now to hundreds of thousands of Romanians, according to information published by Profit.ro. ANAF is issuing tax assessment decisions for foreign income that was not declared during 2021–2024, and the wave of notices will continue through October. If you worked, rented property or invested outside Romania in recent years, this article is for you. We explain what is happening, why ANAF already has the data, and, most importantly, what you can do right now to avoid the 70% rate.

What is happening: ANAF has received data from other EU tax authorities

The mechanism is called the automatic exchange of information between tax administrations within the European Union. In practice, if you earned income that was reported to the Spanish, German, Italian or any other EU tax authority, that information has already been transmitted automatically to ANAF, without you doing anything, and without anyone asking you first.

According to published data, there are three main categories of income being targeted:

• Short-term rentals operated on a hotel-style basis (Airbnb, Booking.com and similar platforms) for properties located outside Romania.
• Cryptocurrency transactions carried out through platforms headquartered in other EU member states.
• Self-employed or freelance activity conducted abroad, including remote work for clients or employers outside Romania.

Tax assessment decisions are being issued right now and will continue through October 2026. Data for the 2025 tax year is still incomplete, but ANAF will receive it through the same automatic exchange with other member states. This is not a one-off operation, it is an ongoing process.

Who is specifically at risk

If you recognise yourself in any of the situations below, there is a strong chance your name is on the list:

• You worked remotely for a company in another EU state, were paid there, but remained a tax resident in Romania and did not declare that income.
• You own a property abroad that you rented out through Airbnb or Booking.com and received the proceeds there.
• You traded cryptocurrency on EU-based platforms and made gains.
• You physically relocated to another EU country (Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, etc.), pay taxes there legally, but never formally notified Romanian authorities that your tax residency had changed.

That last category is important and frequently overlooked. Even if you believe "I already paid tax in Germany, what more does ANAF want?", the issue is not the tax itself: it is the communication. If you are officially still a Romanian tax resident but live and work in Germany, ANAF treats you as a Romanian taxpayer with undeclared foreign income.

Why 70%, and how you end up there

The 70% rate applies to amounts whose source cannot be justified. It is not the standard penalty rate; it is the mechanism triggered when the tax authority identifies income with no valid explanation. Tax specialist Cornel Grama explained the logic of the process to Știrile Pro TV:

"If someone has income from stock-market gains or has rented out property abroad but has not established tax residency in that country, meaning their tax residency remains in Romania, then they are bound here to the Romanian tax authority and they need to come and clarify the situation. If they do not do that, then, after the compliance notification, an official tax assessment will follow."

In other words, the process has two stages. First you receive a notificare de conformare, a compliance notification, essentially an invitation to come and explain your situation. If you ignore it or fail to respond, ANAF issues an official tax assessment calculated on the basis of the data received from abroad, with the 70% rate applied to unjustified amounts.

The compliance notification is, in fact, your window of opportunity. It is the moment when you can still avoid the 70%.

What the data shows: who declares and who does not

One figure illustrates the scale of the problem: for the 2025 tax year, only 58,524 taxpayers filed declarations for taxable foreign income. The total declared amount exceeded 5 billion lei (approximately €1 billion), of which 77% came from investment income.

The contrast with the "hundreds of thousands of Romanians" on the assessment list is stark. That gap is precisely what ANAF is targeting: many Romanians with foreign income simply do not declare it. Now that data arrives automatically from other EU tax authorities, ANAF can compare what entered your accounts with what you reported in the declarația unică, Romania's unified annual tax return covering all personal income.

Another telling detail from the data: only 9 taxpayers declared agricultural income from abroad, averaging roughly €4,600 per person. The figure is low not because such income does not exist, but because most people do not know it must be declared.

What to do if this applies to you

Do not wait for the assessment notice to arrive. If you suspect you have undeclared foreign income for 2021–2024, you have several concrete options:

• Check your SPV account (Spațiul Privat Virtual, ANAF's secure online taxpayer portal). Compliance notifications appear there, not only by post. Many are missed simply because people do not check the portal regularly.
• File a corrective declarație unică for the years in which you omitted income. Yes, past declarations can be amended. Yes, it is better to do it yourself than to let ANAF calculate the bill for you.
• Consult an accountant or tax adviser. Cross-border situations are complex: the double-taxation treaties (convenții de evitare a dublei impuneri) between Romania and the country where you already paid tax are directly relevant and can significantly reduce what you owe.
• If you have genuinely relocated abroad, formalise your change of tax residency. This is a separate process with its own forms and supporting documents, it does not happen automatically just because you live in another country.

A useful rule of thumb comes from tax commentator Alex Anghel, co-founder of an accounting application, who highlighted a specific but broadly applicable point:

"If the entity paying you is not a Romanian company, then you must declare it yourself through the declarația unică."

The logic extends across the board: if money arrives from an entity outside Romania, the obligation to declare it rests with you, not the payer. This is where most freelancers and remote workers fall through the gap.

What this means when negotiating a remote job offer

If you are currently considering a remote job offer from a company based in another EU country, factor in the tax dimension before you sign. The gross salary quoted in Berlin, Madrid or Amsterdam is not equivalent to what you take home if your tax residency remains in Romania and you must declare the income here.

Questions worth asking before you accept:

• Is the employer contracting with you as an individual tax resident in Romania? In which country does the employer pay social contributions on your behalf?
• Is there an intermediary arrangement, a Romanian employer-of-record (EOR) or dispatching company that acts as the formal employer in Romania?
• If you are working as a freelancer, are you operating through a PFA (sole trader) or SRL (limited company), or are you declaring everything individually through the declarația unică?

Check both numbers before you sign: what you receive gross and what remains net after CAS (pension contributions), CASS (health contributions) and income tax. A net-to-gross salary calculator lets you quickly compare a Romanian offer with a remote one on the same basis. And if you want to see how your compensation compares with the broader market for your role, a salary benchmarking tool shows real ranges by industry and experience level.

The real risk of doing nothing

The worst thing you can do right now is assume this will not catch up with you. The data has already been transmitted. ANAF has your name, the amounts and the source. The difference between coming forward voluntarily and waiting for an official assessment could be the difference between paying the standard tax rate with reasonable late-payment interest and paying 70% on the entire sum.

This is not a cause for panic. It is arithmetic. And the arithmetic says it is cheaper to regularise your position now than to face the bill in October.

If you work remotely or have income from outside Romania, treat the coming weeks as a compliance window. Check your SPV account. Open your declarația unică. Call an accountant. Do all three if necessary. It is the kind of administrative task that feels tedious now but spares you a far larger financial impact a few months down the line.