GEO 43/2026: QR Receipt Fines Deferred, Parcel Fee Out, Spending Freeze

5 November 2026 · ACSINTE & PARTNERS

What changed

On 30 October 2026 the Romanian Government adopted Government Emergency Ordinance no. 43/2026 on granting support for the supply of thermal energy in the 2026-2027 cold season, certain fiscal and budgetary measures, and amending and supplementing certain normative acts. It was published the same day in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 915. Three sets of rules directly concern companies.

QR-code receipts: fines suspended for another year

Article III rewrites Article IV of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 68/2025 amending Title VIII "Excise duties and other special taxes" of the Fiscal Code (Official Gazette no. 1132 of 8 December 2025). The application of Article 10 letter f) and Article 11 paragraph (1) letter h) of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 28/1999 on the obligation of economic operators to use electronic fiscal cash registers is now suspended until 31 October 2027 inclusive. These provisions sanction the issuing of a fiscal receipt that lacks the customer's identification code, the receipt identification number and, as a QR code, the data listed in Article 4 paragraph (2^1) of the same ordinance. The previous suspension expired on 1 November 2026.

The preamble explains why: the secondary rules still have to be amended, and new software must be developed, approved and installed on about one million cash registers. Only the sanction is suspended; the obligation itself stays in the law.

Logistics fee on non-EU parcels: repealed

Article XIX repeals, as of 1 November 2026, Article XXII of Law no. 239/2025 on measures to restore and streamline public resources (Official Gazette no. 1160 of 15 December 2025). That article had introduced, from 1 January 2026, a "logistics fee" of RON 25 per parcel on consignments from outside the EU with a declared value under EUR 150, collected through postal service providers.

Under Articles XX and XXI, the old rules continue to apply to parcels handed to recipients up to and including 31 October 2026, including for declaration, payment, record-keeping, audits and sanctions. For parcels delivered from 1 November 2026 the fee is not due. Amounts already collected for such parcels are not paid to the state budget and must be refunded within 30 days of delivery to the persons who paid them.

The stated reason is to avoid overlap with EU rules and an infringement procedure. According to the European Commission, a EUR 2 Union handling fee per item applies from 1 November 2026 to goods sold at a distance and imported into the EU, under Regulation (EU) 2026/2108 (the new Union Customs Code), on top of the temporary EUR 3 customs duty per item in place since 1 July 2026 under Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382.

Freeze on new public spending commitments

Under Article XXII, for the rest of 2026 central and local public authorities and institutions may not enter into new legal commitments for several categories of goods and services, including office supplies, current repairs, inventory items, consultancy and expertise, professional training, studies and research. Article XXIII extends the freeze to investment expenditure, except where a public procurement procedure has reached the stage of communicating its result.

The exceptions are numerous: public health units and education, emergency interventions, defence and public order, projects financed from national programmes or EU and other external funds, consultancy and studies needed for investment documentation, permits or funding applications and, for local authorities, expenditure that objectively cannot be postponed beyond 1 January 2027. The Government may approve further commitments by memorandum.

Who is affected

• Retailers, hospitality and service businesses that issue fiscal receipts, and cash-register distributors.
• Postal and courier operators, online marketplaces, non-EU sellers and logistics intermediaries shipping low-value goods to customers in Romania.
• Suppliers, consultants, training providers and contractors working with public authorities, including bidders in procedures that have not yet reached the award stage.

What companies should do now

1. Use the extra year for cash registers. Treat 31 October 2027 as a firm deadline. Ask your authorised distributor when the updated software will be available for each device model, budget for it, and keep complying with all other cash-register rules: the suspension covers only the three receipt elements above.
2. Close out the logistics fee. Declare and pay the fee for parcels delivered up to 31 October 2026, keep the records for audits, stop charging it for later deliveries and refund within 30 days anything collected for them. Update prices and customer information to reflect the EU duty and handling fee.
3. Review public-sector contracts in the pipeline. For each contract or tender not yet signed, identify the expenditure category, the stage of the procedure and the source of funding, and ask the contracting authority to confirm in writing whether an exception applies.

Key dates

• 30 October 2026 – GEO 43/2026 is published and enters into force.
• 31 October 2026 – last delivery date for which the logistics fee is due.
• 1 November 2026 – the logistics fee is repealed; the EUR 2 Union handling fee applies.
• 31 December 2026 – end of the freeze on new public commitments.
• 31 October 2027 – end of the suspension of fines for receipts without the QR code and related data.

Open questions

Parliament still has to approve the ordinance by law and may amend it. The secondary rules on the new receipt content are still to be amended, and the ordinance does not say how refunds of the logistics fee are to be documented.

This article provides general information and does not constitute legal advice.