Romania IT tax exemption after abolition: What the Article 60(2) regime looked like and what applies in 2026

For more than two decades, Romania offered one of the most influential tax incentives in Central and Eastern Europe’s technology sector: a personal income tax exemption for qualifying software developers under Article 60(2) of the Fiscal Code (Law No. 227/2015). The regime shaped hiring decisions, payroll costs, and investment plans for both domestic software companies and multinational employers building technology teams in cities such as Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, and Iași. That changed on 31 December 2024, when Emergency Ordinance No. 156/2024 (“the Train Ordinance”) abolished the exemption with effect from income earned from 1 January 2025, ending a regime that had previously been expected to remain in place until the end of 2028.

Although the exemption no longer applies, it continues to influence payroll administration and workforce planning. Many employers still manage teams that were hired under the former regime, while others are updating payroll processes and cost models to reflect the current rules.

Article 60(2) exempted qualifying software developer employees from the 10% personal income tax (PIT) on their salary income. It did not, at any point, exempt employee or employer social contributions:

• Income tax (PIT): Exempted while the regime was live. The employer withheld no PIT on the qualifying portion of the gross salary.
• CAS (employee pension): 25% of gross salary. Never exempted. Between November 2023 and December 2024, Law 296/2023 temporarily reduced the rate by 3.75% (later 4.75%) through a Pillar II deferral. GEO 156/2024 abolished this reduction from January 2025 alongside the PIT exemption.
• CASS (employee health): 10% of gross salary. Never exempt from IT employees.
• CAM (employer work insurance): 2.25% of gross salary. Never exempted.

The exemption applied to salary income only, paid under an individual employment contract (contract individual de muncă) or equivalent instruments (delegation, secondment, certain special-statute arrangements). It did not apply to income earned under PFA freelance structures, SRL-micro contracts, or civil-law service conventions.

The Article 60(2) exemption was available only if every eligibility requirement was met. Missing any one condition meant the exemption could not be applied. The framework in force from 1 June 2023 until its abolition was set out in Joint Order No. 20463/3964/967/1415/2023.

Private-sector employers under the qualifying CAEN codes could apply the exemption to employees in the following roles (with Romanian COR classification codes):

• Database administrator (Administrator baze de date)
• Analyst (Analist)
• Systems engineer in IT (Inginer de sistem în informatică)
• Software systems engineer (Inginer de sisteme software)
• IT project manager (Manager de proiect în informatică)
• Software developer (Programator)
• Systems designer in IT (Proiectant de sisteme informatice)
• IT systems developer (Dezvoltator de sisteme informatice)
• Software developer assistant (Asistent programator, COR 351201, baccalaureate + enrolment sufficient)
• Analyst assistant (Asistent analist)
• Software product development engineer (Inginer de dezvoltare a produselor software, added January 2023)

The list did not include IT support roles, IT security roles (except where they involved software creation), IT procurement, or product owner and product manager roles. An employer misapplying the exemption to non-qualifying roles carries significant retroactive tax risk.

The exemption applied at source through payroll. The employer withheld no PIT on the qualifying portion of gross salary, and the payslip reflected zero PIT on that income. There was no separate refund mechanism or employee-side filing.

Where the employee held more than one employment, the exemption could (until November 2023) be applied at each employment. From November 2023, it was restricted to the workplace where the basic function was registered, and the employee had to submit a written sworn statement to that employer confirming the exemption was claimed only there.

The employer maintained a supporting-documents file for each exempt employee, retained for ANAF inspection, including:

• Individual employment contract (attested as original).
• Job description confirming performance of qualifying activities.
• Qualifying diploma (attested as original), or CNRED equivalence certificate for foreign degrees.
• A graduation certificate where the formal diploma had not yet been issued.
• Baccalaureate diploma plus a certificate of active enrolment (for baccalaureate + enrolment qualifiers).
• Employer organisational chart confirming the specialised IT department.
• Employee sworn statement (from November 2023) that the exemption was claimed only at this employer.

GEO 156/2024, published in the Official Gazette No. 1334 on 31 December 2024, eliminated the Article 60(2) exemption in full for income earned from 1 January 2025 onwards. It also abolished:

• The related CAS reduction (Pillar II deferral) that had been in place from November 2023 restored the full 25% employee CAS with mandatory 4.75% Pillar II routing.
• The equivalent sector-specific exemptions for construction (Article 60(5)) and the agriculture/food industry.

The Romanian Government framed the abolition as a fiscal consolidation measure to reduce the EU’s largest budget deficit as a percentage of GDP. Law 296/2023 had explicitly stated the IT regime would run until 31 December 2028; the emergency ordinance overrode that commitment.

As of July 2026:

• No replacement incentive for IT employees has been enacted.
• The analogous Article 60(3) exemption for research-and-development activities remains in force under separate rules.
• Industry reaction from the Association of Software and Services Industry (ANIS) has remained vocal, but has not resulted in restoration legislation. Emergency Ordinance GEO 89/2025 (December 2025) and Law 239/2025 addressed other fiscal matters without reinstating the IT exemption.

From 1 January 2025, employees who previously qualified for the Article 60(2) exemption became subject to Romania’s standard payroll deductions. Employers must now calculate payroll using the ordinary statutory contribution framework:

The removal of the exemption reduced employees’ net take-home pay unless employers increased gross salaries to offset the change. Contemporary payroll analysis estimated that employees earning between RON 10,000 and RON 20,000 gross per month could see their monthly net income fall by approximately RON 650 to RON 1,125, depending on salary level and individual circumstances.

For foreign employers, the practical implications are straightforward:

• Update payroll calculations: Payroll systems should no longer apply the Article 60(2) exemption. Continuing to treat qualifying IT employees as exempt after 1 January 2025 creates potential liabilities for under-withheld tax, together with interest and penalties.
• Review compensation assumptions: Many salary packages were negotiated while the exemption was still available. Unless gross salaries are adjusted, employees receive lower net pay under the current rules, making compensation planning and retention an important consideration.
• Retire exemption-specific administration: The RON 10,000 monthly exemption ceiling and the single-employer restriction introduced during the transitional regime no longer apply. Employers also no longer need to maintain exemption-specific supporting files or employee declarations for future payroll periods, although historical records should continue to be retained in accordance with general record-keeping requirements.

The Article 60(2) exemption gave foreign employers a distinctive planning advantage: the ability to offer competitive net take-home pay to Romanian software developers without matching the same level of gross-salary inflation. That advantage no longer exists. Employers now need to plan around gross salary rather than tax incentives, budgeting for the full Romanian payroll framework while recognising that salary expectations for experienced technology professionals have continued to move closer to Western European levels.