A practical guide for Romanian tax residents with foreign bank or brokerage accounts
Key point. A foreign bank or broker may withhold tax, but that does not automatically complete a Romanian tax resident’s reporting obligations. The taxable income may still need to be determined under Romanian rules, converted into lei, reported in the Romanian annual tax return and reviewed for health insurance contribution purposes.
Generating foreign investment income in Romania from international investing may be considered now a routine. A Romanian tax resident may receive US dividends, interest from a bank account in another EU country and capital gains through a global trading platform, all in the same year. The tax analysis, however, should not be performed by looking only at the cash that reached the account. Each category has its own tax calculation rules, the foreign tax must be separated from the gross income, and the applicable double tax treaty may change the final result.
This guide explains the practical framework for reporting foreign investment income in Romania. It focuses on individuals investing privately, rather than through a company or as a professional trading business. Because rates, thresholds and forms can change, the rules for the year in which the income arose should always be confirmed before filing.
Start with your Romanian tax residency
Romania generally taxes a Romanian tax resident on worldwide income. Of course, each type of income may be subject to domestic exemptions and the relevant double tax treaty. This means that foreign dividends, foreign interest and gains from investments held abroad must be reflected in the Romanian tax return even when the payer, bank, broker and account are all outside Romania.
Citizenship alone does not determine where you are considered a tax resident. For example, a foreign national living in Romania may become a Romanian tax resident, while a Romanian citizen who has genuinely relocated abroad may no longer be treated as a Romanian tax resident under the applicable tax treaty.
Romanian domestic tax rules look at several factors when determining tax residence, including your domicile, the center of your vital interests and the amount of time you spend in Romania. The well-known 183-day rule is one of these factors, but it is not the only one. If both Romania and another country consider you a tax resident, the residence provisions of the relevant double tax treaty must determine which country has the primary taxing rights.
The year you move to or from Romania may require particular attention. In practice, the date from which Romania can tax your worldwide income does not always coincide with the date you receive a residence permit, sign an employment contract or submit the ANAF tax residence questionnaire. That is why your tax residence status and the exact period it covers should always be established before calculating or reporting your foreign investment income in Romania.
Classify the income before calculating the tax
A statement from your investment platform can include many different types of payments. You might see dividends, bond interest, money market distributions, proceeds from selling investments or even promotional bonuses – all in the same report. While the labels used by your broker are a helpful starting point, they do not automatically determine the income you derived and how each payment is treated for Romanian tax purposes.
Foreign dividends: start from the gross amount
When reporting dividends as part of your foreign investment income in Romania, you should generally use the gross dividend, not the amount that actually reaches your account after foreign tax has been withheld.
For example, imagine a foreign company declares a dividend of RON 5,000. If the country where the company is located withholds RON 750 in tax before making the payment, you will receive only RON 4,250. However, for Romanian tax purposes, you should not report just the amount credited to your account. Instead, you report the full gross dividend of RON 5,000, while the RON 750 withheld abroad is recorded separately after applying the required currency conversion.
For dividends distributed on or after 1 January 2026, Romania generally applies a 16% dividend tax rate under its domestic tax rules. Even so, it is always worth checking the rules that apply to the specific distribution. This is particularly important for interim dividends, dividends declared in previous years but paid later, or payments that your broker describes as “dividend equivalents”, as these may require a different tax advice.
If foreign tax has already been withheld, you may be able to claim a foreign tax credit in Romania. However, this is only possible within the limits set by Romanian tax legislation and the applicable double tax treaty. In other words, if the source country withheld more tax than the treaty allows, Romania will not automatically give you credit for the excess. In many cases, recovering the overpaid amount means filing a refund claim with the tax authorities in the country where the income originated.
Foreign interest: identify what generated the payment
Interest earned on a deposit with a foreign bank is usually straightforward: for Romanian tax purposes, it will generally be treated as interest income. The same may apply to a bond coupon or to interest paid on cash you keep in an investment account.
But not every payment labelled “interest” by a bank or investment platform is necessarily interest for Romanian tax purposes.
Take bonds, for example. A regular coupon payment will generally be treated as interest. If you sell the bond for more than you paid for it, however, the profit may instead be treated as a capital gain. Similarly, a payment from a money-market fund may need to be analysed as a fund distribution rather than ordinary interest. In other words, the wording you see on your statement is useful, but it does not tell the whole story.
Once the payment has been correctly classified as foreign interest, the Romanian tax treatment is relatively straightforward. Foreign interest income is generally subject to 10% Romanian income tax, unless a specific exemption or another tax treatment applies.
As with foreign dividends, the calculation generally starts with the gross taxable amount, before any foreign tax is deducted. Any tax withheld abroad should be identified and recorded separately rather than simply reporting the net amount that reached your account.
This distinction becomes particularly important when foreign withholding tax is involved. Romania’s double tax treaties often limit how much tax the country where the interest originates may charge. However, there is no single treaty rate that applies in every case. The percentage, conditions and eligibility for treaty relief depend on the country concerned and the provisions of the relevant double tax treaty.
Capital gains: first identify the broker regime
When it comes to capital gains, the broker or investment intermediary you use can make a significant difference to how your gains are taxed in Romania.
If you trade through a qualifying Romanian intermediary – or through a qualifying foreign intermediary that has a permanent establishment in Romania – your transactions may fall under Romania’s withholding-at-source regime. For gains obtained starting with 1 January 2026, the applicable tax rates are generally: 3% – for securities held for at least 365 days and 6% – for securities held for less than 365 days.
There is an important detail here: under this regime, tax is calculated on each profitable transaction. Losses from other transactions cannot simply be used to reduce those gains. For example, suppose you sell one investment at a RON 10,000 gain and another at a RON 4,000 loss. If the transactions fall under the withholding-at-source regime, you cannot assume that tax will be calculated on the RON 6,000 difference. The profitable and loss-making transactions are treated according to the specific rules of this regime.
Using a foreign broker/investment intermediary, however, does not automatically put you into the withholding-at-source regime. The fact that a broker accepts Romanian residents as customers – or even provides Romanian-language services – does not necessarily mean that it qualifies as an intermediary that withholds Romanian tax.
If no qualifying intermediary withholds Romanian tax, you will generally need to calculate your taxable investment result for the year and report it yourself. For gains obtained starting with 1 January 2026 the Romanian income tax rate under this self-assessment regime is generally 16% of the taxable net annual gain.
This is where the calculation can become more detailed. Losses, transaction fees, transfers of investments between brokers and the country to which a gain is allocated for tax purposes can all affect the final result.
So, before deciding which tax calculation applies, ask your broker a very specific question: Does the platform withhold Romanian income tax on capital gains under the Romanian Fiscal Code? If the answer is yes, ask for documentation showing how the Romanian tax was calculated and withheld. Do not rely solely on statements such as “taxes handled” or “we take care of your taxes.” In practice, these phrases may simply mean that the platform withholds tax in another country or reports transactions to the relevant authorities. They do not necessarily mean that your final Romanian income tax has been calculated and paid.
How to convert your foreign investment income into RON
The Romanian annual tax return must always be completed in Romanian lei (RON). This means that if you receive investment income in euros, US dollars, British pounds or another currency, you will need to convert the relevant amounts into lei before reporting them.
For foreign investment income in Romania, the tax return instructions generally require both the foreign income and any related foreign tax to be converted using the annual average exchange rate published by the National Bank of Romania (BNR) for the year in which the income was realized.
This is important because the rate you use for Romanian tax purposes may not be the same as the exchange rate you saw when the payment reached your account. It may also differ from the rate your broker used when converting the money.
Capital gains can make things more complicated. You may have bought an investment in one currency, sold it months or years later, and paid various transaction fees along the way. Those amounts may have arisen on different dates and, in some cases, even in different currencies. Keeping the original transaction records showing how you arrived at the amount reported in Romania, can save a lot of confusion later.
One common mistake is to focus on the amount eventually withdrawn from the investment account. For example, you might sell shares in March but leave the proceeds in your brokerage account until November. The November withdrawal does not determine when the investment gain arose or how it should be calculated. Selling the investment and withdrawing the cash are two separate events.
For this reason, you should always keep records of the original purchase price, sale proceeds, transaction fees and currencies involved rather than relying only on bank withdrawals or the final balance shown by the platform. The precise conversion method should then be checked against the Romanian Fiscal Code rules applicable to the relevant type of income and tax year.
How to apply the double tax treaties and the foreign tax credit
A double tax treaty is designed to prevent the same income from being taxed twice without relief, but it does not usually mean that you report the income in only one country.
Instead, the treaty determines which country has the right to tax a particular type of income and, in many cases, limits how much tax the country where the income originates – the source country – can charge. If you are a Romanian tax resident, Romania may still have the right to tax that income. Romania will then generally provide double tax relief using the method set out in the applicable treaty, most commonly through a foreign tax credit.
For example, suppose you receive a dividend from a foreign company and tax is withheld in that country before the money reaches your brokerage account. You may still have to report and tax the dividend in Romania. However, if the relevant conditions are met, the foreign tax already paid may be credited against the Romanian tax due on the same income. The purpose is to provide relief from double taxation – not necessarily to remove the Romanian reporting obligation.
In practice, checking whether you can claim a foreign tax credit on your foreign investment income in Romania involves a few key steps:
- Start with the source country. This is not necessarily the country where your broker is based. You need to determine where the income is considered to arise under Romanian tax rules and the relevant treaty.
- Check that a double tax treaty applies. Confirm that Romania had a treaty in force with the relevant country for the period concerned. You may also need a Romanian tax residence certificate if the foreign country requires one for applying any treaty benefits.
- Look at the article covering the specific income. Dividends, interest and capital gains can have very different treaty rules. Check whether the source country was entitled to tax the income and, if so, whether the amount withheld was within the treaty limit, if one applies.
- Keep proof of the foreign tax. A figure appearing on a broker statement may not always be enough. Keep the available official documents showing that the foreign tax was actually withheld or paid.
- Calculate how much credit Romania allows. The foreign tax credit is generally limited to the Romanian tax attributable to the same foreign income. For some types of income, it may be limited to a specific rate. If more tax was paid abroad than Romania allows as a credit, the difference does not normally turn into a refund from the Romanian tax authorities.
The matching of income and foreign tax is particularly important. The calculation must be done by country and by category of income. For example, tax withheld on dividends from the United States should not simply be pooled together and used to reduce Romanian tax due on interest from Germany or on a capital gain arising in another country.
And there is one more important point to watch: not every treaty uses the foreign tax credit method in every situation. If the applicable treaty provides for an exemption method instead, the Romanian tax treatment will be different. This is why the relevant treaty should be checked before assuming that foreign tax can automatically be deducted from your Romanian tax bill.
Reporting foreign investment income in Romania through the annual tax return
If you are Romanian tax resident and earn investment income from abroad, you will generally need to report it through the “Declarația Unică” (the annual tax return). Foreign income must be reported based on both the country from which it originates, and the type of income involved – for example, dividends, interest or capital gains.
The reporting deadline for foreign investment income in Romania as well as the tax payment deadline is generally 25 May of the year following the year in which the income was earned. So, if you generate foreign investment income in 2026, you would generally have to report it and pay the related Romanian tax by 25 May 2027. As tax rules and forms can change, however, it is worth checking the final filing requirements before submitting the tax declaration.
One practical piece of advice: do not wait until May to start putting the numbers together.
Foreign brokers do not necessarily provide the kind of tax certificate you might expect from a Romanian financial institution. Even when a platform provides an annual tax report, that report may have been prepared according to the rules of another country and may not contain everything you need for your Romanian tax reporting.
A better approach is to build your tax file for your foreign investment income in Romania as you go. Keep your broker statements and records of purchases and sales, dividends and interest received, transaction fees and any foreign taxes withheld. Ideally, your calculation should allow you to reconcile what you held at the beginning of the year with all the transactions that took place during the year and what remained in your portfolio at year-end.
For example, if your broker statement shows that you received a net dividend of EUR 850, your Romanian tax file should make it possible to identify the gross dividend, the foreign tax withheld and the amount that actually reached your account. The same principle applies to share sales for example: keep enough information to trace the acquisition cost, sale proceeds and relevant fees rather than relying only on the final profit figure displayed by the platform.
This may feel like extra work during the year, but it makes completing the Declarația Unică considerably easier – and gives you a clear calculation trail if ANAF later asks how you arrived at the amounts reported.
Finally, keep a copy of the filed tax return together with your calculations, broker statements and supporting documents for the applicable statutory retention period. A well-organized tax file is much easier to defend than a number reconstructed from old brokerage statements several years later.
Do not overlook the health insurance contribution (CASS)
Paying income tax on your foreign investment income in Romania is not necessarily the end of the story. You may also need to consider CASS, the Romanian health insurance contribution, because income tax and CASS are separate obligations.
Investment income can count towards the annual thresholds used to determine whether CASS is due on non-salary income. This means that dividends, interest and capital gains may need to be considered together with other relevant income you earn during the year, such as rental income or other specific sources of income.
For example, your dividends alone may not be enough to trigger a CASS liability. But if you also receive interest, realize capital gains and earn rental income during the same year, the relevant amounts may need to be aggregated. Taken together, they could push you above one of the applicable CASS thresholds.
Another common source of confusion is how the contribution itself must be calculated. CASS is not generally calculated as 10% of every dividend, interest payment or capital gain you receive. Instead, the system uses annual thresholds linked to 6, 12 and 24 national minimum gross salaries. Which threshold applies depends on the level of relevant income and the rules in force for that particular year.
This is why CASS should be checked separately from the income tax calculation. The national minimum gross salary used for the calculation, the types of income included in the threshold test and the applicable contribution base can change, so the rules for the relevant income year should always be verified.
And having a Romanian employment contract does not automatically settle the issue. You may already pay CASS every month through payroll, but that does not necessarily mean your investment income is exempt from the CASS. If you earn dividends, interest, capital gains or other relevant non-salary income, you should still perform the annual CASS threshold test.
