Romanian Accountant

Can anyone recommend a good accountant in Romania who can help me to establish and maintain a company for the purposes of buying land?

Obviously, all other things being equal, I would prefer one who has reasonable fees.

Many thanks.

I think you are going to have to be more specific here. It's an enormous country!

Where, i.e. in what region, are you looking for an accountant? I'm assuming that said accountant must be english-speaking too??

Yes - I should have said - English is a requirement.

Well I'm planning on buying land around Constanta and possibly Brasov. Will I need to meet with him on a regular basis? I had imagined that it was something fairly routine that could be done by mail. Perhaps there is a firm somewhere that specialises in establishing such companies for foreigners.

I would also be interested to know what are the initial and annual costs of maintaining a company for this purpose. I'm evaluating the feasibility of the whole thing.

First thing you need for company formation is an address for the company. After that, you can get the company set up and arrange with an accountant to make returns.

You can either buy a small apartment as the company address, which is a simple way to do it, or arrange a rental agreement with a property owner for the company office. This can be a room in an apartment, but the same room can not be used as offices for more than one company.

I've just got off the phone to an agent in constanta.

He is offering to open a company for me for at most 1000 euros, and it will take a maximum of 2 weeks. They register it at their own address for the time being, and then switch it to another address once I am out there.

Aparently the rules are changing fast. He mentioned that it will soon no longer be acceptable for the registered address to be a residential address. It will need to be in a business zone.

Also, he mentioned that within maybe a year the law may change so that it will no longer be necessary to open a company, and that any EU citizen will be able to buy land. Obviously, waiting for this would save a lot of expense and hassle, but I would probably miss out on a lot of capital growth.

There was also mention of VAT on sales of land, if the land is owned within a company. This is something I hadn't heard of before. Is this true? Is this tax reclaimable?

I am very grateful for the advice offered here.

You're being taken for a ride with that price!!!!!

I've set-up 4 companies in Romania over the last number of years.

The last one I set-up was in September of 2006 and I paid my lawyer 450 Euro to do it.

The breakdown of that cost is as follows..

150 - 250 Euros in professional fees (In my case 200 Euros)
250 Euros approx to the companys formation office (Registru de Comert)

Seperately to the above you will also have to open a bank account & pay into it 200 RON, or about 60 Euros. This is what's called the Social Capital of the company and 200RON is the minimum. There is nothing to be gained by you paying more than that!

You must be present in person, with your passport, to open the bank account and will be issued with a cert declaring that you have paid the social capital which you must present to the registru de comert when you pay the taxes.

Be sure to sign a power of attorney at the bank on the same day which allows your accountant to pick up the Statement of Account at the end of each month.

All of the above can be completed in 2 working days. Steps as follows..

Fly in Wednesday night, for example. AM Thursday do a bit of paperwork with the lawyer and notary, sign a few documents & open bank account. AM Friday go to the registru de comert sign a few more documents and pay the taxes. PM Friday fly home.

It's as easy as one, two, three

The 2 week period your lawyer refers to is the time it takes for the registru de comert to issue the Company Registration Certificate but he can pick this up for you once it is issued AFAIK (have to check that one but I'm 95% certain). Once he has the CRC he will have to have a company stamp made up and give it to the accountant. This will cost no more than 30 Euro. Leave him the money to do it.

Bottom line is that 1000 Euros is WAY beyond the pale!!!

Another point to remember is that when you instruct your lawyer to form the company get him to form it with all the activities allowed under Romanian law NOT just to buy and sell property. Include EVERYTHING, manufacture of plant & equipment, sale of meat etc, etc, etc, etc. Their is a list of allowable activities available from the State. It runs to about 3 pages as I seem to remember. These activities are entered on the statutes of the company.

You never can tell how your business dealings might evolve over time in Ro so best have all activities on your books right from the get go otherwise you will have to complete further paper work and pay extra taxes at a later date if you want to change the company activity profile, e.g. you decide to develop your site yourself.

I pay one of my accountants about 120 Euros per month to handle the paperwork for 2 of my companies. This should be your benchmark too.

Once a year (or every 6 months if your accountant is really keen) you will have to sign the balance sheet for submission to the romanian revenue. You can come out to do this but it's just as east to have the accountant put an 'X' on each sheet and DHL them to you. You sign and send them back. He/she stamps them and submits them.

Hope this is of help but if you have any further questions then PM me.

Ancutza, many thanks for the advice! This is very helpful.
The costs of maintaining the company aren't negligible, but it may still be the best way for me.

I will look into finding a good english speaking lawyer and accountant.

auto320 said:

You can either buy a small apartment as the company address .... This can be a room in an apartment, but the same room can not be used as offices for more than one company.

Click to expand...

Is this true? It sounds very odd. Is every room in every building allocated a number? How do multinationals and other large concerns, who might normally be expected to operate through a large number of limited companies, manage this?

Auto's assertion is, indeed, correct. Each company must operate from a separate room. One of the quirks of the revenue requirements out here.

I've no idea how the multi-nationals would manage but I'd imagine that they would probably operate each company from a separate floor in a large building or partition-up their space.

Buying an apartment simply to operate a holding company out of seems like 'over-kill' to me but I hadn't actually thought how a foreign buyer might handle this issue. An interesting one indeed!

Hmmm. Must look into that!

This is one of the reasons why many of the amateur investors run away from Romania as an investment destination. There are loads of small details like this that frighten away lots of people, but it allows the rest of us to make a few euros for the moment while the Romanians get around to streamlining their laws.