Romania Digital Nomad Visa: Requirements, Income & How to Apply (2026)

You qualify as a remote employee of a company registered outside Romania, or as the owner of a company incorporated abroad that you run remotely. Freelancers working for foreign clients fit the same foreign-activity test. Work tied to a Romanian employer does not count. You prove the relationship with contracts and, more importantly, with six months of income at the required level.

Romania also asks for a clean, apostilled criminal record and for health insurance, and the visa is for non-EU nationals; EU/EEA citizens use free movement instead.

The income floor is set at three times Romania's average gross monthly wage, and that peg is what makes it move. For 2026 the reference average gross wage used for legal thresholds is 9,192 lei, which puts the requirement at about 27,576 lei a month. If the immigration inspectorate applies the live statistical average instead, which has run closer to 9,800 lei, the bar climbs toward 29,600 lei. Guides still quoting figures in the low four-figure euros are stale, because the wage base has risen sharply since the visa launched.

You have to show that income for each of the six months before you apply, not as a single strong month. The requirement is denominated in lei, so the equivalent in your own currency shifts with the exchange rate. Leave yourself a margin above the line.

You start at a Romanian consulate or through the e-Visa portal, applying for the long-stay (type D) visa for "other purposes". Since 27 April 2026 the type D visa fee is €300, up from €120. Once you are in Romania you convert the visa into a residence permit with the General Inspectorate for Immigration, which carries its own smaller charges, roughly €120 plus a 259-lei card fee. The statutory decision window is up to 60 days, though e-Visa files frequently clear sooner.

Health insurance of at least €30,000 and an apostilled criminal-record certificate are part of the file, so build in time to legalise documents before you submit.

This is Romania's real selling point. Under a 2023 amendment (Law 69/2023), digital-nomad-visa holders who spend fewer than 183 days in Romania in any 12-month period pay no Romanian income tax, pension or health contributions on their foreign income. Cross 183 days and you become a Romanian tax resident, at which point the flat 10% income tax and social contributions apply to worldwide income. Romania's headline rates stay low even then, but the under-183-day exemption is the thing nomads plan around.

Family members are not attached to the nomad visa through a single income multiplier. A spouse and minor children join through Romania's separate family-reunification route once you hold the residence permit, and that route carries its own income and documentation rules. It works for families, but treat each person's paperwork as a distinct application rather than expecting one combined threshold to cover everyone.

Romania sits at the demanding end of Europe on income. The 3x average-wage peg puts it well above Hungary's €3,000 or Croatia's threshold, but it answers back with the region's most useful tax deal for short stays. Bulgaria next door has no comparable nomad visa of the same shape, and Hungary is cheaper to qualify for yet taxes residents and bars family. If the income bar is within reach, the under-183-day exemption can make Romania cheaper to live in than lower-threshold countries that tax you from day one.

The number that trips people up is the income threshold, because it is a moving target and higher than most expect. Applicants budget against an old euro figure they found online, then discover the lei-pegged bar has climbed with Romanian wages. Show all six qualifying months and clear the line comfortably, since the exchange-rate conversion can pull a borderline applicant under. The other friction points are document legalisation, where the criminal-record certificate needs an apostille, and the two-step structure, where the consular visa and the in-country residence permit are separate stages with their own fees and timelines. Plan the residence-permit conversion before your visa's initial validity runs down.