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RO e-Factura for Shopify: what Romania requires, and who it reaches

Last updated 26 August 2026 · dates, deadlines and legal references checked against ANAF and EUR-Lex sources on 26 August 2026

Romania was early and Romania is strict. RO e-Factura has been compulsory for domestic B2B since 2024 and for B2C since January 2025, and the fines are a percentage of the invoice rather than a flat administrative penalty. The thing worth understanding before you buy any software for it is that Romania uses the same invoice standard as Germany and Belgium, and a completely different way of delivering the invoice.

The short version

Where Zeppol fits, and where it does not

Worth saying before the detail. Zeppol is not a route into RO e-Factura. Submitting into the Romanian system means talking to ANAF's own interface with Romanian credentials, and a Peppol access point cannot do that on your behalf. If you are a Romanian company invoicing Romanian companies, you need Romanian invoicing software or an accounting firm with an e-Factura integration.

What Zeppol does is the part that carries across borders: turning a Shopify order into a real e-invoice with the buyer's company details and VAT number captured, VAT calculated per line, reverse charge applied where it belongs, and EN 16931 semantics underneath. That is the right foundation for Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and it is the half of the Romanian problem that is actually shared. It is not sufficient for Romania on its own, and we would rather write that here than have you discover it after installing something.

What RO e-Factura is

RO e-Factura is the national e-invoicing system operated by the Ministry of Finance and ANAF. The legal base is Emergency Ordinance 120/2021, approved with amendments by Law 139/2022. Invoices are submitted through ANAF's virtual private space, the SPV, either from the free web interface or through the system's API from your own software.

The mechanism is a clearance model. The seller does not hand the invoice to the buyer and file it away. The seller submits structured XML to the system, the system validates it against the national schema, and if it passes, the Ministry of Finance applies its electronic seal. The sealed file is the invoice. The buyer downloads it from the system. There is no separate question of whether delivery happened, because the state holds the copy that counts.

The dates

Romania needed permission from the EU to require this at all, because the VAT Directive normally lets a buyer refuse an electronic invoice. Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/1553 granted it, and the wording is worth reading if you are trying to work out whether the mandate reaches you: it authorises Romania to require electronic invoices from taxable persons established in the territory of Romania. The derogation runs from 1 January 2024 until the earlier of 31 December 2026 or the date member states have to apply the ViDA rules, which is the mechanism that eventually makes these national derogations unnecessary.

What changed on 1 January 2026

Emergency Ordinance 89/2025, published in the Official Gazette number 1203 of 24 December 2025, made two changes that matter to anyone selling into Romania.

• Five working days, not five calendar days. Article 10(7) of Emergency Ordinance 120/2021 now reads five working days from the date the invoice is issued, and no later than five working days from the issuing deadline in article 319(16) of the Fiscal Code. The count is done under Regulation (EEC, Euratom) 1182/71. The same deadline was written into the B2C rules. In practice this is a small loosening, not a tightening: a Friday invoice no longer burns its weekend.
• Invoices to non-established VAT-registered buyers came into scope. A supplier established in Romania must now transmit invoices through RO e-Factura for supplies with the place of supply in Romania made to taxable persons who are not established in Romania but hold a Romanian VAT registration. Two exceptions are named: fiscal receipts under Emergency Ordinance 28/1999 that meet the conditions for a simplified invoice, and invoices for intra-community supplies of goods where the buyer gives a VAT number from another member state.

A separate change from 15 January 2026 introduced the mandatory RO e-Factura Register for suppliers who identify themselves by personal numeric code, which matters to Romanian sole traders rather than to foreign stores.

Who is inside the obligation, and who is not

This is the section most vendor pages skip, and it is the one that decides whether you need to do anything at all.

• Established in Romania. A seat of business or a fixed establishment in Romania puts you squarely inside. You issue through RO e-Factura and there is no way around it.
• Romanian VAT number, no fixed establishment. You are outside the issuing obligation, which is what the EU derogation limits it to, but you have a reporting obligation for domestic Romanian supplies. Your invoice data goes to ANAF; your buyer can still be given the invoice by ordinary means. Since January 2026 you are also on the receiving end of the new rule above, because your Romanian suppliers must now put invoices addressed to you into the system.
• No Romanian registration at all. Selling into Romania from a store established elsewhere, with no Romanian VAT number, keeps you outside RO e-Factura. Your Romanian business customers are inside it, and that shapes what they expect from you.
• Exports and intra-community supplies invoiced against a VAT number from another member state sit outside the system.

Establishment is a question of fact rather than a box you tick, and holding stock in a Romanian warehouse is exactly the sort of arrangement that turns the answer around. Confirm your own position with a Romanian adviser before concluding you are outside.

The penalties, and why they are unusual

Most e-invoicing regimes fine you a fixed amount for filing late. Romania attached a percentage to the invoice itself, on both sides of the transaction.

• 15 percent of the total invoice value for failing to send a domestic B2B invoice through RO e-Factura, and the same 15 percent for a Romanian buyer who receives and records such an invoice outside the system.
• Late transmission carries a graded fine instead, from 1,000 lei for the smallest taxpayers up to 10,000 lei for large ones.

The second half of the first bullet is the part that reaches foreign sellers indirectly. A Romanian company that is fined for recording the wrong kind of invoice develops firm views about how its suppliers invoice it, and it will ask you for structured data long before any law does.

RO_CIUS, and how much of your work carries over

Romania's invoice specification is RO_CIUS, a core invoice usage specification defined by Minister of Finance Order 1366/2021. It sits on top of EN 16931 and uses the same two XML syntaxes the European standard allows, UBL 2.1 and UN/CEFACT CII. It adds national rules on top: which fields Romania requires, how Romanian identifiers are expressed, which code lists apply.

So the honest accounting of what transfers, if you already produce EN 16931 invoices for Germany:

• Carries over. The semantic model, the line and tax structure, the buyer identification, the VAT logic, most of your data quality work.
• Does not carry over. The national rules in RO_CIUS, and the entire transmission leg, which is an ANAF integration with Romanian credentials rather than a network hop.

Compare that with Poland, where the format itself is a national schema and nothing transfers, and with Belgium, where the whole thing transfers because Belgium chose Peppol. Romania sits in the middle, which is why "we support EU e-invoicing" is a claim that has to be read one country at a time.

Where Romania sits in the EU picture

What this means for a Shopify store

• You are a Romanian business selling B2B in Romania. RO e-Factura is your obligation and has been since 2024. You need Romanian invoicing software or an accounting firm with an ANAF integration. Shopify does not do this, and neither do we.
• You hold a Romanian VAT number without an establishment there. Reporting rather than issuing, and worth a conversation with a Romanian adviser about which of your flows are in scope.
• You sell to Romanian businesses from elsewhere. The mandate is not yours. What your buyers want is a structured invoice rather than a PDF, with their company name and VAT number correct, the number validated against VIES and reverse charge treated properly. That is the problem we work on, and it is the same problem the Dutch market created without any law at all.
• You sell to Romanian consumers from elsewhere. Nothing to do.

EU B2B invoicing on Shopify covers what getting the invoice itself right looks like in practice. That part is portable. The transmission leg is what differs country by country, and in Romania it differs enough to need a Romanian answer.

For the rest of the EU in one place, including the countries with no mandate at all, see the EU e-invoicing mandate table.

Frequently asked questions

This guide is general information for Shopify merchants, not legal or tax advice. Mandates, deadlines and formats change, and Romania's have moved more than once, so confirm your own obligations with a qualified Romanian adviser and against ANAF's own e-Factura pages.