Streamlined Immigration Application Processing Forthcoming

The situation

The immigration proposal published by the Romanian government in October has been significantly amended and adopted by the Romanian parliament. Notably, contrary to the government proposal, quotas and labor market testing will continue to apply.

A closer look

The new law introduces the following changes, effective November 10, 2018:

• Minimum salary requirement to decrease. Work permit applicants across all work permit types should now receive a monthly salary of at least RON 1,900, down from RON 4,162. Highly-skilled workers applying for an EU Blue Card should now receive a monthly salary of at least RON 8,324, down from RON 16,648. Parliament rejected the government’s proposal to completely remove the minimum salary requirement for EU Blue Card applicants.
  • Impact. Companies will require fewer funds to employ foreign workers in Romania, which should facilitate recruitment and help remedy ongoing labor shortages.
     
• Diploma certification abolished. As proposed by the government, work permit applicants across all work permit types are no longer required to obtain a certificate of recognition of their foreign diploma at the Romanian Ministry of Education before their work permit application can be filed. While this process could take up to 30 days to complete, it was typically completed during the document gathering process. Removing this step should therefore reduce the administrative burden on applicants but is not expected to speed up the application process.
  • New employer responsibility. Instead of diploma certification, employers must now ensure that foreign workers have suitable qualifications as part of the recruitment process. It is not yet clear how this responsibility will be checked or enforced in practice.
  • Impact. Employers should be able to more easily recruit medium-skilled foreign workers without formal diplomas. Foreign nationals should benefit from a reduced administrative burden in preparing to work in Romania.
     
• New background check for sponsors. For all work permit types, Romanian immigration authorities will now check whether the sponsoring company was sanctioned for immigration violations in the six months prior to the date of application. If the company is found to have breached immigration laws in this period, the work permit application will be refused. This check and corresponding sanction did not exist before. 
  • Impact. Employers should promptly respond to requests and recommendations made by authorities during worksite inspections.
     
• New sanctions related to worksite inspections. The law introduces a new RON 5,000-10,000 sanction for employers obstructing a check conducted by the immigration authority; and a new RON 1,500-3,000 sanction for employers failing to deliver documents and information requested during an inspection.
  • Impact. Employers should account for these new sanctions in their risk management planning and budget.
     
• Other changes. The law introduced other smaller changes, including that sponsoring companies now only need to publish one (instead of three) newspaper advertisements per vacancy; a new work permit type for au pairs; and a change in end-of-assignment notification requirements, among other more administrative changes rules.
   

Background

This is the most significant immigration-related change in Romania in several years. Other recent changes were limited to quota numbers, salary thresholds and implementing EU Directives.

Looking ahead

Fragomen will track the progress of these developments and will report on the implementation in practice.

This alert is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact the global immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen or send an email to [email protected].