Romania's stamp-tax law, in plain terms.

The Romanian judicial stamp tax is not a new invention. Its current shape dates from Emergency Ordinance 80/2013, published in the Official Gazette on 26 June 2013. The ordinance replaces Law 146/1997 and rebuilds the whole tax structure on two columns: fixed fees for non-evaluable actions, and percentage fees for evaluable claims.

In its original form, Emergency Ordinance 80/2013 contains 53 articles and three annexes. It applies broadly — any action brought before the courts, appeals, second appeals and contestations. For evaluable claims, article 3(1) defines six brackets, with values between 8% of the claim for amounts below 500 Lei and 1% plus a fixed base for amounts above 250,000 Lei.

Part of the act is technical, part defines exemptions: article 29 lists the actions exempt from the tax, from paternity claims to child-protection proceedings. Refunds of overpaid or erroneous taxes are handled under article 45, by request filed with the court to which the tax was paid, within the general limitation period.

Law 268/2024 corrected several outdated tariffs. For example, the flat fee for a presidential order stayed at 20 Lei, but the tax for divorce by agreement was updated to 200 Lei from 20 Lei. The full list of corrections is in the Official Gazette of 10 November 2024.

The most important structural change, however, came with Law 199/2025, which introduces an automatic annual indexation of the calculation base. Every year, on 1 January, values are updated by the rate of inflation published by the National Institute of Statistics for the previous year. The first indexation applies to payments made from 1 January 2026.

For an ordinary payer, OUG 80/2013 stays the reference act. Values are read from the annexes or computed on brackets. Sigilia follows the statutory structure exactly, with the updates from the laws mentioned above. We don't invent a parallel tax; we turn it into a compliant online payment.