Romania's WorkInRomania platform — the single government system through which non-EU hiring is now handled — is operational, and with it a set of employer obligations that sit upstream of any individual worker's application. Companies must register on the platform and, depending on the route they use, either work with an authorised placement agency or become an authorised employer in their own right before they can sponsor a worker from outside the EU.
The two-month problem
Registration and authorisation are one-time, company-level procedures — but they are not fast. Where an employer only begins the process after identifying a candidate, current guidance is to expect at least a two-month delay before the individual immigration process can even start, subject to authority processing times and the platform's capacity. For a worker who has already accepted an offer, that delay lands entirely on their timeline.
The requirements are not limited to workers being recruited from abroad. Non-EU nationals already living in Romania who are changing employers are also covered — being in the country does not exempt the new employer from registering and obtaining the right status first.
Only shortage-list occupations get through
The government decision setting out how the platform operates, published in draft in July 2026, provides that job offers are drawn from the records of the National Employment Agency (ANOFM) and that the system accepts only positions included on the government-approved list of shortage occupations. Offers for occupations outside that list are rejected automatically. That turns the shortage-occupation list from background policy into a hard gate: if the job title is not on it, the vacancy cannot be submitted at all.
How the platform works
- The system is developed and managed by Romania's Ministry of Internal Affairs and covers employer registration, agency authorisation, visa applications, and extensions of the right of residence for employment.
- It automatically cross-checks data against the Trade Register, the tax authority (ANAF), the General Inspectorate for Immigration, the eViza portal, the diploma-recognition database, and criminal records — reducing what employers upload by hand.
- Documents that cannot be verified automatically must be uploaded electronically and signed with a qualified electronic signature, which the platform validates before generating the application.
- All administrative documents are issued to employers in electronic format only.
- Employers may delegate platform access to staff or collaborators, but responsibility for the accuracy of everything submitted stays with the employer.
The quota backdrop
Romania set an official quota of around 90,000 newly admitted foreign workers for 2026, and employer demand has historically run well above the ceiling — in some years, reportedly more than double the approved quota. A quota that is oversubscribed, combined with a filing system that only accepts shortage-list roles, means the practical constraint on a placement is increasingly whether the employer is properly set up rather than whether the worker is qualified.
Why this matters for South and Southeast Asian workers
Romania has become a significant EU destination for workers from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, largely in construction, manufacturing, logistics, and hospitality. The changes do not restrict who may be recruited by nationality, but they do change what a credible offer looks like. An employer that is not registered and authorised on the platform cannot lawfully move an application forward, however genuine the job.
If you are being offered work in Romania, two questions are now worth asking before anything else: is the employer (or the placement agency acting for them) registered and authorised on WorkInRomania, and is the exact occupation on the government's shortage-occupation list? If either answer is no, the application cannot be filed yet — and timelines you have been given may not be realistic. This is a summary of published rules, not legal advice.
