New law adopted amending the regime of foreign nationals and their employment

Law no. 53/2025 on the amendment and extension of various normative acts in the field of foreign nationals, which was passed by the Senate in October last year and adopted in the same form and without changes by the Chamber of Deputies in April of this year, was published in the Official Gazette on 5 May 2025 and is due to enter into force three days after the date of publication.

The law introduces measures to ensure the proper transposition into Romanian legislation of Directive 2014/36/EU on third-country seasonal workers and amends Government Emergency Ordinance no. 194/2002 on the regime of foreign nationals in Romania and Government Ordinance no. 25/2014 on the employment of foreign nationals.

The main changes include:

• the possibility to revoke the visas or rights of temporary residence of seasonal workers if the employer is in liquidation or insolvency, is not performing any economic activity, has not paid its debts or has recently, i.e. within the last six months, been sanctioned for certain offences.
• where a long-stay visa for the purposes of employment or the right of temporary residence for the purposes of employment has been revoked, the employer shall be liable for payment to the seasonal worker of two gross minimum monthly wages as well as any outstanding obligations the employer would have had to cover with if the long-stay visa or right of temporary residence had not been revoked.
• as regards extensions to the right of temporary residence for work purposes, the provision requiring seasonal workers to prove when applying for an extension that they have maintained the minimum wage for the entire duration of their stay has been repealed.
• in terms of the conditions that must be met to obtain an employment authorisation, it will now be required that the certificate of establishment show that no entry has been made in the commercial register or, where appropriate, in the register of associations and foundations concerning the opening of bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings.
• professional training requirements are only to be applied in the case of regulated professions, in the sense that the foreign national the employer intends to employ to fill a vacant post fulfils the conditions relating to professional training, work experience and authorisation provided for by the legislation in force for employment in that role exclusively in the case of regulated professions.

Source: Law no. 53/2025 amending and extending various normative acts in the field of foreign nationals