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How to hire remote employees in
No matter where you’re based out of, we can tell you one thing: Romania has different labor laws than your home country (unless your home country is Romania, that is). If you don’t do things right, you’ll be putting your company at the risk of fines—and risk losing the talent you brought onboard. Fortunately, doing things right is pretty easy if you take the right route.
If you want to successfully hire in
Romania
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Romania
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Thera for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Romania
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Romania
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Romania
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Romania
, you can pay them with Thera in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Romania than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Romania
20 days is the minimum holiday guaranteed by law per year, pro-rated with the worked period. The vacation days must be taken within the work year. If the employee for justified reasons cannot take all or part of the annual leave in that calendar year the Employer is obliged to grant the annual leave not taken, within a period of 18 months from the year following the one when the entitlement to vacation leave arose.
There are 15 public holidays.
Sick leave is paid only if the employee has a minimum contributory period to the Health House for the prior six months, based on a medical certificate issued by a physician.
The employee must inform the employer of his condition within 24 hours from the moment the medical certificate was issued. If the sickness occurred on the non-working days, the employee must announce the Employer about his condition on the first working day.
The first 5 calendar days are paid by the Employer. From the 6th day, the medical allowance is supported by the National Health Fund. In practice, the Employer is paying also the amount supported by the National Health Fund and then requests the reimbursement of the amount from the Health House.
The payment percentage in case of the sick leave allowance is ranging between 75% and 100% of the calculation base (average of the employees’ monthly gross wages during his last 6 months prior to the month the medical leave is granted).
The maternity leave is 126 calendar days (usually 63 days before + 63 days after the birth of the child). It represents 85% of the calculation base (average of the employee’s monthly gross wages during her last 6 months prior to the month the maternity leave started). The maternity leave is granted based on the medical certificate issued by the physician.
The maternity allowance is granted by the National Health Fund (in practice the Employer pays the maternity leave and afterward he requests the reimbursement of the amount from the Health House).
Fathers are entitled to 5 days of paid paternity leave and can be used until the child reaches the age of 8 weeks. If the father chooses to participate in childcare courses, leave can be extended for an additional 10 days. This extension can only be used once and on the birth of the first child.
Parental leave entitlement last until the child is 2 years old. In the case of a disabled child, leave is until the child is 3 years of age. The payment is made directly by the state institution and represents 85% of the employee’s average revenues during his last 12 months of activity. During this period, the employment contract is suspended.
Work-Related Injury Leave – The employer covers all work-related injuries that an employee has suffered either directly or through insurances.
The employee should receive 100% of their average monthly earnings in the 12 months prior to the disability for 14 days if not hospitalized.
After 14 days they shall receive 66.7%. As of September 1, 2020, all work-related medical leave must be reported to the Ministry of Manpower.
5 days for an employee’s marriage and 2 days for the marriage of a child.
2 days of unpaid leave is granted to an employee who has had a death within their immediate family.
The termination types are:
A written decision of the Employer is always required, except for terminations during the trial period. During the trial period, the employment contract may end based on the termination letter of either party (the Employer or the employee) and no notice period is required.
Notice period in case of dismissal is a minimum of 20 working days for all types of job titles, regardless of the employment contract is concluded for a limited or unlimited duration.
There is no statutory severance pay in Romania unless conditions have been set in a collective agreement.
Labor agreements in Romania must be set up for an indefinite period (i.e. as permanent contracts).
The probation period when having an employment contract for an indefinite period cannot exceed:
Fixed-term employment agreements can be used as exceptions, which are defined in the law: replacement of an employee whose labor agreement is suspended, temporary modification of the Employer’s activity, the progression of some seasonable activities, the employee meets retirement conditions within 5 years from the date of employment.
The probation period in case of a fix term employment agreement cannot exceed:
A full workweek in Romania is 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. For employees under the age of 18, work is limited to 6 hours a day or 30 hours a week.
The Employer has the obligation to keep a record of the daily work hours performed by each employee, highlighting the start and end hour of the working program, and shall present such records to the labor inspection control when required.
Employees are allowed to work a maximum of 48 hours per week including overtime. After working a 12 hour day, employers must give a 24 hours rest period. Work performed outside the standard 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week must be compensated with paid hours off during the 60 calendar days after the overtime has been performed. If the compensation with paid time off is not possible, the overtime shall be paid to the employee by adding a benefit that must not be lower than 75% of the basic wage, pro-rated to the overtime performed.
Workers under 18 years of age, part-time employees, pregnant employees who are unable to work normal working hours for health reasons are not permitted to work overtime.
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