Can foreigners buy land in Romania?

The article 4 of Real Estate Law translates: “The citizen of a member state without legal residency in Romania, the stateless non-resident having residency in an European Union country and the non-resident foreign legal entity (company) incorporated per the stipulations of the EU legislations, are able to gain ownership on land for secondary residences, respectively secondary headquarters, in a term of 5 years after Romania has joined the European Union”.


LEGAL ADVICE IS HIGHLY RECOMMANDABLE

Legal aspects:

• Under current legislation foreign investors can’t buy land until 2012.
• In respect to building structures, the relevant law does not provide any special conditions for the acquisition of ownership rights there on. Foreign citizens may freely acquire ownership rights over building structures, whereas for the appurtenant land a superficies right can be established (the right to use the land) as long as the building structure exists.
• Farm land and forest can be bought by foreigners only after 7 years from EU accession
• A foreign citizen can buy land if obtains residency.
• A Romanian registered company own by foreign a investor can buy and own land and other properties.
• The non-EU-foreign-citizen is able to own real estate properties in Romania in conditions of reciprocity based only on international treaties between the countries; however they cannot acquire ownership of Romanian land in more favorable conditions than citizens of the European Union.

So it is possible for any foreign citizen to form a Romanian company and own every type of real estate properties.

The most common type of company is the Limited Liability Company (“Societate cu raspundere limitata” SRL)

The minimum social capital of a SRL company in Romania is 200 RON and there is a maximum of 50 shareholders. One other characteristic is that any person or legal entity (Romanian or foreign company) can only be sole shareholder in one company.