Art. 164 of the Labour code and Law 283/2024 stipulate that the Government sets the minimum wage through a procedure that includes several criteria (see below) and it includes an approximate reference level in relation to average wages. The Government Decision 35/2025 stipulates that the minimum wage is increased at a percentage rate equal to the sum of inflation and real growth of labour productivity for the next year, as forecasted by the National Commission for Strategy and Prognosis.

Theoretically, according to Law 174/2020, a living wage is a priority target for the minimum wage policy. Law 174/2020 provides a method for estimating the living wage at a national level and stipulates that the minimum wage should be set while considering this estimate. It also stipulates that the National Institute of Statistics should calculate and officially publish the living wage estimate periodically. Even though Law 174/2020 was passed via normal parliamentary procedure with support from the Social Democratic Party that is now in power and has been in force since 2020, it has not had any effect on the country’s minimum wage policy. The National Institute of Statistics has declined to publish the living wage estimate, claiming technical errors in the text of the law prevent it from doing so. In the absence of official figures, government officials have ignored the provisions of Law 174/2020. As such, only a part of the trade union movement still insists on making Law 174/2020 functional.

• Labour Code (art. 164)opens in new tab

• Law 283/2024opens in new tab

• Decision nr. 1506/2024opens in new tab

• Law 174/2020opens in new tab

• Decision 35/2025opens in new tab

• Draft decision regarding the 2026 minimum wageopens in new tab

The minimum wage is set by the government, after consulting with nationally representative employer and trade union confederations within the National Tripartite Council for Social Dialogue. This practice abides by art. 164 of the Labour Code. The organisations are the following:

Trade unions:

• Cartel Alfa National Trade Union Confederation (Confederația Națională Sindicală Cartel Alfa, CNS Cartel Alfa)

• The National Trade Union Bloc (Blocul Național Sindical, BNS)

• The National Free Trade Union Confederation from Romania – Frăția (Confederația Națională a Sindicatelor Libere din România, CNSLR Frăția)

• The Democratic Romanian Trade Union Confederation (Confederația Sindicatelor Democratice din România, CSDR)

• The Meridian National Trade Union Confederation (Confederația Sindicală Națională Meridian, CSN Meridian)

Employers:

• The Concordia Employer’s Confederation (Confederația Patronală Concordia, CP Concordia)

• The National Council for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (Consiliul Național al Întreprinderilor Private Mici și Mijlocii din România, CNIPMMR)

The Labour Code stipulates only that the government must consult with employers’ organisations and trade unions before setting the minimum wage. According to the Social Dialogue Law (Law 367/2022 replacing Law 62/2011), consultations take place within the framework of the National Tripartite Council. Until 2025, the agenda for the Council meetings was entirely set by the government, which means that there is no official fixed rule when it comes to updating the minimum wage — for example, there was no regulated calendar and no guarantee that the minimum wage would be put on the agenda. In practice, up until 2025, the minimum wage was updated at least annually, either towards the end or at the beginning of the year, with prior consultations in the National Tripartite Council. There were rare exceptions to this rule — for example, 2020. Starting with January 2025, the minimum wage is legally supposed to be set once per year, at the beginning of January.

In February 2025, the government adopted a ‘Procedure for applying the mechanism establishing and updating the minimum wage’opens in new tab, which stipulates the exact manner in which the minimum wage should be set and when. The procedure establishes concrete criteria for minimum wage setting, as well as reference values relative to the average wage.

• Law 367/2022 replacing Law 62/2011opens in new tab

Law 283/2024, which amends the Labour Code and transposes the European Directive of Adequate Minimum Wages, stipulates that the Government sets the minimum wage through a procedure that includes several criteria:

• The purchasing power of the minimum wage and the cost of living

• The general level of wages and the wage distribution

• Overall wage growth

• The level and evolution of labour productivity at the national level in the long term.

The law is unclear as to how these aspects are measured and how they are factored into the government decision setting the minimum wage. The law also mentions that assessments will be conducted for the social and economic impact of the minimum wage policy and that these will be taken into consideration when setting the minimum wage. According to Law 283/2024, the minimum wage setting should be based on the analyses of a ‘research institute specializing in the analysis and impact assessment of labour market policies’; this research institute should conduct the impact assessment and, it is understood, provide analyses of the criteria for minimum wage setting. The law also stipulates that the statutory minimum wage is set according to an ‘approximate’ (orientativ in Romanian) reference level of ‘47%-52% of the average wage’.

The average wage taken into consideration is not a base wage; it includes all wage elements, as is calculated on an full-time equivalent basis. This is not explicit in the law, but it is how the institutions in charge of providing the data (the National Institute of Statistics and the National Commission for Strategy and Prognosis) calculate the average wage.

Government Decision 35/2025 mentions two criteria for increasing the minimum wage: forecasted inflation and forecasted real labour productivity growth. Each year, the minimum wage is increased by the percentage sum of these two indicators. If the sum is below 1%, the formula is not taken into consideration and the minimum wage is not increased. This also implies that it cannot be lowered in nominal terms, based on the formula. The minimum wage resulting from the application of the formula should be of at least 47% of the forecasted annual average wage. If the resulting minimum wage is lower than 52% of the average wage, the Decision stipulates that social partners can negotiate a supplementary increase in the National Tripartite Council for Social Dialogue.

The law refers to a span of 47-52% of the average wage as approximate values. The current framework for setting the minimum wage does not specify a concrete procedure for the assessment of adequacy. Law 174/2020, which is meant to benchmark the minimum wage against a living wage, is not functional.

The minimum wage is universally binding, according to art. 164 of the Labour Code. All employees are covered.

There is no legal possibility for a full-time employee to earn less than the minimum wage. The only possibility for an employee to earn less than the minimum wage is by working part-time. For part-time employees, the minimum wage is calculated by multiplying the number of hours worked per month by the hourly minimum rate stipulated in the latest government decision.

In response to the significant increase in the number of employees earning the minimum wage, the government introduced an amendment to the Labour Code (art. 164) stipulating that an employee can be paid the minimum wage only for the first 24 months of an individual labour contract. This policy applies starting with 1 January 2022 and its effects have not been assessed yet.

Higher minimum wages are legally stipulated for the construction sector, and they also existed until recently for agriculture and the food industry. The higher minimum wage for construction was introduced in January 2019 (Government Emergency Ordinance 114/2018, art. 71), while for agriculture and the food industry it has been in place since June 2022 (Law 135/2022, art. III). Technically speaking, these are dealt separately from the statutory minimum wage. Their introduction was justified by the claimed need to continue to support activity in these sectors and to avoid potentially negative consequences for the national economy. Over the past years, the higher minimum wages in agriculture and the food industry were phased out: they were not increased in line with the national minimum wage, which eventually outgrew them. By all appearances, the government has the same intention for the construction sector, where the minimum wage has not been increased since 2023. These higher sectoral minimum wages had been initially supported by social contribution exemptions, but since 1 January 2025 this is no longer the case and social contributions are paid in full for wages in the construction sector.

• Law 135/2022opens in new tab

• Government Emergency Ordinance 93/2023opens in new tab

• Government Emergency Ordinance 114/2018, art. 71PDFopens in new tab

The government decisions setting the minimum wage usually define it as both monthly and hourly rates, also specifying the ‘normal’ number of hours worked per month — for 2026, for example, it is 166.667 hours per month; this varies from year to year depending on the number of legal working days. For full-time workers, the monthly rate is normally employed, and the hourly rate is mostly employed to aid calculations for part-time employees. Minimum wage earners receive 12 payments per year, one corresponding to each month of the year.

The minimum wage is legally defined as the base wage (Labour Code arts. 164 and 165), so it cannot include any bonuses or other elements. There are also no possibilities of deductions, which are explicitly forbidden by the Labour Code (arts. 164 and 165). The complete legal name for the minimum wage in Romania is ‘the country-wide base gross minimum wage guaranteed to be paid’ (salariul de bază minim brut pe țară garantat în plată).

According to art. 165 of the Labour Code, for employees whose employer, according to the collective or individual employment contract, provides them with food, accommodation or other facilities, the amount in money due for the work performed cannot be lower than the minimum salary gross per country provided by law.

Starting with 2025, the National Institute for Scientific Research in the Field of Labour and Social Protection (Institutul Național de Cercetare Științifică în Domeniul Muncii și Protecției Sociale, INCSMPS) is requested to conduct an annual impact assessment of minimum wage increases to serve as an input for the government’s minimum wage policy. The report is not publicly available. Occasional research is scarce.

• An annual update of the living wage as per Law 174/2020 is published independently by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftungopens in new tab.

• Blocul Național Sindical (2024), Transpunerea în România a Directivei 2041/2022 privind salariile minime adecvatePDFopens in new tab, Bucharest.

• Confederația Patronală Concordia (2024), Politica salariului minim în Româniaopens in new tab, Bucharest.

• Guga, S. (2021), Salariul minim și traiul minim decentPDFopens in new tab, Bucharest.

• Confederația Patronală Concordia and Consilium Policy Advisers Group (2020), Considerații asupra politicii salariului minim în RomâniaPDFopens in new tab, Bucharest.

• Frank Heemskerk, Liviu Voinea and Alexandra Cojocaru (2018), Busting the myth: the impact of increasing the minimum wage: the experience of Romaniaopens in new tab, Washington.

• Cristian Socol and Marius Marinas (2017), Salariul minim ca instrument de politici publice – pro sau contra?PDFopens in new tab, Bucharest.