Romanian sick leave in 2026: the unpaid first day per illness episode, the 55/65/75% rates, the employer (days 2–6) and FNUASS split, minimum contribution history and withholdings.
Translated from Romanian. This article covers Romanian labour and tax law; the Romanian version is canonical and is updated first.
Romanian sick leave changed substantially at the start of 2026. Emergency Ordinance 91/2025, approved and amended by Law 64/2026, altered two things that hit payroll directly: who bears the cost of the first days, and the fact that the first day is no longer paid. Here is what an employer needs to get right.
For medical certificates issued between February 2026 and December 2027, the first day of sick leave is not compensated. The employee receives nothing for that day, and it is settled neither by the employer nor by the fund.
Two details are easy to miss:
There are exceptions where the first day is paid normally: maternity and maternal risk leave, patients in national health programmes, oncology-related leave and hospitalisation, among others. Law 64/2026 extended this list, so check each case.
Until 2026, the employer covered the first 5 days and the rest came from the National Health Insurance Fund (FNUASS). From February 2026:
This split applies for 1 February 2026 – 31 December 2027.
For ordinary illness, the percentage applied to the calculation base depends on the number of days. These differentiated rates were introduced by Law 141/2025 (amending art. 17 of EO 158/2005):
| Leave duration | Percentage of base |
|---|---|
| up to 7 days | 55% |
| 8–14 days | 65% |
| 15 days and over | 75% |
The rate is set per episode, not per certificate: if leave that started at 55% extends past the 7- or 14-day threshold, the benefit is recalculated retroactively at the rate matching the total duration, for the whole episode.
Higher rates apply to certain special categories (for example medical-surgical emergencies or category A infectious diseases).
To qualify you need a minimum contribution history of 6 months within the previous 12 months. Exceptions exist — medical-surgical emergencies and certain serious illnesses qualify regardless.
The calculation base is the average of gross monthly income over the last 6 months of the 12-month contribution period. In practice: sum the gross for those 6 months, divide by 6, then apply the rate for the duration.
Sick pay is not exempt from contributions and tax. The following apply:
An employee with a 6-month gross average of 6,000 lei takes 10 days of ordinary sick leave.
This is where manual calculation goes wrong: the wrong rate because someone counted the episode as separate certificates, the first day deducted more than once, or the employer/FNUASS split applied to the wrong days. Workly’s leave module stores every certificate with the correct type and code, linked to the employee and the actual days, so that classifying an episode starts from clean records rather than a spreadsheet rebuilt each month. Those days then flow into payroll with no manual re-entry.
The indemnity calculation itself — the 55/65/75% rate per episode, the first day and the employer/FNUASS split — is not yet automated in the payroll module; it is entered as an adjustment and confirmed in accounting. Automating it is on the roadmap. Until then, you can model any scenario with the sick-leave calculator on this site, which implements the rules in full.
From there, the SAGA-format export comes out already aligned, and your accountant uses it as the basis for the monthly declaration. For quick questions like “what rate applies at 10 days?”, the internal assistant Modi answers deterministically from configured rules — no external language model, so it cannot invent a percentage.
Informational article, accurate at the date of publication. Not legal, tax or medical advice. Sick leave rules change frequently and some values depend on the specific case — always check the current framework (CNAS, ANAF) or consult a specialist.
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