The rise to 4,325 lei requires an individual addendum and REGES reporting within 20 working days. Deadlines, fines, the effect on your pay grid and why net rises less than gross.
Translated from Romanian. This article covers Romanian labour and tax law; the Romanian version is canonical and is updated first.
From 1 July 2026 the gross minimum wage is 4,325 lei, up from 4,050 lei in the first half of the year. That figure is widely known. What is often missed is that the increase does not apply itself: it requires documents signed with each employee and a report with a short deadline, and missing that deadline is penalised.
If you want the underlying explanation — how gross becomes net, which contributions are withheld — see the article on the minimum wage in 2026. This one covers the operational side.
Salary is a negotiated element of the individual employment contract. Changing it is done through an addendum, signed individually with each affected employee.
An internal collective decision, an administrator’s order or an information note does not replace the addendum. The fact that the increase stems from a legal obligation does not change the contractual nature of salary — the legal obligation states what the minimum is; it does not amend the contract by itself.
The addendum is concluded before the change takes effect. For an increase applicable from 1 July, that means signatures dated accordingly, not backdated at the end of the month.
The new gross salary must be transmitted to REGES-Online within a maximum of 20 working days of the date of the change. For the increase effective 1 July 2026, the deadline falls on 28 July 2026.
Failing to transmit on time is penalised with a fine of 5,000 to 8,000 lei. It is a more generous deadline than the three working days for suspensions, but for that very reason it is easy to postpone until it is forgotten.
Remember that the register records the salary structure, not just a final figure: the base salary plus premiums and additions. If you have employees whose premiums are calculated as a percentage of base salary, check whether those change along with the base. Details in the article on premiums in REGES.
Here is the counter-intuitive effect of 1 July, and the reason some employees will ask why the “raise” is barely visible.
Alongside the increase, the tax-exempt amount applicable at the minimum wage falls from 300 to 200 lei, under OUG no. 89/2025. The two changes partly cancel each other out:
| First half | Second half | |
|---|---|---|
| Gross | 4,050 lei | 4,325 lei |
| Tax-exempt amount | 300 lei | 200 lei |
| Approximate net | 2,575 lei | 2,700 lei |
Gross rises by 275 lei, but net by roughly 125 lei — less than half. This is not a calculation error; it is the result of the reduced tax relief. It is worth telling employees this before they see the payslip, not after.
On the employer side, the total cost at the minimum wage comes to roughly 4,418 lei. Note that CAM is not calculated on the full gross, because the tax-exempt amount also drops out of the contribution base — the 2.25% applies to 4,125 lei, not to 4,325.
The part companies most often underestimate: the increase does not affect only employees paid exactly at the minimum.
Someone on 4,200 lei — above the old minimum, below the new one — must be raised to 4,325. And if you raise only them, you compress the grid: a person with seniority and responsibilities ends up on the same salary as a newcomer. The law does not oblige you to correct this, but the internal tension is real and surfaces a few months later, as a request for a raise or as a resignation.
So review the whole grid, not just the contracts sitting exactly at the minimum. Decide deliberately whether you preserve the relative differences or accept the compression — both are valid options, but it should be a decision, not a surprise.
Three sources must say the same thing: the contract (with its addendum), REGES, and the base in the D112 declaration. The most common mismatch is an increase applied in the payroll run but never formalised through an addendum, or not transmitted to the register in time.
A fourth point, easily missed: if you have part-time contracts, the minimum applies pro rata to the fraction of full-time hours. Do not forget to recalculate those as well.
When the minimum wage changes mid-year, the work is not the calculation itself but propagating it consistently. Workly generates the addenda for employees whose pay changes, starting from the same data the payroll run is built on, and prepares the values for REGES reporting within the deadline window.
The grid is visible as a whole, so you can see who falls below the new minimum before the month closes, not after. The SAGA-format export keeps the contract, the register and the bases your accountant uses for the D112 declaration aligned, including when the value changes halfway through the year.
Informational article, accurate at the date of publication. Not legal advice. Deadlines and fine amounts may change — always check the current position at source (the Labour Inspectorate, the Official Gazette) or consult a specialist.
Payslip guide: the employer's duty to inform, what elements it contains, how to read it line by line, electronic delivery and confidentiality.
Personal deduction guide: the percentage system in art. 77 of the Fiscal Code, the 20–45% grid by dependants, the cancellation threshold and the main-job declaration.
Guide to the payroll register: its role as a supporting document, mandatory content, signing and confidentiality, the archiving term and the link to the payslip.
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