Telework or home-based work: the difference and employer duties

“Working from home” covers, in legal terms, two different regimes, with distinct legal bases and distinct obligations. Choosing the wrong one produces contract clauses that cannot be applied and problems during an inspection. Here is how to tell them apart.

The two regimes

Home-based work (muncă la domiciliu) is governed by the Labour Code (Codul muncii). The employee performs the duties specific to the job at their own home. It is the classic form, originally designed for production or processing activities carried out at home.

Telework (telemuncă) is governed by Legea 81/2018. The employee carries out the activity using information and communication technology, in a place other than the one organised by the employer — regularly and voluntarily.

The main practical difference

	Home-based work	Telework
Legal basis	the Labour Code	Legea 81/2018
Where the work is done	exclusively at home	anywhere, outside the employer’s premises
Technology	not a defining element	essential (ICT)
Schedule	as a rule, the employee sets their own schedule	set by mutual agreement
Checking the activity	the employer checks under the conditions set out in the contract	through agreed means, with respect for private life

In short: telework is more flexible geographically. If the employee can work from home, from another town or from a coworking space, the appropriate regime is telework. If the place is strictly the home, it is home-based work.

For most modern office jobs, telework is the correct regime. If the place the employee chooses is in another country, rules on contributions and income tax are added, explained in teleworking from another country. And as a benefit, telework is also a motivation lever — see motivating employees in an SME.

What the contract must contain

Both forms are established through the individual employment contract or through an act adițional (an addendum to the employment contract), in writing. They are voluntary regimes — they cannot be imposed unilaterally, except in the special situations provided by law.

For telework, the contract must expressly provide (art. 5(2) of Legea 81/2018):

• a statement that the employee works under the telework regime;
• the period and/or the days on which the employee works at a workplace organised by the employer;
• the schedule within which the employer is entitled to check the activity and the specific way in which that check is carried out;
• the way in which the working hours performed are recorded;
• the responsibilities of the parties, including in matters of occupational health and safety;
• the employer’s obligation to arrange the transport of the materials the teleworker uses, to and from the place of telework, where applicable;
• information for the teleworker on the rules on personal data protection, and the teleworker’s obligation to comply with them;
• the measures by which the employer ensures the teleworker is not isolated from the other employees and can meet colleagues regularly;
• the conditions under which the employer bears the costs related to the activity.

The place or places where the activity is carried out may be agreed, but a clause on it is no longer mandatory: point (c) of art. 5(2) was repealed on 6 May 2021 (OUG 36/2021). When the place the employee chooses is in another country, see the article on teleworking from another country referenced above.

For home-based work, the contract states that the employee works at home, the schedule within which the employer checks the activity and the specific way that check is carried out, as well as the employer’s obligation to arrange the transport of raw materials and finished products, where applicable.

Recording working time remains mandatory

A point that is often missed: the obligation under art. 119 regarding the daily record of hours does not disappear for those working from home. The employer must know, and be able to prove, how many hours each person worked, with the start and end time.

That is why the contract must provide the way hours are recorded — and in practice, the simplest solution is clocking in through an application, under the same rules as for those in the office. How the meal break is recorded remotely is explained in the meal break under the Labour Code.

Costs

The framework allows the employer to bear the costs related to the activity carried out under the telework regime, under the conditions set out in the contract. Over time there have also been tax incentives for amounts granted to teleworkers, with caps and conditions that have changed — check the tax regime in force before granting such amounts.

What stays constant: if they are granted, the conditions must be provided in the contract.

Occupational health and safety

The employer has health and safety obligations towards teleworkers as well:

• training on occupational health and safety, adapted to the regime;
• informing them of the risks specific to remote work (posture, equipment, workspace);
• the employee’s responsibility to observe the rules and not to alter the safety conditions.

GDPR and monitoring

Checking a teleworker’s activity must be done through contractually agreed means and proportionately. Excessive monitoring — permanent screenshots, tracking private activity, cameras — raises serious data protection and privacy issues.

The practical rule: you monitor the output and the working time, not the person.

The right to telework for parents

One category has a legal right, not just a negotiated option: parents of children with disabilities are entitled to 8 days a month of telework or home-based work (Legea 149/2025), with additional days for each further child — within the limits of the positions where the activity allows this regime.

Penalties for telework: what Legea 81/2018 sanctions

In art. 11, Legea 81/2018 punishes seven acts, all with fixed fines in lei. Contraventions are found and fines imposed by labour inspectors (art. 12(1)). The fines concern telework: home-based work falls outside Legea 81/2018 and therefore outside these fines.

Act	Fine	Basis (art. 11)
The contract or its addendum does not expressly state that the employee works under the telework regime	10,000 lei per person	point (a), with art. 5(2)(a)
Telework without the parties’ agreement, that is, without being provided for in the contract or an addendum	5,000 lei	point (b), with art. 3(1)
Overtime by a teleworker outside the conditions of art. 4(2): at the employer’s request and with the written consent of a full-time employee	5,000 lei	point (c)
Contract concluded without the clauses in art. 5(2)(b)–(j)	5,000 lei	point (d)
The employer does not provide the information and communication technology and safe work equipment, unless the parties agree otherwise	2,000 lei	point (e), with art. 7(a)
The employer does not install, check and maintain the work equipment, unless the parties agree otherwise	2,000 lei	point (f), with art. 7(b)
The employer does not provide sufficient and adequate occupational health and safety training: at hiring, for new equipment, for a new procedure	2,000 lei	point (g), with art. 7(c)

What the fine at point (d) covers. The absence of any of the clauses in art. 5(2)(b)–(j), that is, all the clauses in the list above except the statement that the employee teleworks (point (a)), which has its own fine, of 10,000 lei.

Paying half. The 48-hour term in art. 12(2) no longer applies: provisions allowing half of the minimum fine to be paid within a shorter term than the one in art. 28(1) of Government Ordinance 2/2001 were repealed from 24 August 2018 by art. 25(1) of Legea 203/2018 (the legislative portal keeps the text of paragraph (2), with a note pointing to this repeal). The general rule of the Ordinance applies, to which art. 12(3) refers: the offender may pay, within 15 days of the report being handed over or communicated, half of the minimum of the fine, and the officer who draws up the report must mention this possibility in it (art. 28(1)). For the fixed fines in art. 11 the minimum is the amount itself, so half means, in principle, half of the figure in the table — including for the 10,000 lei fine at point (a), where that would be 5,000 lei. Check what the inspector records in the report.

During an inspection. Inspectors may check telework locations under Law 108/1999; if the place is the employee’s home, access requires advance notice and the employee’s consent (art. 9(2)–(3)). The list of documents the labour inspectorate asks for during a check is in the documents required at an ITM inspection, and the training requirements are in occupational health and safety training for employees.

The costliest acts of form — points (a), (b) and (d), at 10,000 and 5,000 lei — are avoided with a written addendum containing all the clauses, signed before the employee starts teleworking. The rest is not solved by paperwork but by conduct: overtime outside the conditions of art. 4(2) (point (c)) and the duties on equipment and training (points (e)–(g)) depend on what you do in practice; only at points (e) and (f) does the law leave the parties free to agree otherwise.

Frequently asked questions

What is the main difference? Home-based work is performed exclusively at the employee’s home; telework can be performed anywhere outside the employer’s premises, using information technology.

Can I impose telework unilaterally? No, as a rule. Both regimes are voluntary and are established through the contract or an act adițional, with the employee’s agreement.

Do I have to keep a record of hours for those working from home? Yes. The obligation under art. 119 applies identically, and the contract must provide the specific way of recording them.

Who pays for the electricity and the internet? The conditions under which the employer bears the costs are set out in the contract. The tax regime of these amounts has changed over time — check the form in force.

Can I monitor a teleworker’s activity? Only through the means agreed in the contract and proportionately to the purpose. Excessive monitoring breaches data protection and the right to private life.

See also 8 telework days a month for parents of children with disabilities, working time under the Labour Code and GDPR in HR.

How Workly helps

The obligation to record working time does not disappear when the team works from home — it gets more complicated. Workly solves this with web and mobile time tracking for teleworkers, under the same rules as at the office: real clocking, with date and time, when the company uses Punch In/Out clocking, and any later correction stays in the audit log. Where the regime requires it, clocking can be restricted to an allowed network, and the GPS location can be recorded when clocking in.

The working regime (office, telework, hybrid) is configured per employee, and telework days — including the 8 to which parents of children with disabilities are entitled — are tracked automatically, without parallel files. The addenda that formalise the regime can be generated from a template and stay in the digital file.

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Informational article, accurate at the date of publication. Not legal or tax advice. The tax regime of telework costs has changed several times — check the form in force or consult a specialist.