Briefly, for context: article 301 of the Codul urbanismului allows regularizare, the legalisation of works already built, permanently for a narrow list of buildings, and paragraph (7) opens it pentru o perioadă de maximum 1 an de la intrarea în vigoare, for a period of at most one year from the code taking effect, to other categories as well. Paragraph (8) sets charges and taxes at ten times the normal level and begins “În situația prevăzută la alin. (7)”, which we read as applying to that window alone and not to the permanent categories. If you fall within the permanent categories, confirm with your primărie which regime applies before doing the arithmetic. The cumulative conditions, exact categories and charges are explained on the regularisation page.
What interests us here is what you do with that.
The window is designed to be used early
Opinion from here on.
A year sounds like plenty until you start. Regularizare is not an application you file and wait on. It requires the works to fall within approved planning rules, verification of construction quality requirements and, if the primărie requires it under paragraph (10), remedial works to bring the building into conformity. Each of those is a stage involving a designer, an appointment and revisions.
The year is not measured from when you file. It runs from the code taking effect, wherever you are in the process.
The date is calculated, not read. Article 575 says the code enters force “15 days from publication in the Monitorul Oficial”, and it was published on 10 August 2026. That gives 25 August 2026, so the window closes around 25 August 2027. Neither date is written as such in the law, so treat them as a calculation rather than a quotation.
Anyone starting in spring 2027 risks the worst outcome: having paid for expert reports and a design, not obtaining the authorisation before the term expires, and being left without the exception after spending on it.
The arithmetic is not “ten times the tax, yes or no”
This is the mistake we expect most people to make: comparing the tax multiplied by ten against zero, and unsurprisingly choosing to wait.
The correct comparison has three terms, not two:
- The cost of regularising now: charges and taxes at ten times, plus design, plus any remedial works.
- The cost of waiting: building tax increased by 100%, running from the date the primărie establishes the situation until you regularise or demolish. And, importantly, paying it does not regularise anything. You keep the same planning obligations and the same construction-discipline sanctions.
- The cost after the window: paragraph (12) provides that once the term in paragraph (7) has passed, authorities may demolish unauthorised works and recover the cost, or are obliged to ask the court to order demolition.
The third term is the one missing from the conversation. The instrument that closes in a year is the same one that keeps you out from under paragraph (12). The charges are not the point. The point is whether you still have a legal route once the window shuts.
Who should move, and who should not
If you fall within the permanent categories of paragraph (2), you are not under calendar pressure. Check that first, because it changes the urgency entirely.
If you do not, and the building fits the approved planning rules, we think it is worth starting now. Not because the charges are low, but because this is the only window in which the alternative to demolition is an authorisation.
If you do not fall within them and the building does not fit the planning rules, the window does not help you: the condition in paragraph (7) is not met however much you pay. That is a different conversation, and it starts with a designer rather than with the town hall.
The risk of a false urgency
The arithmetic above assumes the August 2027 deadline really does close. Extended by a later instrument, the urgency disappears, and we will write about it if that happens. The other unknown is whether primării actually apply paragraph (12) after that date.
Until then, the cost arithmetic connects to the layers of fees and to the local equipment tax, and the calendar markers are in the transition calendar. The case where the document existed and was annulled by a court is a different one, covered in the permit is annulled.
This article is analysis, not legal advice. Provisions are cited from Legea 169/2026, published in Monitorul Oficial no. 661 of 10 August 2026. Check your own situation with the issuing authority. Romanian legal terms are kept in the original, because the Romanian text is the one that governs.