The steps are the familiar ones: certificat de urbanism, avize, filing the documentation, issuing the permit. Each has its own page on autorize.ro, and what changed is that almost every one now has a deadline written into the law too.
It gets interesting when you line them up.
The deadlines, in order
The certificat de urbanism is issued within at most 15 working days of the application being registered, says article 257 paragraph (4). That same certificate is what tells you which avize you need, under article 266 paragraph (1).
Avize come in two regimes. If you obtain them individually, article 269 paragraph (9) gives the issuers at most 15 days from filing, with longer exceptions for the environment, historic monuments and the Romanian Civil Aeronautical Authority. If you choose the comisia de acord unic, article 269 paragraph (3) allows 30 calendar days from the filing of complete and correct documentation.
Filing the permit documentation is governed by article 270. From there, article 273 paragraph (1) gives the authority at most 30 calendar days to issue. Paragraph (2) allows, at the client’s request, an urgent regime of up to 7 working days, with a special fee the local authority may charge.
One detail that is easy to miss: paragraph (3) says that if you opted for the acord unic, the 30 days run from the date the acord unic is issued, not from filing.
Where the time actually goes
The deadlines above add up nicely. The problem is that none of them starts running on the day you think it does.
Article 271 paragraph (1) gives the authority at most 10 working days to notify you of every deficiency it found. Paragraph (2) says the same notification tells you the period allowed for completing the file, which cannot exceed 3 months.
Three months is the ceiling on your side. It is the longest interval in the whole chain, and the only one you control. An incomplete file does not cost you the 10 days of the notification. It costs you however long you take to answer it.
For avize, article 269 paragraph (11) gives you at most 60 days to answer a request for clarification, failing which the approval procedure restarts. And paragraph (10) limits the issuer to a single request for revision, properly reasoned. It is a useful symmetry: they get one question, you get a firm deadline to answer.
Consultation is a right, not a favour
Article 272 is the part we think will be discussed too little.
The authority may invite you in to settle everything still needed. But paragraph (2) says you can ask for the consultation yourself, on your own initiative, following the notification. Paragraph (3) sets a deadline: the consultation takes place within at most 10 working days.
Paragraph (5) limits consultation to matters of substance. For clerical errors or omissions, paragraph (6) says to upload the corrections directly, with no consultation.
So if the deficiency notice is unclear to you, there is a mechanism by which you ask for a conversation and it has to happen within a deadline. It is not something you obtain by persistence.
What to do with this
Three things, in our view.
Treat the 3 months as a budget, not a safety net. If you have used two months and still need an environmental aviz, you are already outside the arithmetic.
Decide early whether you are going through the comisia de acord unic, because it moves the moment the 30 days start running. We wrote about it in the piece on the comisia de acord unic.
And check that the permit will reach you while the certificate is still valid: article 273 paragraph (5) says that if you do not complete the file in time, the documentation is returned to you and can only be refiled within the validity of the certificat de urbanism.
Where the counting starts
The written deadlines are clear. What varies is the moment each primărie starts counting from, and that is where the difference between theory and practice goes. We have written about local variation, about what happens after you file and about the step that is authorised separately, site organisation. The ground studies that can move the timeline are in geotechnical study or expert report. And what has to happen between issue and the first day on site is in five things before the first day.
This article is analysis, not legal advice. The provisions cited are from Legea 169/2026, published in Monitorul Oficial no. 661 of 10 August 2026. Check your own situation with the issuing authority.