The conversation about building without paperwork is held almost entirely in lei. What is the fine, can it be brought into legality, what does regularisation cost. The Codul urbanismului has two adjacent articles that are not about the same thing, and the first of them is not measured in money.
Fines and the administrative route are on the penalties page. Here we look at what sits before them.
What actually falls in here
Article 356 paragraph (1) lists the acts that constitute criminal offences against the permitting regime and punishes them with imprisonment from 3 months to one year or with a fine, by reference to the Criminal Code.
The first, item a): carrying out works without a permit, or in breach of one, at historic monuments, at their annexes on the same property, in the protection zone of monuments and in protected built zones, at buildings of particular architectural or historic value established through approved planning documentation, and in the zones of a special character set out at article 184.
The second, item b): continuing works after a stop has been ordered by the competent control bodies, and breaking seals or distinctive marks lawfully applied.
The third, item c): drawing up, signing or checking documentation for specialisms other than those covered by a university degree or a technical and professional certificate.
What that changes about the usual discussion
The site becomes a criminal variable. The same works, without a permit, are an administrative offence in an ordinary area and a criminal offence in a protected built zone. The regime of the land no longer decides only which approvals you need, it decides which code you end up in; the list of approvals that regime triggers is covered in what approvals a protected zone needs.
The second change concerns stopping works. Paragraph (2) says a stop may also be ordered by a prosecutor, during a criminal investigation. Stop orders no longer come from one direction only.
The third touches designers. Signing outside your certified competence is listed alongside building without a permit in a heritage zone. The signature rule is covered in who signs the project.
Who actually gets frightened
What follows is opinion rather than a reading of the text. I do not think the article is designed to send beneficiaries to prison, and the lower limit of three months, with a fine as the alternative, suggests as much. Its likely effect is different: it changes who gets frightened.
A contractor served with a stop order sometimes calculates today whether it is worth carrying on. Item b) moves that calculation out of the territory of an administrative fine. Likewise a designer signing off, obligingly, a specialist section they do not command has until now been taking a professional and civil risk. Item c) puts them in the same article as building without a permit in a heritage zone.
It is worth reading alongside what survived from the old regime, because references are easily made to the wrong instrument; that is covered in what the code actually repealed. The administrative measure that precedes letter b), and everything it brings with it, is in your site has been stopped.
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.