COUNTRY GUIDE
Deep engineering talent, decades of global R&D investment, and proven product success. Romania's case for hiring software developers.
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Talent pool
196,000
IT professionals
English proficiency
Very high
/ #11 globally (EF EPI 2025)
Hiring timeline
20 days
average with ALLSTARSIT
Savings vs US
up to 60%
on senior dev rate
IT exports
$11B
(2024, World Bank)
Tech hubs
4 major hubs
Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, Timișoara
Romania's software and IT services industry generated over €17.7 billion in turnover in 2024, a 13% nominal increase year-over-year, with a workforce of nearly 196,000 people, according to the Software and Services Industry Employers' Association (ANIS). Romania's EU membership since 2007 has been a genuine catalyst for this growth, giving companies legal and regulatory stability that many outsourcing destinations outside the EU can't offer.
Romanian developers bring strong skills in AI, cloud, cybersecurity, fintech, and embedded software. A few verticals deserve specific mention. Cybersecurity is a genuine standout — Romania is home to Bitdefender, one of the world's most recognized cybersecurity firms, which has created a deep local ecosystem of security engineers. Bucharest ranks 28th globally on StartupBlink's AI index — the only Eastern European city in the global AI top 30. In automotive software, the presence of Renault and Ford has fostered a strong ecosystem of companies providing software for autonomous driving, smart vehicle connectivity, and in-car infotainment — a niche depth that very few other markets in this guide can match.
Bucharest holds roughly 60% of Romania's IT market volume and houses R&D operations for Amazon and Microsoft. Amazon has run its Iași development center — its first R&D facility in Eastern Europe — since 2005, later adding a Bucharest site in 2017 where AWS teams work on core Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) technology. Microsoft has been present in Romania since 1996, now operating out of Bucharest and Timișoara.
Accenture has operated in the country since 2006 and now employs over 4,500 people across six cities, and Adobe Romania is the company's largest R&D center in Europe. Cluj-Napoca — often called the Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe — anchors a different cluster of players, including Endava (the city's largest IT employer, with over 4,000 employees) and Bosch Engineering's automotive R&D center focused on autonomous driving and IoT, alongside universities like Babeș-Bolyai and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca.
UiPath, founded in Bucharest in 2005, is Romania's clearest tech success story — it grew into the world's leading robotic process automation company, went public on the NYSE in 2021, and reported $1.61 billion in revenue for its fiscal year ended January 2026, with leadership saying Bucharest remains its largest R&D center.
UiPath isn't alone: MultiversX (formerly Elrond), a Sibiu-founded blockchain platform, and DRUID AI, a Bucharest-founded enterprise AI company with international clients like Saint-Gobain and Texas Children's Hospital, show that Romanian-built products can land serious global customers, not just deliver outsourced work for others.
Competition for senior Romanian talent is real. For senior tech talent, multiple offers are the norm. The best engineers in Bucharest and Cluj are approached continuously by multinational R&D centers, product companies, and staffing agencies simultaneously. Speed of process and competitive compensation matter more here than in lower-demand markets in this guide.
Anastasiia Chernenka
Head of Recruitment
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Payroll cycle
In Romania, it is required by law for employees to receive payment at least once a month and payment is made 1 time per month according to the country law. The specific date of payment should be established in the individual employment agreement, although many employers opt to distribute payments either at the end of the month or at the start of the following month after the pay period.
Employer taxes
For tech companies, employer taxes in Romania are 2.25%.
Overtime pay
Overtime work in Romania is defined as any hours worked beyond 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. Employees are not permitted to work more than 8 hours of overtime in a single week, except in cases of force majeure or urgent work to prevent accidents or their consequences.
Employers can request overtime work, provided that the average weekly working hours over a 4-month period, including overtime, do not exceed 48 hours (with a maximum of 8 hours of overtime per week).
Compensation for overtime is either in the form of compensatory time-off, to be provided within 90 calendar days, or if not possible within that timeframe, a premium pay of not less than 75% of the basic salary is paid.
Overtime work is remunerated at a rate of 75% of the base salary.
However, certain categories of employees, such as those under 18 years of age, pregnant employees unable to work during regular hours, and part-time employees, are not allowed to work overtime.
Paid leave
Romanian workers have the right to take 20 paid vacation days every year. The employer must pay the vacation allowance at least 5 working days before the leave period starts. If workers don't use all their vacation days, the remaining days must be carried over into the first six months of the following year.
Sick leave
Employees can receive up to 183 days of paid sick leave in a rolling 12-month period; any extension beyond 90 days requires approval from a specialist/social-insurance medical expert. Since 1 February 2026 (under GEO 91/2025, in effect until 31 December 2027), compensation follows a tiered structure based on the employee's average gross monthly income over the preceding six months: 55% for days 1–7, 65% for days 8–14, and 75% from day 15 onward, capped at 12 gross national minimum salaries. The first day of a common illness is now unpaid (though it still counts for social security purposes), except for quarantine/isolation orders and infectious diseases, which are covered from day one. The employer covers days 2 through 6, while FNUASS (the National Single Fund for Social Health Insurance) takes over from day 7 onward.
Public and provincial holidays
Romania has 17 official public holidays per year (since the addition of Epiphany and St. John the Baptist's Day in 2024). Employees belonging to a legally recognized religious denomination other than the Orthodox majority faith are also entitled to a statutory right of 2 paid days off for each of 3 annual religious holidays specific to their faith — this is set by the Labor Code, not left to informal company agreement.
Notice period
In Romania, employers cannot terminate an employment contract without a valid, legally recognized reason — dismissal without cause is unlawful. Employees, by contrast, may resign without stating a reason. Where an employer terminates for a valid ground (redundancy, medical incapacity, professional inadequacy, etc.), the statutory minimum notice period is 20 working days, extending to 45 working days for management-level positions. Fixed-term contracts end automatically upon expiry of their term (no notice period applies), unless terminated earlier on one of the legally recognized grounds.
13th Month Bonus
There is no legal requirement to pay employees in Romania an annual bonus in the form of a 13th salary or similar.
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