Did you know that the Romanian Citizenship Law was amended by Law no. 14/2025, which entered into force on March 14th?

        Although the Romanian citizenship authority (ANC) will not immediately implement all of these changes, pending new ministerial orders, it is important to find out how the situation has changed for those who wish to obtain a Romanian passport through naturalization or by regaining Romanian citizenship/ancestry. Learn more from our lawyers, below!

Citizenship by naturalization, Art. 8

            The first important amendment concerns art. 8 letter a) of the law. The old version of the law specified that the applicant must have been born and have resided on the territory of the Romanian state or have resided for at least 8 years if he was not born here. But now, the law mentions two more ways to meet these conditions. The applicants can hold  a long-term right of residence or permanent residency in Romania.

          This amendment is, in fact, a clarification of the legislation on obtaining Romanian citizenship and its corroboration with the legislation on the regime of foreigners in Romania (Government Oridnance no. 194/2002). In the past, obtaining the right of permanent residence in Romania was questionable, before applying for Romanian citizenship. Even the court decisions were not aligned in this case.

          In other words, we believe that it is now mandatory to first have a permanent residence permit in Romania and only then apply for citizenship. Therefore, it is not enough to have temporary residence permits. In practice, permanent residence was still required until today, anyway.

          The rule that foreigners married to Romanians can apply after a legal stay of 5 years, not 8 years, remains in force.

           In addition, the 8-year term can be reduced with up to 3 years, if the conditions imposed by law are met (active participation in the economic life of society/relevant educational achievements or special contributions in the cultural field, in the field of promoting human rights, in that of social commitment/volunteering) and (1) either the petitioner has the citizenship of a state of the European Union or (2) was born in Romania.

         This reduction by up to 3 years, on the one hand, eliminates many of the previous options that existed in the citizenship law (investments of over 1,000,000 euros in Romania). And, at the same time, reduces and conditions the term in which European citizens can apply for Romanian citizenship. In the previous version of the law, it was mentioned that the 8-year term can be reduced in half.

Reduction of the naturalization term, Art. 8¹

           Another important change also occurred for obtaining citizenship “by merit”, introducing a 3-year term. The 3 years can be deducted from the 8-year term for naturalization, under certain conditions.

         More precisely, you can become a Romanian citizen through naturalization after 5 years, but the foreign citizen must have a cultural, civic and spiritual contribution to Romanian culture. So we interpret the law, in the sense that the contribution made by the applicant must be during the three years prior to the date of submission.

Reacquiring citizenship/ancestry, Art. 10 and Art. 11

        For people who wish to regain Romanian citizenship, a new condition has been introduced, proving your knowledge of the Romanian language.

        For this, it is not enough to attach just any type of Romanian certificate. It must be a document that attests a minimum level of written and spoken Romanian, at level B1. These can be issued by one of these authorities:

1. a) Universities in Romania, as a result of equivalence or promotion of the year of training in the Romanian language
2. b) Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR)
3. c) Romanian Language Institute

         In other words, it is not enough to know the language of the family or courses well, you must also obtain the above certificate.

       Regarding these changes, there is also a 1 year “bonus” from the date when the new law entered into force. So you can submit the B1 certificate later,  until March 14, 2026.

         There are a few people who do not need the language certificate:

1. they were Romanian citizens at some point
2. people over 65 years old

iii. they studied Romanian for at least 3 years in a Romanian high school

1. minors included in the parents’ citizenship file

An application without ‘doubts’, Art. 12

               Another important change is presented by art. 12 of the law. This brings a new condition: in addition to meeting all the objective conditions for applying for citizenship, the citizenship authority must also be certain that all other requirements are met. Any doubt may lead to the rejection of the application. For example, all the necessary documents are submitted, but the commission examining its content has doubts about the validity of certain aspects. In this situation, it may reject the application.

           We believe that these changes give the NCA quite large and uncertain powers. However, dissatisfied applicants can appeal the decision in court and can bring any evidence, not just civil status documents.

Citizenship in maximum 2 years, Art. 15

          According to the new law, the authorities have to solve the citizenship file in maximum 2 years. This term did not exist in the old law, and the files ended up being resolved in 3-4 years or even more.

        The 2-year term can be extended by a maximum of 6 months if the commission needs additional clarifications.

Other changes

          A change of the law that will certainly bring many problems in practice is concerns the documents submitted in original, according to art. 16. They must meet one more condition, to be issued by the competent authorities no more than 2 years before the application was submitted.

        At this point, the documents submitted could be even older. It remains to be seen how this change will be put into practice, because not all countries can easily issue new documents upon request.

        On the other hand, a good amendment to the law aims at digitizing the citizenship file. Applicants will have online access to the file (this was not possible in the past) and will be able to communicate directly with the ANC, also online. The implementation deadline for this is June 30, 2026.

      Other changes brought by the new law:

• The oath of allegiance is taken individually. And you can only take it in Romania if you wish to establish your residence in Romania. In the past, the oath could be taken in a group, with less pressure on the applicant.
• After taking the oath, a citizenship card will be issued, you will no longer have a simple citizenship certificate
• There are strict new deadlines for transcribing and obtaining the first Romanian identity document: 1 year for people living in Romania and 3 years for those living abroad.