A Romanian residence permit is a paper or card issued by the General Inspectorate for Immigration that allows a foreign national to reside in Romania for a fixed length of time. These may be permits for temporary residency, or permanent residency. The residence permit contains the following information: name and surname, date of issuing, date of expiration, CNP and an address.

The chance is, if you are reading this Article, that you have already obtained a temporary residence permit and you need to either renew or update certain information. If there are changes in this information, as well as in the event of destruction or damage to the residence card, you must declare this to the General Inspectorate for Immigration and obtain another one.

Name change

The most common circumstance when a person undergoes a change in name is after the marriage. Once you got married, the local authorities issue a marriage certificate. This certificate contains a special column which contains the name the spouses will have after the marries, i.e. if change your family name to the one of your spouses or you keep both family names, this is highlighted in the marriage certificate.

However, according to the Romanian immigration law, the marriage certificate is not sufficient in order to update the information on your residence permit. By virtue of your marriage certificate, the only thing that instantly changes is your status, i.e. from a worker or student to the family member of a EU citizen if you married a EU citizen

That is because the Romanian residence permit is issued in accordance with the passport, not the marriage certificate. Therefore, in order to change the name on a residence permit, one must change his/her passport.

After the change of passport, a person has a period of 30 days to fill the documents to the General Inspectorate for Immigration. If you surpass those 30 days, the Romanian authorities may fine you.

Address change

A second change that brings about an update of the residence permit is the change of address. This must be declared to General Inspectorate for Immigration within 30 days from the date the person moved to the new address. However, in cases when a person lives in two places at the same time, the counting of 30 days starts once that person closed the previous contract and only has the one for your current place.

This procedure is less complex for EU citizens than non-EU ones. The latter category needs to provide the full documentation for the new address, such as the renewed lease agreement, the same way it was submitted when the person originally registered for the residence permit, including all the taxes.

Expiration of the residence permit

In order to extend the duration of a residence permit, a foreign national must submit the file 30 days prior to the expiration date of the residence permit, i.e. if the residence permit expires on the 1^st of May, by the 31^st of March, the person seeking the renewal must submit the documents to the General Inspectorate for Immigration. Be aware that since 2020, the person seeking the renewal must make an appointment online, which may take from one to three weeks.

It is advisable that you complete this procedure as soon as possible and take some weeks to gather all documents. If there is a gap in your temporary residence permits, this may affect your eligibility permanent residence permit. Under Romanian law, a person can be granted a permanent residence permit is that person has resided in the country for a continuous period of 5 years. Therefore, if there is a gap between the temporary residence permits, it will take longer to obtain the permanent residence permit.

Loss or deterioration of the residence permit

In the unfortunate case that you lost your residence permit, or it got destroyed, you must present yourself at the General Inspectorate for Immigration within 48 hours. Because Romanian legislation does not contain a special procedure for this process, you need to re-submit your application again and bring all documents that you used to apply for the temporary permit

It is important to note that the General Inspectorate for Immigration does not issue the new permit on the spot and it may take up to 30 days to get it. During this period, a proof acknowledging the loss is issued.

Final advice

Finally, it is important to remember that in order to complete the renewal procedure for the residence permit, non-EU citizens must undergo a general medical consultation in order for the immigration authorities to check they you do not possess any disease which may endanger the public health system.

 

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