Romania in 2026: property, prices, taxes and life for foreign buyers

Foreigners can generally buy apartments in Romania. The country is fully inside the EU and Schengen, while housing prices are still rising at a moderate pace compared with some of its neighbours. Buying property does not create a residence right, but Romania remains interesting for its comparatively accessible prices, rental yields around 5–6% and several large cities with their own sources of demand.

Updated: 7 September 2026

Romania at a glance

The five-year figure comes from Eurostat’s official quarterly series. Compounding the annual Q1 changes from 2022 through 2026 gives approximately 32.8% growth between Q1 2021 and Q1 2026.

That is much calmer than Poland’s five-year repricing or Bulgaria’s more recent double-digit run. For a new buyer, slower growth is not necessarily a weakness.

Why Romania deserves more attention

Romania does not have one obvious property-sales slogan.

Poland is a large Central European market. Bulgaria has the Black Sea, the euro and a rapid catch-up story. Greece sells lifestyle almost by itself.

Romania is less neatly packaged.

What it does have is Bucharest, one of the region’s largest capitals; Cluj-Napoca, where housing has become genuinely expensive; university-driven Iași; technology and industry in Timișoara; Brașov at the foot of the Carpathians; and Constanța on the Black Sea.

Demand is spread across several cities rather than concentrated in one capital or tourist strip.

Since 1 January 2025, Romania has also been a full member of Schengen. The final internal land-border controls were removed after air and sea controls had already disappeared in 2024.

The country still uses the leu. Romania is committed to adopting the euro eventually, but in 2026 it remains outside the euro area.

That creates an unusual combination: EU and full Schengen membership, but without euro-area pricing and currency structure.

Can a foreigner buy an apartment?

Usually, yes.

For EU and EEA citizens, the regime is close to that available to Romanian nationals.

The more complicated issue for third-country nationals is land. Romanian law restricts direct land ownership depending on nationality, international agreements and reciprocity.

An apartment and a detached house with a substantial land plot should therefore not be treated as the same legal purchase.

The normal transaction process is conventional for continental Europe: title and land-register records are checked, cadastral documentation is reviewed, the contract is signed before a notary and the new ownership is entered into the register.

Does buying property give residence?

No.

Romania has no programme where buying a €100,000, €200,000 or €500,000 property automatically creates a residence permit.

Third-country nationals need a separate legal basis for residence, such as employment, business, study or family.

Owning a home can help demonstrate accommodation during an immigration procedure. It does not replace the immigration basis itself.

So a Romanian apartment is best thought of as an EU property asset, not a residence product.

How long can you stay without residence?

For visa-exempt third-country nationals, the standard Schengen rule applies:

up to 90 days in any 180-day period.

Time spent in Romania now counts together with time spent in the rest of Schengen.

EU, EEA and Swiss nationals follow the free-movement regime instead.

Long-term residence

For a third-country national, the standard route to long-term residence generally requires five years of continuous lawful residence.

Absences are limited, and applicants must also satisfy requirements concerning income, accommodation, health coverage and other conditions.

EU citizens generally acquire permanent residence after five years of continuous lawful residence as well.

For someone who genuinely plans to move, owning a property can fit naturally into that longer story.

Citizenship

Property itself does not create a route to Romanian citizenship.

Under the ordinary naturalisation route, the applicant generally needs long-term or permanent residence and at least eight years of lawful residence in Romania. A shorter period applies in some cases, including certain spouses of Romanian citizens.

Applicants also need lawful means of support, a clean enough legal record and knowledge of Romanian language, culture, the Constitution and the national anthem.

A home may be part of an established life in Romania. It does not replace those conditions.

What is happening to prices?

In Q1 2026, Romanian housing prices were 7.8% higher than a year earlier and 3.2% higher than the previous quarter.

The EU average annual rise was lower.

The five-year path has been fairly steady rather than explosive. The national index is roughly one-third higher than in Q1 2021.

The national figure, however, hides major differences between cities.

How much does a square metre cost?

By March 2026, the national average asking price for apartments had moved above €2,000 per usable square metre.

The large-city differences were substantial.

New-build asking prices were roughly:

• Bucharest: €2,541/m²

• Cluj-Napoca: above €3,400/m²

• Brașov: about €2,723/m²

• Timișoara: around €2,189/m²

• Constanța: roughly €2,096/m²

• Iași: around €2,042/m²

These are asking prices, not official transaction prices.

Cluj has long since stopped being a cheap Romanian market.

Bucharest is more interesting because of its scale. It remains possible to buy in a large European capital at levels below many Western European cities, while still having a broad range of districts and property types.

Bucharest

Bucharest is the country’s deepest housing market.

Demand comes from government, offices, international employers, universities and a large permanent population.

The market in 2026 has been strong but less frantic than the headline asking-price growth might suggest.

New-build asking prices were about 24% higher year on year in March, while existing apartments were roughly 14% more expensive.

Transaction volumes, meanwhile, showed a more cautious buyer. Activity recovered during the first half of 2026, but buyers remained more price-sensitive than during the strongest part of the previous cycle.

That is not necessarily bad for someone entering now. A market with demand but some room to negotiate is healthier than one driven by panic.

Cluj-Napoca

Cluj is expensive by Romanian standards.

New-build asking prices above €3,400/m² put it in a completely different category from the old image of Romania as a low-cost housing market.

The city has universities, technology companies and constrained supply. That supports prices.

It also reduces rental yield.

Cluj makes more sense for a buyer who believes in long-term scarcity value than for someone chasing the highest income percentage.

Brașov

Brașov has become one of the country’s more expensive markets.

It combines a normal city economy with tourism and mountain access. That makes it attractive as both a place to live and a second-home market.

The trade-off is clear: the city is no longer cheap.

Timișoara and Iași

Both can be more interesting for buyers who do not want to pay Cluj or Bucharest prices.

Timișoara is a major western Romanian business and university centre.

Iași is one of the country’s largest education hubs and has substantial local rental demand.

Both have genuine domestic economies behind the housing market.

Constanța

Constanța is the large Romanian market where the sea can genuinely change the investment model.

The city itself is large enough to support year-round demand, so it should not be treated as a pure resort.

Closer to the coast, however, short-term rental, seasonality and exact location become much more important.

How much can rent bring in a year?

A reasonable national reference in mid-2026 is about 5–6% gross.

Estimated averages vary considerably by city:

• Bucharest: around 6.9%

• Constanța: around 6.7%

• Timișoara: roughly 5.4%

• Iași: around 5.3%

• Brașov: around 5.2%

• Cluj-Napoca: roughly 4.6%

These are market estimates based on asking rents and asking sale prices, not guaranteed returns.

For an ordinary urban apartment, a sensible broad statement is:

Rental income can often be around 5–6% a year before individual costs.

Vacancy, furnishing, repairs, management and tax all reduce what reaches the owner.

Tax on rental income

Romanian private rental taxation uses a 20% standard expense allowance.

The tax base is therefore 80% of gross rent, and a 10% income tax applies to that amount.

In a simple case, this works out at roughly 8% of gross rental income, before any additional health-insurance obligations that may arise above income thresholds.

For foreign owners, tax residence and the relevant double-tax treaty also matter.

New homes and VAT

This area changed materially in 2025.

From 1 August 2025, Romania’s standard VAT rate increased to 21%.

A narrow transitional regime preserved the previous 9% rate for some qualifying homes where the purchase process had already begun under the earlier rules and additional conditions were satisfied.

For someone entering the market now, the safer assumption is that a normal new-build purchase exists in a 21% VAT environment.

Older online articles describing 5% or 9% VAT as the standard position can therefore be badly misleading.

What happens to tax when you sell?

For an individual selling real estate from personal property, the tax is 3% of the taxable amount. The taxable amount is the transaction value minus RON 450,000, so the 3% rate should not simply be applied to the full sale price.

The tax is generally calculated and withheld by the notary when the transaction is completed.

Annual property tax

There is also a local annual property tax.

The exact rate and tax base depend on the municipality.

In Bucharest, the rate for ordinary residential buildings owned by individuals remained 0.1% of the taxable value in 2026, although the taxable-value calculation itself changed.

Higher-value residential property can also face an additional tax on the portion above the statutory threshold.

For an ordinary apartment this is rarely the largest ownership cost, but it becomes relevant at the luxury end.

Safety

Romania ranks 45th out of 163 countries in the 2026 Global Peace Index.

That is a respectable result.

As elsewhere, the GPI is broader than street crime. It includes conflict, stability and militarisation.

For everyday life and property ownership, Romania is generally a relatively safe EU country.

Corruption and institutions

This is one of the weaker parts of the country profile.

Romania scored 45/100 and ranked 70th of 182 countries in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index.

The World Justice Project gave a more favourable overall position: 44th out of 143 countries in its 2025 Rule of Law Index.

Within the EU and other high-income European peers, however, Romania still ranks toward the lower end.

For a foreign buyer the practical picture is mixed rather than catastrophic. Property rights are registered, notarial transfers function and land books exist. But institutional quality is weaker than in Poland or much of Western Europe.

Bureaucracy

Romania ranked 72nd globally in the 2024 UN E-Government Development Index.

That is noticeably below Poland and Bulgaria.

The property-purchase process is still fairly traditional: cadastral documents, land-book checks, certificates, a notary and registration.

It is not elegant, but the structure is understandable.

What buyers tend to underestimate

The first issue is the gap between the national index and individual cities.

A national five-year rise of roughly one-third does not describe Cluj, Brașov or parts of Bucharest particularly well.

The second is Cluj itself. Romania may still sound affordable, but €3,400/m² for a new apartment is not a low-cost market.

Third, land rules are different from apartment rules for some foreign buyers.

Fourth, old VAT information can seriously distort a 2026 new-build calculation.

And finally, owning an apartment does not create the right to live in Romania permanently.

Who Romania suits best

A buyer who wants property inside the EU and Schengen but is not ready to pay Warsaw, Athens or mature Western European prices.

An investor who cares about rental income. A broad 5–6% gross range is competitive for European urban property.

Someone who wants a choice of several independent cities rather than one dominant capital or one resort market.

And someone investing with a multi-year horizon rather than looking for a quick flip.

Best suited to:

Price growth · Rental income · EU / Schengen

Who may prefer another market

If residence through property is the main goal, there are more suitable countries.

If the investor wants all property exposure directly in euros, neighbouring Bulgaria is now structurally simpler.

If institutional quality and digital government are top priorities, Romania is not among the strongest EU markets either.

Those weaknesses are also part of the reason prices remain below several better-known European markets.

The bottom line

Romania becomes more interesting when you stop looking for a single marketing hook.

There is no Golden Visa attached to an apartment. There is no euro yet. There is no credible promise of 12% rental income.

Instead, there is full Schengen membership, a large EU economy, Bucharest with substantial domestic demand, several independent regional cities, roughly one-third official house-price growth over five years and gross rental yields commonly around 5–6%.

The weaknesses are equally clear: institutions remain weaker than in much of the EU, new-build taxation has become more expensive and the most attractive cities have already repriced considerably.

So the useful question is no longer whether “Romania is cheap”.

Bucharest, Cluj, Brașov, Timișoara, Iași and Constanța are now different enough that choosing the country is only the first step.

Data and sources

Eurostat; Institutul Național de Statistică; General Inspectorate for Immigration; Romanian legislative portal; ANAF; European Commission; European e-Justice Portal; UN E-Government Survey; Transparency International; World Justice Project; Institute for Economics & Peace; Imobiliare.ro; Colliers.

Official five-year growth is calculated from Eurostat’s quarterly housing series. City pricing and rental-yield figures use market asking data and should be treated as market references rather than guaranteed outcomes.

Legal, immigration, tax and market information checked for 7 September 2026.

FAQ

Can foreigners buy apartments in Romania?

Yes. Foreigners can generally buy ordinary apartments. Land ownership by some third-country nationals is subject to additional restrictions.

Does buying property give residence in Romania?

No. Romania does not grant residence simply because someone buys an apartment.

How much have Romanian house prices risen in five years?

The official index rose by roughly 33% between Q1 2021 and Q1 2026.

What rental yield can you expect?

A broad gross reference for an urban apartment is around 5–6% a year.