Foreigners Buying Property in Romania: What the Rules Actually Say

The short version

Romania distinguishes between buildings and land, and between EU/EEA citizens and everyone else:

• Buildings (apartments, houses): any foreigner, from anywhere, can own them. The building's ownership is straightforward — note only that a house normally comes with its land, which is where the land rules enter.
• Land — EU/EEA/Swiss citizens and companies: may acquire land in Romania essentially on the same footing as Romanians, a right settled since the post-accession transition periods expired (2012 for most land, 2014 for agricultural and forest land).
• Land — non-EU citizens: may only acquire land directly under international-treaty reciprocity conditions, which in practice rarely helps. The standard, entirely lawful route: a Romanian company — even one wholly owned by the foreign investor — is a Romanian legal person and can own land without restriction. Most non-EU investment in Romanian land is structured this way; inheritance by law is the other main exception, as inherited land can be owned by non-EU heirs.

One more layer applies to everyone, foreigners and Romanians alike: extravilan agricultural land carries the pre-emption procedure of Law 17/2014 — sellers must first offer the land to a ranked list of preferred buyers. It is a process, not a prohibition; see the dedicated guide.

This page is practical orientation, not legal advice — structure and citizenship questions belong with a Romanian lawyer, and rules evolve. What follows is the part that does not change: whatever entity buys, the land itself must check out.

The real risk is rarely the citizenship rule

In our experience, foreign buyers stopped by the ownership rules are rare; foreign buyers burned by unverified land are not. The dangers are the same ones facing any buyer — unregistered parcels, co-ownership tangles, area discrepancies, overlaps, encumbrances — amplified by distance, language and unfamiliarity with the land book system. The cure is also the same: a fresh land registry extract read by someone who knows what Part III means, and a due diligence survey confirming the ground matches the paper, before money becomes non-refundable.

Everything transactional works remotely: powers of attorney (notarized and apostilled in your country, or signed at a Romanian consulate), your Romanian lawyer at the deed, and our verification and registration reports arriving on WhatsApp in English. Many of our foreign clients have never visited the land they safely own.

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