Digital Nomads

In recent surveys, Romania has been evaluated as a friendly, safe and economical environment for digital nomads. The unpleasant pandemic has actually stimulated both the offer and the request for setting up an unsophisticated office abroad.

Costaș, Negru & Asociații pays special attention to the status and needs of digital nomads. While, in a recently published paper, our lawyers looked into the taxation of digital nomads (see C.F. Costaș, C. Dohotar, Impozitarea nomazilor digitali, Cluj Tax Forum Journal no. 2/2021), it was the beginning of 2022 that brought the interesting news: Romania acknowledged the need to start providing a legal framework for such digital nomads. The first step in legally regulating this aspect was made by the entry into force on 17 January 2022 of Law no. 22/2022 for the amendment and completion of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 194/2002 on the regime of foreigners in Romania, which comes to define the notion of digital nomad and provide the possibility of obtaining long-stay visas in Romania by persons who fall into the category of digital nomads, and meet a number of additional conditions.

According to this new law, the digital nomad is the foreigner who is employed by an employment contract with a company registered outside Romania and who provides services through the use of information and communication technology or who owns a company registered outside Romania, in which he provides services through the use of information and communications technology, and may be employed remotely as employees or within the company, using information and communications technology.

At Costaș, Negru & Asociații, our expertise with the labour field, immigration and social security allows for the provision of complete legal services, adapted for the needs of digital nomads. We are prepared to provide information on the basic principles of the Romanian legal and social security system and represent digital nomads before national authorities. Our lawyers speak a number of foreign languages and provide assistance in the firm’s offices from Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Arad.