Romanian Debtor Insolvent? Filing a Claim as a Foreign Creditor

Legal position as at: 2 November 2026

At a glance

• Who this is for: any creditor of a Romanian company in insolvency, inside or outside the EU. UK, US, Indian, Swiss and other non-EU creditors file under the same Romanian rules; the extra protections of the EU Insolvency Regulation apply only to creditors based in another EU Member State.
• First step: find the opening notice in the Insolvency Proceedings Bulletin and note the claim deadline set by the court.
• The main deadline: the claim deadline fixed in the opening decision, at most 45 days from the opening (Law 85/2014, art. 100(1) lit. b)), or up to 30 days longer if the judge extends it.
• Late filing: a creditor who misses it loses the right to take part in the proceedings (art. 114(1)).

Once insolvency proceedings are opened against a Romanian customer, lawsuits and enforcement are suspended, interest ceases to accrue on most claims, and the only way to be paid is to file a claim within a short deadline.

The Romanian rules are in Law 85/2014 on insolvency prevention procedures and insolvency (the Insolvency Code). For creditors established in another EU Member State, Regulation (EU) 2015/848 on insolvency proceedings adds specific protections, set out below.

Which law applies

Main insolvency proceedings are opened in the Member State where the debtor has its centre of main interests, meaning the place where it conducts the administration of its interests on a regular basis and which third parties can ascertain. For a company, this is presumed to be its registered office, unless proven otherwise and provided the office was not moved to another Member State in the 3 months before the request (Regulation 2015/848 art. 3(1)). For a company registered and operating in Romania, the proceedings will therefore normally be opened by a Romanian tribunal (tribunalul).

Once opened, the law of the State of opening governs, among other things, how claims are lodged, verified and admitted, and how proceeds are distributed and claims ranked (art. 7(2)(h) and (i)). An opening judgment in Romania is recognised and takes effect in all other Member States without further formalities (art. 19(1), 20(1)). The Romanian rules therefore decide your claim, whatever law governs your contract.

The immediate effects of opening

• Stay of actions and enforcement. From the date of opening, all court actions, out-of-court actions and enforcement measures to recover claims against the debtor's assets are suspended by law. Claims can be pursued only by filing them in the insolvency (Law 85/2014 art. 75(1)). If the opening becomes final, the suspended actions and enforcement end (art. 75(1)).
• No further interest or penalties. No interest, increases, penalties or other accessories may be added to claims that arose before the opening, except for secured claims within the limits of art. 103 (art. 80(1)).
• Set-off survives. Set-off remains available where the conditions of legal set-off were met at the date of opening (art. 90(1)). In cross-border EU cases, the opening also does not affect a creditor's right to set-off permitted by the law applicable to the insolvent debtor's claim (Regulation 2015/848 art. 9(1)).
• Rights in rem and retention of title over assets abroad. Security over assets located in another Member State when proceedings are opened, and a seller's reservation of title over goods located in another Member State, are not affected by the opening (Regulation 2015/848 art. 8(1) and 10(1)).

How a foreign creditor learns of the proceedings

After opening, the insolvency practitioner appointed by the court, called the judicial administrator (administrator judiciar) during the observation and reorganisation stages or the judicial liquidator (lichidator judiciar) in bankruptcy, sends a notice to all creditors on the list filed by the debtor, to the debtor and to the trade register (Law 85/2014 art. 99(1)). If a creditor based abroad has a representative in Romania, the notice goes to that representative (art. 99(2)). The notice is also published in a widely circulated newspaper and in the Insolvency Proceedings Bulletin (Buletinul procedurilor de insolvență, BPI), the publication of the National Trade Register Office in which courts and practitioners publish summons, notices and procedural documents in insolvency cases (art. 5(1) pt. 6, art. 99(3)). Summons and procedural documents are generally communicated through the BPI (art. 42(1)).

Known creditors in other Member States must also receive an individual standard notice giving the time limits and the body that accepts claims (Regulation 2015/848 art. 54(1) to (3)).

In practice, do not wait for the letter: if a customer is in difficulty, monitor the BPI. The deadlines run from the opening, not from the day the notice reaches you.

The deadline to file your claim

The rule for every creditor. The opening decision fixes the deadline for filing claims, which is at most 45 days from the opening (Law 85/2014 art. 100(1) lit. b)). This applies to Romanian, EU and non-EU creditors alike.

Extension. For serious reasons, the judge may extend the filing deadline by up to 30 days (art. 100(2)).

Notice. The notice must be communicated to creditors at least 10 days before the filing deadline (art. 100(1)).

The EU floor, for EU creditors only. The EU Regulation provides that for a foreign creditor the period may not be shorter than 30 days from publication of the opening in the insolvency register of the State of opening (Regulation 2015/848 art. 55(6)). A "foreign creditor" in the Regulation is a creditor with its habitual residence, domicile or registered office in a Member State other than the State of opening (art. 2 pt. 12). A creditor based in the UK, the US, India or Switzerland is not covered and cannot rely on that floor; for it, only the deadline in the opening decision counts.

The same decision sets the later dates (art. 100(1) lit. c) to e)):

• the deadline for verifying claims and publishing the preliminary table of claims in the BPI, at most 20 days after the filing deadline in the general procedure and 10 days in the simplified procedure. The preliminary table (tabelul preliminar de creanțe) lists the claims arising before the opening that the practitioner has accepted after verification, with the amount claimed, the amount accepted and the rank (art. 5(1) pt. 69). The simplified procedure (procedura simplificată) is the route in which a debtor meeting the conditions of art. 38(2) goes straight into bankruptcy (art. 5(1) pt. 47);
• the deadline for the final table, at most 25 days after that;
• the date of the first creditors' meeting.

The consequences of a late filing

A creditor holding a claim that arose before the opening who does not file by the deadline is barred from being entered in the table of creditors and does not acquire the right to take part in the proceedings. It also cannot pursue the claim against the debtor after the proceedings close, subject to limited exceptions for bankruptcy offences and fraudulent transfers (Law 85/2014 art. 114(1)). The bar does not apply where the opening notice was given in breach of the communication rules (art. 114(1)).

What the claim must contain

The claim (cerere de admitere a creanței) is filed with the tribunal handling the case and recorded in a register kept by the court registry (Law 85/2014 art. 102(1)). It must state the creditor's name and registered office, the amount owed, the legal basis of the claim, any security or other preference, and an e-mail address if the creditor wants electronic communications (art. 104(1)). The supporting documents for the claim and for any security must be attached by the filing deadline at the latest (art. 104(2)).

A creditor from another Member State may use the EU standard claims form "Lodgement of claims", which asks for the principal, interest, pre-opening costs, the nature of the claim, any preference, security or retention of title and any set-off, with copies of the supporting documents (Regulation 2015/848 art. 55(1), (2) and (4)).

Language. Claims may be lodged in any official language of the EU institutions, but the court or the practitioner may require a translation into Romanian (Regulation 2015/848 art. 55(5)). We recommend filing with a Romanian translation from the start.

Representation. Under the EU Regulation, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2023/2844, any foreign creditor may lodge claims by any means of communication accepted by Romanian law (the EU electronic channel provided for in Regulation (EU) 2023/2844 applies only once the EU's decentralised IT system is in place, under its art. 26(3)), and representation by a lawyer is not mandatory for the sole purpose of lodging claims (Regulation 2015/848 art. 53). In practice, many foreign creditors still use a Romanian lawyer, because the claim will be verified and may be contested in Romanian, under short deadlines.

Stamp duty. Requests and contestations under insolvency law carry a fixed court fee of 200 lei (Government Emergency Ordinance (OUG) No 80/2013, art. 14(1), whose reference to the former insolvency law is read as a reference to Law 85/2014 under that law's art. 340). A contestation of the table must be accompanied by proof of payment of the stamp duty, on pain of annulment (Law 85/2014 art. 111(3)). Costs in general are covered in our article on court fees and costs in Romania.

Practical checklist for a foreign creditor

• Contract or purchase orders, invoices, delivery documents and the account statement.
• Any judgment, payment order or award obtained, and any security documents with proof of registration.
• Interest calculated only up to the date of opening.
• A certified translation by an authorised translator of each document not in Romanian, and a Romanian power of attorney (împuternicire avocațială) for the lawyer, with proof of the signatory's authority (apostilled or legalised where required).

Verification, the table of claims and contestations

The practitioner verifies each claim and draws up a preliminary table, which is published in the BPI. The debtor, any creditor and any interested party can contest the claims entered in or left out of the table within 7 days of its publication in the BPI, in both the general and the simplified procedure (Law 85/2014 art. 111(1) and (2)). The insolvency judge (judecător-sindic), the tribunal judge in charge of the case, decides all contestations together, by a single judgment, on the date set for the final table (art. 111(6)).

After that period, a claim in the final table can still be challenged only where fraud, deceit, a material error or decisive documents previously unknown are discovered, within 15 days of the date the party learned or should have learned of them (art. 113).

Where your claim ranks

Secured claims are entered up to the market value of the collateral set by an authorised valuer; a higher sale price still benefits the secured creditor up to the full claim (Law 85/2014 art. 103).

In bankruptcy (faliment), claims not covered by collateral are paid in the order of art. 161: (1) costs of the procedure; (2) financing granted during the procedure, then financing from insolvency prevention procedures; (3) employment claims; (4) claims from continuing the business after opening; (5) tax and other budgetary claims; (6) maintenance and similar periodic payments; (7) maintenance of an individual debtor; (8) bank loans, supplies of goods, services or works, and rents; (9) other unsecured claims; (10) subordinated claims, including certain shareholder loans.

An unpaid supplier is therefore usually at rank 8, behind the costs of the procedure, employees and the tax authorities. In a reorganisation, a plan proposed under art. 132 sets the treatment of each category of claims (art. 133(4)), creditors vote on it by category (art. 138), and the judge decides on confirmation (art. 139).

The practitioner can also seek to set aside harmful transactions, such as gratuitous transfers in the 2 years before opening or preferential payments in the 6 months before it (art. 117(1) and (2)).

Opening insolvency against a Romanian debtor

A creditor does not have to wait. Insolvency is presumed, rebuttably, when the debtor has not paid 60 days after the due date (Law 85/2014 art. 5(1) pt. 29). A creditor may petition the tribunal to open proceedings if its claim is certain, liquid and due (cert, lichid și exigibil: undisputed in existence, fixed in amount and payable) for more than 60 days, and if, after set-off of mutual debts, the amount owed exceeds the threshold of 50,000 lei (art. 5(1) pt. 20 and 72). The debtor itself must file within at most 45 days of becoming insolvent, after notifying the tax authority 15 days before filing (art. 66(1) and (1^1), as amended by Law 239/2025, in force since 18 December 2025).

The petition states the amount and basis of the claim, any security and precautionary measures, with supporting documents (art. 70(1) and (2)). The court communicates the petition to the debtor and the tax authority within 48 hours, and the debtor has 10 days to contest or acknowledge its insolvency; only documentary evidence is allowed (art. 72(2) and (3)). At the debtor's request, the judge may order the creditor to deposit security of up to 10% of the claim, but no more than 40,000 lei, within 5 days, on pain of dismissal (art. 72(1)).

If the debtor pays the petitioning creditor before the close of the hearing, the judge dismisses the petition as having become devoid of purpose (art. 72(5)); in practice, a petition can therefore prompt payment. If the debtor is found not to be insolvent, the petition is dismissed and the security may be used to cover the debtor's damage for a petition filed in bad faith (art. 72(4)). Where the debtor still has assets, ordinary enforcement may be the better route; our debt recovery guide for foreign creditors compares the options.

What can go wrong

• Filing late. A claim filed after the deadline is barred (art. 114(1)). Non-EU creditors cannot rely on the 30-day EU floor.
• Not reacting to the preliminary table. Contestations must be filed within 7 days of its publication in the BPI (art. 111(2)).
• A petition against a solvent debtor. It is dismissed, and the security may go to the debtor if the petition was filed in bad faith (art. 72(4)).

When to take advice

Insolvency deadlines are short and the consequences of missing them are serious. If a Romanian customer has entered insolvency, or you are considering a petition, the useful moment to act is before the filing deadline, ideally as soon as the opening is published.

In a first e-mail, send us the opening notice or the debtor's name and registration number, the contract, the invoices, the correspondence, any security documents and any clause on courts or arbitration. Fees are agreed in writing before work starts.

This article is general information on Romanian law as at 2 November 2026, not advice for a specific case. To discuss your matter, write to us at