The complete legal checklist for Romanian online shops in 2026

Back in August 2022 I wrote a short guide about the SOL and SAL banners that ANPC asked every Romanian online shop to display. That article is still one of the most read on this blog. It is also, in one important way, out of date.

One of those two banners is switched off by the European Commission. Plus we have some new regulations, so I decided to rewrite the whole thing, and this time to cover more information about the things a shop must show on their website. 

Small warning first: I am a web designer and developer, not a lawyer. This is what I have learned from building and fixing shops, plus the official sources linked along the way. But you should always ask a lawyer about legal advice.

1.The big change: SOL no longer exists

SOL stood for Soluționarea Online a Litigiilor, the European Commission’s online platform where a buyer could open a complaint against a shop.

Across the whole European Union, only about 200 cases a year actually reached a dispute body, roughly 2% of the complaints people submitted, so the Commission closed it on July 2025.

Romania took a while to catch up, but it did. Order 270/2026 of the ANPC president, published in Monitorul Oficial no. 420 on 19 May 2026, changed the old Order 449/2022. All references to the SOL platform were removed and the national SAL system was updated.

From that date, the obligation to link to the platform disappeared across the EU. And since leaving a link to a dead platform on your site can now be treated as misleading your customers, still having the banner on your website is worst than useless.

What should you do about the SOL banner on your site

1. Delete the SOL banner from your footer or menu.
2. Search your Terms and Conditions, your return policy, and any PDF you send to customers. Remove every mention of the SOL platform and every ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr link.
3. Keep the SAL icon, but update its link to the new address: https://reclamatiisal.anpc.ro

2. The SAL banner is still required

SAL means Soluționarea Alternativă a Litigiilor, an alternative dispute resolution. It is a way for a customer to solve a problem with you without going to court, through a body inside ANPC.

This one is still mandatory, and it now looks different:

• The icon must be 250 pixels wide by 50 pixels high.
• It must link to ANPC’s electronic SAL platform: https://reclamatiisal.anpc.ro
• It goes on the home page of your site.
• You download the official icon for free from https://anpc.ro.

The rule applies to a wide group: shops that sell online, sites that take orders, sites that only advertise products or services, travel services, tour packages, plane tickets, and e-commerce in general. In short, if you show products or services to consumers on a website, assume you are included.

One exception worth knowing: Article 3 of the order excludes traders working in sectors that have their own dedicated SAL bodies under Government Ordinance 38/2015. Banking and insurance are the usual examples. If that is you, check which body covers your sector.

Where to put it?

My answer has not changed since 2022: the footer. The order says home page, and the footer of the home page is still the home page. A footer block also appears on every other page, it never breaks your layout.

If you also have a physical shop, there is a printed version of the SAL notice, displayed in the customer’s line of sight, near the till or the opening hours. The 2026 order replaced its graphic model; the minimum size of 16 cm by 16 cm has applied since the original 2022 order. It also comes free from the ANPC site.

3. Telling people who you are

Romanian e-commerce law, Law 365/2002, says in Article 5 that a buyer must have permanent, direct and unrestricted access to information about the person selling to them. Not buried. Not on request. Just there.

On your site, in the footer or on a Contact / About page:

• The full legal name of the company, exactly as it appears at the Trade Register – S.C. Example S.R.L., not “Example”.
• The Trade Register number. Since July 2024 it looks like J2001002345405: the letter, the year of registration, a six-digit number, the county code and a check digit. Companies registered before that date keep the older J40/1234/2020 format until they file a change at the Trade Register, and that older number is still valid.
• The fiscal code / CUI, and a note if you are registered for VAT.
• The registered office address in full.
• An email address that works.
• A phone number.
• Any licence or authorisation number, if your activity needs one.

This is one of the easiest fines to collect, because it takes an inspector about eight seconds to check.

4. Informing clients before a payment starts

Emergency Ordinance 34/2014 is the law that covers selling at a distance to consumers. Article 6 lists over twenty pieces of information you must give clearly before the order is placed. You do not need a signed contract with each customer; you need these things published on the site.

The important ones:

• The main characteristics of the product or service.
• The total price, including VAT, plus all delivery, postal or other extra costs. If a cost cannot be calculated in advance, say how it will be calculated.
• How and when you deliver, and how the customer can pay.
• Your complaints handling policy, where to write and what happens next.
• The right of withdrawal: that it exists, how long it lasts, and how to use it. Include the standard withdrawal form.
• Who pays the cost of sending the product back. If you do not say it is the customer, you pay.
• Which products are excluded from the return right (custom-made items, perishables, sealed items opened for hygiene reasons, digital content already downloaded with the customer’s agreement, and so on).
• The legal guarantee of conformity of 2 years, and any commercial guarantee or after-sales service you offer on top of it.
• The duration of the contract and how to end it, if it is a subscription.

So be careful: if you do not state the extra delivery or return costs, you cannot charge them. The customer is simply not obliged to pay.

And if you do not properly inform people about the right of withdrawal, the 14-day period stretches to 14 days plus 12 months. Someone can return a product after ten months of use, and you refund it. That is not a theoretical risk; that is a hole in your budget.

5. Changes to the final payment button

According to Article 8(2) of Emergency Ordinance 34/2014, which transposes Article 8(2) of Directive 2011/83/EU, at the end of checkout, the button must make it unambiguous that placing the order means paying.

The wording written into the Romanian text is “comandă ce implică o obligație de plată” (“order that implies an obligation to pay”), or another equally unambiguous formulation.

So things like: “Finalizează” (“Complete”), “Trimite” (“Submit”), “Continuă” (“Continue”)  are not good enough. If the customer did not understand they were committing to pay, they are not bound by the order.

One more checkout rule: payment fees.

The prohibition on charging payment fees above the actual cost has been in place since 2014. What’s new in 2026 is the sanction: ANPC can now impose a direct fine of RON 5,000–15,000.

6. New since June 2026: the withdrawal function

This is the newest requirement, and a lot of shops still do not have it.

Emergency Ordinance 18/2026 (published in Monitorul Oficial no. 236 on 26 March 2026) changed OUG 34/2014 and Law 363/2007. It transposes two European directives, including Directive (EU) 2023/2673, which added a withdrawal function to the Consumer Rights Directive. It applies from 19 June 2026.

The idea is simple and, honestly, fair: if a person can buy from you in three clicks, they should be able to cancel in three clicks.

What your site now needs:

• A dedicated online withdrawal function, a clearly labelled link or button. The wording named by the law is “retrageți-vă din contract aici” (“withdraw from the contract here”), or a similar formulation with no ambiguity. Not a generic contact form.
• It must be prominently displayed, easy to find, and available for the whole withdrawal period, not only for the first few days after the order.
• A form where the customer can identify themselves and the order: name, contact details, order number, which products.
• A separate, explicit confirmation button, labelled “confirmați retragerea” (“confirm the withdrawal”).
• A confirmation sent without undue delay on a durable medium (email is fine), containing the content of the withdrawal request and the date and time it was submitted.

A downloadable PDF form is no longer enough. Neither is “call us” or “write to us”. You can keep the PDF as an extra option, but the online function must exist.

The fine for missing it is between 5,000 and 15,000 lei. And again, the quieter risk is bigger: since 19 June 2026 your pre-contractual information must also state that the withdrawal function exists and where it is. If it does not, the 14-day period stretches to 14 days plus 12 months.

A second wave of rules applies from 27 September 2026, including new information requirements around durability, software updates, repairability and spare parts, as well as the harmonized notice on the legal guarantee, the harmonized label for certain commercial durability guarantees, and new restrictions on environmental claims. If you sell goods online, review your product information again before that date.

7. Showing safety information (GPSR) on product pages

Since 13 December 2024, the General Product Safety Regulation, (EU) 2023/988, applies directly in every EU country. It replaced the old 2001 directive, and it was written with online selling in mind.

The rule that touches your product pages: the offer itself must carry the safety information, not just the box the product arrives in. Before the customer buys, the listing must show:

• The manufacturer’s name, trade name or trademark, plus a postal address and an electronic address.
• If the manufacturer is outside the EU, the name and contact details of the responsible person inside the EU.
• Product identification: a picture of the product, its type and any other product identifier. Batch and serial numbers are required on the product or its packaging under Article 9, not necessarily inside the listing.
• Warnings and safety information, in Romanian.

This covers almost all non-food consumer products like clothes, electronics, furniture, toys, tools, cosmetics, jewelry, sports gear. A few categories are excluded, such as medicines, food, living animals and antiques.

If you are a reseller, this means chasing your suppliers for data. Marketplaces have already started removing listings that do not have it.

8. New way of showing discounts

When you announce a price reduction, the “before” price must be the lowest price you charged for that product in the previous 30 days. In Romania this came in through Government Decision 686/2022, which amended HG 947/2000, and it has applied since 28 May 2022.

Details:

• For products that spoil quickly, such as food, the reference period is 10 days.
• If the product has been on sale for less than 30 days, use the lowest price since you started selling it.
• You cannot raise the price in October and call it a discount in November. The Court of Justice of the EU confirmed this in Case C-330/23, Aldi Süd, on 26 September 2024: a reduction announced as a percentage, or as a promotional claim about how good the price is, must be calculated from the lowest price of the previous 30 days, not from the price you charged just before the campaign.

Fake reviews and undisclosed paid promotion were added to the list of unfair practices in Law 363/2007 by OUG 58/2022. OUG 18/2026 extends that same list from 27 September 2026, with false durability claims, presenting a product as repairable when it is not, and hiding the fact that a product loses functionality with third-party consumables. Fake countdown timers and fake stock counters are not named individually, but they remain punishable as misleading practices. If a plugin on your site creates urgency that is not real, remove it.

9. Personal data and cookies

Any shop collects personal data like name, address, email, order history. So don’t forget to show:

• A privacy policy (GDPR, Regulation (EU) 2016/679) – explaining what you collect, why, for how long, who else sees it, and what rights the person has.
• Cookie consent – in Romania is governed primarily by Law 506/2004, alongside the GDPR where personal data is processed. Non-essential cookies should not be placed before valid consent is obtained.
• A cookie policy and a cookie banner where refusing is as easy as accepting. A banner with a big “Accept” and a hidden “Manage preferences” is not consent.

HTTPS. Yes, still worth saying out loud. Don’t forget to check your SSL certificates periodically.

10. One more thing worth checking: accessibility

The European Accessibility Act was implemented in Romania through Law 232/2022 and has applied to covered e-commerce services since 28 June 2025. An important exception: microenterprises providing services are exempt from the accessibility requirements.

For businesses that are covered, accessibility is not just a design nice-to-have. The e-commerce service must meet the applicable accessibility requirements, and the business must provide information about that compliance in its terms and conditions or an equivalent document.

In practice, that means things such as keyboard navigation, readable contrast, properly labelled form fields and text alternatives for images.

The complete legal checklist for ecommerce website in Romania:

Print this or open your site in a second tab and go down the list.

Sources:

• Regulation (EU) 2024/3228 — closing the European ODR platform
• ANPC Order 449/2022, as amended by Order 270/2026 (Monitorul Oficial no. 420 / 19 May 2026)
• ANPC — https://anpc.ro and https://reclamatiisal.anpc.ro
• Law 365/2002 on electronic commerce
• Emergency Ordinance 34/2014 on consumer rights in distance contracts
• Emergency Ordinance 18/2026 (Monitorul Oficial no. 236 / 26 March 2026), transposing Directive (EU) 2023/2673 and Directive (EU) 2024/825
• Regulation (EU) 2023/988 — General Product Safety Regulation
• Government Decision 686/2022, amending HG 947/2000, on price reduction announcements
• Regulation (EU) 2016/679 — GDPR
• Directive (EU) 2019/882 — European Accessibility Act