The Code on Spatial Planning, Urbanism and Construction — known to the public as the Urbanism Code — was promulgated today, 5 August 2026, by the President of Romania, at the end of a legislative journey of more than three years, becoming Law no. 169/2026.

The law is now due to be published in the Official Gazette of Romania, the moment from which the 15-day entry-into-force period set by the Code itself begins to run:

Article 575 paras. (1) and (2) of the Code:

“This Code shall enter into force 15 days after the date of its publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I. The entry into force of this Code is automatic and its application is not conditional upon the adoption of secondary or tertiary legislation.”

On the date of its entry into force, Law no. 50/1991 on the authorization of construction works is repealed in its entirety, together with Law no. 350/2001 and most of Law no. 10/1995.

One of the areas where the change of philosophy is most visible is the legalization of buildings erected without a building permit or in breach of one.

Three changes deserve particular attention: (i) the emergence of a new institution — the regularization permit; (ii) the disappearance of the mechanism allowing Land Book registration upon expiry of the limitation period; and (iii) the one-year transitional window during which legalization remains open, for the last time, to all categories of buildings that comply with the provisions of the applicable urban-planning documentation.

1. A new institution: the regularization permit

Law no. 50/1991 never contained an administrative act dedicated to legalization. Under it, “legalization” (intrarea în legalitate) rested on two laconic provisions of Article 28:

Article 28 paras. (2) and (3) of Law no. 50/1991:

“The decision to maintain or demolish buildings erected without a building permit or in breach of its provisions shall be taken by the competent public administration authority, on the basis of the urban plans and the related regulations, endorsed and approved in accordance with the law, or, as the case may be, by the courts. […] The demolition measure shall also apply where, upon expiry of the legalization deadline set in the report establishing the contravention, the offender has not obtained the necessary permit.”

The “necessary permit” was, therefore, an ordinary building permit, issued retroactively to the extent that the building complied with the urban plans.

It is worth recalling that, at the level of secondary legislation, the institution of the “legalization permit” did, for a time, enjoy express recognition: Order no. 839/2009 approving the Methodological Norms for the application of Law no. 50/1991 devoted a separate article to it, under the heading “Legalization”:

Article 59 para. (3) of the Methodological Norms approved by Order no. 839/2009 (now repealed):

“Where a building erected without a building permit satisfies the urban-planning conditions for integration into the pre-existing built environment, the competent local public administration authority may proceed to issue a building permit for the purpose of legalization, in conjunction with the adoption of the legal measures required, only on the basis of the conclusions of a technical expert report on the essential quality requirement of ‘mechanical resistance and stability’ concerning the state of the load-bearing structure at the physical stage in which the building stands, as well as on the essential quality requirement of ‘fire safety’, and only after the issuance of the Environmental Permit, in accordance with the law.”

Article 59 was, however, repealed with effect from 6 January 2020 by Order no. 3,454/2019, so that in recent years “legalization” has been left without a clear procedural framework: it survived only through the terse reference in Article 28 para. (3) of Law no. 50/1991, applied inconsistently by authorities and courts.

Seen in this light, the regularization permit in the new Code may be regarded as a relaunch of former Article 59 of the Methodological Norms for the application of Law 50/1991, but with considerably stricter requirements: where Order no. 839/2009 required a technical expert report on only two essential requirements (mechanical resistance and stability, and fire safety), the Code requires expert reports on all the fundamental requirements, adds environmental and fiscal conditions and, above all, definitively confines the availability of the regularization permit to the following categories of buildings and construction works (Article 301 paras. (1) and (2) of the Code):

(i) buildings used as single-family dwellings with a height regime of ground floor / ground floor plus one storey and a gross floor area of no more than 150 sqm, which are not historical monuments and are located outside the protection zones of historical monuments or built protected areas;

(ii) annexes to dwellings, household annexes or annexes to agricultural holdings with a gross floor area of no more than 150 sqm; and

(iii) works for the enclosure of balconies without any extension over the public domain.

Consequently, other categories of buildings and construction works carried out without a building permit (e.g., interior re-partitioning works) can no longer be legalized.

For these limited categories of buildings and works for which legalization remains possible, the issuance of the regularization permit is conditional, cumulatively, upon:

(i) compliance with the fundamental quality requirements in construction, evidenced by technical expert reports drawn up by certified construction experts for each field and speciality, namely: mechanical resistance and stability; fire safety; hygiene, health and the environment; safety and accessibility in use; protection against noise; and energy economy and thermal insulation;

(ii) compliance with the applicable urban-planning regulations, confirmed by the specialized department of the local public administration authority or, in the absence of qualified staff, by urban-planning specialists holding signature rights engaged by the applicant.

Like Law 350/2001, the Code prohibits the initiation and approval of urban-planning documentation aimed at legalizing unauthorized buildings; the novelty is that a breach of this prohibition is now a criminal offence (Article 145 letter b) of the Code).

(iii) compliance with the conditions imposed by the special environmental protection legislation, which is verified by the competent environmental authorities.

2. The repeal of Article 37 para. (6) of Law no. 50/1991 on Land Book registration upon expiry of the limitation period

Law no. 50/1991, which the Code repeals, provides in Article 37 para. (6), second sentence, for a form of legalization distinct from the legalization permit, operating through the mechanism of the attestation certificate issued by the local authority:

Article 37 para. (6) of Law no. 50/1991:

“In the case of buildings for which the works were carried out without a building permit, and the expiry of the limitation period provided for in Article 31 no longer allows sanctions to be applied, the attestation certificate/attestation document regarding the erection of the building shall be issued on the basis of a technical expert report on compliance with the applicable fundamental requirements regarding quality in construction, including conformity with the approved urban-planning regulations, confirming the current state of the buildings and compliance with the relevant provisions, and of cadastral documentation drawn up for this purpose.”

In practical terms, on the basis of this provision, a building or construction work carried out without a building permit or in breach of one could be registered in the Land Book after the expiry of the 3-year limitation period for contravention liability (provided the offence had not been sanctioned in the meantime), if it complied with the approved urban-planning regulations and satisfied the fundamental quality requirements in construction.

The Code repeals Law no. 50/1991 in its entirety (Article 576 para. (3) letter b): “On the date of entry into force of this Code, the following are repealed: […] Law no. 50/1991 on the authorization of construction works, republished, as subsequently amended and supplemented”) — and the mechanism of Article 37 para. (6) has not been carried over.

The certificate attesting the erection of a building survives in name only, as a prerogative of the mayor and of the specialized department headed by the chief architect (Articles 120-121), without any procedure allowing its issuance for unauthorized buildings, regardless of their age.

This disappearance does not appear to be an oversight, but a deliberate choice of legislative policy, as follows from the overall scheme of the Code: Article 280 para. (8) of the Code (“Buildings erected without a building permit or in breach of its provisions cannot undergo acceptance, and those for which acceptance upon completion of the works has not been carried out shall not be deemed completed.”), read together with Article 357 para. (11) of the Code, which extends from 3 to 10 years the period within which the authority may apply to the courts for the demolition or regularization of works carried out without a permit.

An important qualification, however, delimits the scope of this stricter regime introduced by the Code: old buildings, erected before 1 August 2001, retain, in our view, the Land Book registration mechanism under Law 7/1996 on cadastre and real estate publicity, a statute which does not appear among the acts repealed by the Code (Article 576 para. (3)).

Law 7/1996 continues to provide, in Article 37 para. (2), that “[t]he right of ownership over buildings erected before 1 August 2001 — the date of entry into force of Law no. 453/2001 amending and supplementing Law no. 50/1991 on the authorization of construction works and certain measures for housing development — shall be registered in the Land Book on the basis of the fiscal attestation certificate, stating the actual area of the building and of the related land, issued by the local public administration authority within whose jurisdiction the building is located, and of the cadastral documentation drawn up for this purpose.”

Although Article 583 para. (5) of the Code repeals “any other contrary provisions”, Article 37 para. (2) of Law no. 7/1996 does not, in our view, fall within the scope of that clause: it is not a provision contrary to the Code, but a special rule of real estate publicity governing a situation the Code does not address — buildings erected before 1 August 2001, a special category to which the one-year window provided by Article 301 para. (7) of the Code should not apply in the absence of an express repeal.

3. The one-year window: the last chance of legalization for all categories of buildings that comply with the existing urban-planning documentation

The Code lays down a transitional regime for buildings and construction works carried out without a building permit: from the Code’s entry into force, all those who own buildings erected without a building permit, or on which works were carried out without a permit or in breach of one, have one year to legalize them, provided they satisfy the conditions of the Code:

Article 301 para. (7) of the Code:

“By way of exception from para. (2), for a period of no more than 1 year from the entry into force of this law, the regularization permit may also be applied for in respect of categories of buildings other than those referred to in para. (2), erected in breach of the building permit or in its absence, provided that the works comply with the provisions of the urban-planning regulations approved as at the date of issuance of the regularization permit and with the fundamental requirements regarding quality in construction, and that the fiscal obligations have been fulfilled and the contravention measures applied.”

The admissibility conditions are therefore cumulative: (i) the works must comply with the approved urban-planning regulations in force as at the date of issuance of the regularization permit — the building must observe the applicable general or zonal urban plan (PUG/PUZ) and the local urban-planning regulation; (ii) compliance with the fundamental quality requirements in construction must be evidenced by technical expert reports drawn up by certified experts for each speciality — mechanical resistance and stability, fire safety, hygiene, health and the environment, safety and accessibility in use, protection against noise, and energy economy and thermal insulation (Article 301 para. (9)); (iii) the applicant must have fulfilled its fiscal obligations and the contravention measures must have been applied — the applicant must be up to date with its fiscal obligations and must have borne the sanctions for having built without a permit. To these is added (iv) compliance with the environmental conditions, verified by the competent authorities (Article 301 paras. (3) and (4)).

Transitional regularization also carries a pecuniary sanction:

Article 301 para. (8) of the Code:

“In the situation referred to in para. (7), the amount of the levies for the State control in spatial planning, urbanism and construction shall be ten times the amount of the levies that would have been owed had the works been lawfully carried out, and the fee owed for the urbanism certificate and for the building authorization shall be ten times the amount of the fee established under Law no. 227/2015.”

The authority may additionally require “the performance of works to bring the building into conformity with the urban-planning regulations and/or the technical regulations on quality in construction” (Article 301 para. (10)).

Upon expiry of the 1-year period from the Code’s entry into force, the local public administration authorities may proceed to demolish the unauthorized works and recover the costs or, as the case may be, are under a duty to apply to the competent court for demolition (Article 301 para. (12) of the Code).

For further details regarding the legalization procedure, you can write to us at contact@seculegal.ro.