Romania's Business Register, Q1 2026: Record New Entries, Rising Exits, and a Structural Shift Toward Self-Employment
Overview: A Quarter of Contrasts
The first quarter of 2026 (February through April) delivered a paradox for Romania’s business ecosystem: the strongest year-over-year registration growth seen in recent quarters, accompanied by an equally accelerating pace of business exits. Together, the two trends paint a picture of a market that is simultaneously expanding at the top and clearing out at the bottom — dynamic, but not without friction.
Across the three-month period, Romania recorded a combined 40,216 new business registrations , compared to 36,192 during the same quarter in 2025 — a year-on-year increase of approximately 11.1%. That headline figure, however, sits alongside a rising churn rate and a net business stock that, in all three months, failed to grow in absolute terms.
Month by Month: A Strong Peak, Then a Pull-Back
The quarter followed a familiar seasonal arc, but amplified relative to 2025.
February 2026 opened with 13,139 registrations , up 8.6% from February 2025’s 12,099 . This is a historically moderate month — shorter calendar days and the tail end of winter keep entrepreneurial activity subdued — yet it still exceeded last year’s baseline by over a thousand new entities.
March 2026 brought the quarter’s high point: 14,438 registrations , a 14.5% jump over March 2025’s 12,612 . March typically benefits from the seasonal restart of construction, services, and agriculture, and this year that dynamic was particularly pronounced. The 12-month moving average also nudged upward to 13,229 , signalling that the trend line, not just the month, was strengthening.
April 2026 saw a pull-back to 12,639 registrations , which is +10.1% versus April 2025’s 11,481 . The month-over-month decline from March is consistent with seasonal norms — April often dips after the spring surge — but the year-on-year gain remained in double digits, suggesting underlying momentum. The 12-month moving average at April’s end stood at 13,326 , fractionally above the March reading, confirming a gradual upward structural trend.
The Entity-Type Revolution: PFAs Surge, SRLs Contract
Perhaps the most structurally significant story of Q1 2026 is the dramatic reshuffling of entity types, a trend that gathered pace throughout all three months.
Sole traders (PFA — Persoană Fizică Autorizată) surged across the quarter: +67.1% in February , +61.7% in March , and +36.6% in April . In absolute terms, February’s 5,495 PFAs , March’s 5,806 , and April’s 4,930 represent a decisive shift in how Romanians are choosing to formalise their economic activity.
By contrast, limited liability companies (SRL — Societate cu Răspundere Limitată) — historically the dominant registration form — declined year-on-year in all three months: -15.3% in February , -6.8% in March , and -4.9% in April . The pace of SRL decline appears to be moderating — from a sharp 15-point fall in February to roughly 5 points by April — but the direction has been consistent across the entire quarter.
This structural pivot from incorporated companies toward sole-trader structures likely reflects several concurrent forces: the lower regulatory burden and setup costs of the PFA form, the growth of freelance and gig-economy activity in professional services and transport, and possibly a recalibration following years when SRL formation was abnormally dominant. Individual firms (II — Întreprindere Individuală) also posted meaningful growth, up +25.1%, +39.2%, and +38.7% in the three months respectively, reinforcing the broader trend toward lighter-touch legal structures.
Industry Trends: Transport Leads, Retail Retreats, Manufacturing Surprises
Across all three months, Transport and Storage was the single largest registration sector, a position it held consistently through the quarter — 2,396 registrations in February , 2,419 in March , and 1,933 in April . Year-on-year, the sector recorded gains of +33.8% in February and +41.5% in March, though April showed a modest -6.8% dip . The sector’s dominance is closely tied to the PFA surge — logistics and courier services are among the most common activities formalised through sole-trader status.
Retail and wholesale trade (including vehicle repair) fell from the top position it held in early 2025 to second place for much of Q1 2026. In February it was down -19.3% year-on-year and in March -11.5% , and by April it was still down -8.7% . This is a consistent and notable retreat for what was previously the country’s most active registration sector.
Information and Communications Technology continued to grow solidly: +14.1% in February , +21.5% in March , and +29.1% in April . The acceleration across the quarter is noteworthy: registrations in the sector grew faster as Q1 progressed.
Manufacturing (Industria prelucrătoare) posted the most striking growth figures of any major sector. After years of relative flatness, it surged +46.8% in February , +54.4% in March , and +65.4% in April . While the absolute volumes remain modest compared to services sectors, the sustained acceleration across all three months is a statistically meaningful signal. Similarly, Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing appeared in the April top-10 for the first time this quarter, with 555 registrations against just 237 a year earlier (+134.2%) — a spring seasonal effect, but one unusually pronounced compared to 2025.
Construction maintained steady YoY growth throughout (+5.8%, +11.4%, +11.4% across the three months), reflecting continued activity in the sector consistent with broader infrastructure and housing activity.
The Ecosystem Health Concern: Exits Are Rising Faster Than Entries
The most important cautionary note in this quarter’s data is not in the registration figures — it is in the lifecycle events. Business exits (suspensions, dissolutions, and deregistrations combined) exceeded new registrations in every single month of Q1 2026, a pattern that, while not unprecedented, warrants careful reading.
- February 2026: 13,258 total exits vs. 13,139 registrations — a near-equilibrium, with a health ratio of 0.99 and a net change of just -119 businesses
- March 2026: 15,609 exits vs. 14,438 registrations — health ratio drops to 0.92 , net change -1,171
- April 2026: 15,657 exits vs. 12,639 registrations — health ratio falls further to 0.81 , net change -3,018
The deteriorating health ratio through the quarter — from near-parity in February to an April figure where only 81 new businesses entered for every 100 that exited — represents a meaningful signal. March and April typically see elevated deregistration volumes as authorities process backlogs, which creates some structural upward pressure on exit counts. Indeed, April’s 9,827 deregistrations were up 25.0% versus April 2025’s 7,860 , the sharpest year-on-year rise of any exit category. Dissolutions rose more modestly (+0.84% in April), and suspensions actually declined (-12.5% in April) .
Comparing to the same quarter in 2025, exit volumes also exceeded registrations — but the gap has widened. In February 2025, exits and registrations were in near-perfect balance (churn rate: 99.95%) . In February 2026, the balance tipped only slightly (100.91%) . But by April 2026’s churn rate of 123.88% , versus April 2025’s 121.26% , exits are running meaningfully hotter relative to entries than in the prior year.
Regional Picture: Constanța and Brașov Lead Growth
Among Romania’s counties, the April 2026 data (the most recent) shows that București retained its position as the dominant hub with 2,907 registrations , followed by Ilfov (674), Constanța (636), Cluj (621), and Timiș (561).
On a growth basis, the most notable outperformers relative to April 2025 were Constanța (+64.3%) , Brașov (+51.1%) , and Galați (+51.9%) . Smaller counties also showed outsized movements: Teleorman more than doubled its April registrations (+105.9%), and Giurgiu was up +87.8%, though both start from small absolute bases. These outliers likely reflect localised shifts in PFA and II registrations in agriculture and transport rather than broad structural changes in those counties.
Reading the Quarter as a Whole
Summing up Q1 2026 (February–April), the quarter delivered 40,216 registrations against 36,192 in the same period last year — a gain of roughly +11% year-on-year. The 12-month moving average rose steadily from 13,077 in February to 13,326 in April , indicating that the increase in new business formation is a genuine trend rather than a single-month anomaly.
But the quarter also produced a combined 44,524 total business exits across the three months — compared to 40,994 in Q1 2025. This means the net business stock contracted modestly over the period, even as the headline registration numbers looked strong. The dominant driver of this exit acceleration appears to be administrative deregistrations (removal of inactive or dormant entities), which is a form of market housekeeping rather than a signal of acute economic distress. Suspensions — often a leading indicator of businesses in active difficulty — actually declined year-on-year by April.
The most consequential structural change visible in this quarter is the PFA surge paired with SRL contraction. Romania’s business register is recomposing toward lighter, more flexible legal forms. This shift likely reflects genuine changes in how economic activity is being organised — freelance, gig, and project-based work formalising as PFAs rather than as incorporated companies — and may also reflect some conversion of existing SRL operations into sole-trader structures where full incorporation is no longer seen as necessary or advantageous.
The quarter, in summary, shows growth — but growth that is uneven, structurally shifting, and offset by elevated exit volumes. New business energy is real and broad-based across sectors and regions. The simultaneous acceleration in deregistrations, however, means that the net expansion of Romania’s active business stock has been modest. The overall picture is one of a business environment in active transition: more diverse in its legal forms, increasingly weighted toward services, transport, and technology, and clearing out older or dormant entities while new ones take their place.