The Emergency Ordinance no. 41/2022 for the establishment of the National System for monitoring the road transport of goods with high fiscal risk RO e-Transport (“e-Transport Ordinance”)

The e-Transport Ordinance aims to implement and operationalize an IT system for monitoring the transport of goods, in order to increase the collection of taxes and duties due to the state budget as well as to prevent and combat the illicit trade in goods.

Thus, the National System for monitoring the road transport of goods with high fiscal risk will be established, called RO e-Transport System, which represents the set of principles, rules and IT applications aimed at monitoring the transport of goods with high fiscal risk on the national territory.

The RO e-Transport system will be interconnected with the other existing information systems at the level of the Ministry of Finance (MF), the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (NAFA) or the Romanian Customs Authority (RCA), as well as with those that will be developed in the future.

Specifically, the MF through the NAFA and the RCA, will monitor the shipments of goods with high fiscal risk on the national territory.

In this regard, the following categories of persons will have the obligation to declare the shipments of goods with fiscal risk:

• the consignee mentioned in the import customs declaration;
• the consignor mentioned in the export customs declaration;
• the beneficiary of the intra-Community acquisitions of goods;
• the supplier in case of local and intra-community supplies of goods;
• the warehouse keeper in the case of goods that are subject to intra-Community transactions in transit, both for goods unloaded in Romania for storage or for the formation of a new transport, and for goods loaded after storage or after the formation of a new transport on the national territory.

These persons will have the obligation to provide the carrier with a unique code generated by the RO e-Transport System (UIT code) related to the transported goods.

The use of the RO e-Transport System will be optional from the date of entry into force of the e-Transport Ordinance, becoming mandatory from 1 July 2022.

Non-compliance with the provisions of the e-Transport Ordinance will be sanctioned, as of 1 July 2022, with fines ranging from Ron 5,000 to Ron 100,000, as well as with confiscation of the value of the non-declared goods (in specific situations, for example for non-declaring the goods or for declaring a different quantity than the one being transported).

Goods with high fiscal risk will be provided via an Order of the President of the NAFA within 15 days from the entry into force of the e-Transport Ordinance. In a draft order published on 8 April 2022 on its website, NAFA announced the customs tariff codes of these goods. They generally refer to certain vegetables, fruit, beverages, certain construction materials, clothing and footwear - at this point, it appears that there are certain differences between high fiscal risk goods subject to e-invoice obligations and those subject to e-transport obligations.

The application procedure, as well as the categories of road vehicles used for the transport for which the e-Transport provisions apply shall be established by NAFA and RCA Order within 30 days from the entry into force of the e-Transport Ordinance.

Also, the e-Transport Ordinance mentions that at the date of its entry into force, the MF, through National Center for Financial Information, should make available to users the information modules necessary to obtain the UIT code.

How does the above influence the activity of your company?

We recommend that you consider whether the goods you are trading are subject to the new obligations set out in the Emergency Ordinance on the RO e-transport system.

Our team is at your disposal for the analysis and determination of the solutions for complying with the new rules.