Selling into Romania through distributors

How the market buys

Romanian public purchasing covers ministries and central agencies, county councils, municipalities, public hospitals, universities and state-owned utilities. They are numerous and buy separately, but their national notices are found in one place.

That place is SEAP, the Sistemul electronic de achiziții publice, reached at e-licitatie.ro. Law 98/2016 on public procurement defines SEAP as the public-utility IT system, accessible online at a dedicated address, used to run award procedures by electronic means and to publish notices at national level. For a supplier, that means national notices and electronic procedures sit on one platform, in Romanian.

Romanian buyers expect a supplier who can bid in Romanian, invoice locally, deliver to sites across the country and handle after-sales service. In our analysis of TED award notices for supplies (September 2026), 99% of the winners in the 8,563 notices from buyers in Romania were companies registered in the country (96% across the 30 EU and EEA countries); those local winners include distributors and dealers as well as manufacturers' own local subsidiaries — see our methodology. A foreign manufacturer enters by being listed with them.

Lawful first contact

Romania requires consent for commercial e-mail, and the law says in so many words that companies are covered. Article 12(1) of Law 506/2004 on privacy in electronic communications prohibits commercial communications by electronic mail, or by any other method using publicly available electronic communications services, "unless the subscriber or user concerned has given prior express consent" to receive them. Paragraph 2 allows one exception: a company that obtained a customer's e-mail address directly in the course of a sale may use it to promote similar products, provided it offers a free, simple way to object both when collecting the address and in every message.

The business-to-business point is settled by paragraph 4: paragraphs 1 and 3 apply accordingly to subscribers that are legal persons. A Romanian distribution company is therefore protected in the same way as an individual, and a polite, relevant first e-mail to its office address still needs prior consent. Paragraph 3 separately forbids any commercial e-mail that hides the sender's identity or gives no valid address for opting out. ANSPDCP, the national data protection authority, finds and sanctions breaches of article 12.

What works: a letter by post to the director (administrator) of the company, with a one-page product sheet in Romanian and a specific reason why your range fits what the distributor already sells; a stand or a visit at the sector's trade fair; an introduction through a chamber of commerce, an association or an existing partner; and a quick, complete answer to any enquiry that reaches you. Once the distributor has replied or asked for information, e-mail correspondence is fine.

What local distributors expect

Romanian distributors work across a large country with demanding logistics and expect the manufacturer to make tenders easy to win:

• Romanian-language documentation: technical sheets, instructions, declarations of conformity and a price list ready to go into a bid on SEAP.
• Conformity evidence for the category — CE marking, test reports and any national registrations the product requires.
• A margin that survives a tender decided largely on price, and a clear position on price adjustment over a multi-year framework.
• Lead times you can keep, delivery to sites across the country, and service and spare parts available locally.
• Payment and credit terms that reflect how long public buyers may take to pay; distributors carry that risk and will raise it early.
• A defined territory and a frank conversation about exclusivity and direct accounts.

The relationship usually begins with one tender or one product line, and widens once the distributor has seen the product win and be delivered.

How to enter, step by step

1. Read the record for your categories. Choose the CPV codes that describe your range and look at Romanian contract award notices on TED for the larger contracts, and at SEAP for national notices. Note which distributors and dealers win repeatedly, and in which counties.
2. Follow framework call-offs as well as awards. Article 145 of Law 98/2016 requires an award notice within 30 days of concluding a contract or framework agreement; contracts placed under a framework agreement are grouped every quarter and published within 30 days of the quarter's end. Those grouped notices show which distributors keep delivering after the first award.
3. Check whether your category is bought centrally. Article 40 leaves the setting up of central purchasing units, and the cases in which buyers purchase through them, to Government decisions and to decisions of local councils; a buyer that uses such a unit's contracts, dynamic purchasing systems or framework agreements does not run a procedure of its own (article 41). If your category is bought that way, the suppliers on those agreements are the companies to approach.
4. Prepare Romanian-language documentation. Technical sheets, instructions, declarations of conformity and a price list, ready to go into a bid on SEAP.
5. Assemble conformity evidence. CE marking and test reports, plus any national registrations the product requires.
6. Make the first contact without a cold e-mail. Send a letter by post to the director (administrator) of the company with a one-page product sheet in Romanian and a specific reason why your range fits; visit or exhibit at the sector's trade fair; or ask a chamber of commerce, an association or an existing partner for an introduction. Move to e-mail once the distributor has replied or asked for information.
7. Prepare the first meeting. Bring a margin that survives a tender decided largely on price, a position on price adjustment over a multi-year framework, lead times you can keep, delivery and service across the country, payment and credit terms, and a defined territory with a frank view on exclusivity.
8. Start with one tender or one product line. Widen the range once the distributor has seen the product win and be delivered, and use the next award notices to see where.

Where the evidence comes from

Above the EU thresholds — EUR 140,000 for supplies and services bought by central government bodies and EUR 216,000 for other public authorities from 1 January 2026 — Romanian buyers must publish contract award notices, and those notices appear on TED, the online supplement to the Official Journal of the EU. Each notice names the winning company and carries CPV codes, so the distributors that repeatedly win, for example, hospital equipment or school furniture contracts across Romanian counties can be identified from the public record. National notices are published on SEAP.

Cresques reads the award notices for the CPV categories you choose and shows who already sells that category in Romania. It does not help you bid for the contracts; the notices are evidence of who the buyers already trust, and the lawful first contact above is how you reach them.