Romania Affiliate Licence

Yes. Under GEO 77/2009 as amended, an affiliate — any person earning revenue under a contract with a B2C online operator for players redirected to it — must hold a Class 2 licence from the ONJN, the same class that covers B2B suppliers. Licensed affiliates must also file every affiliation contract with the regulator.

Government money: a €10,500 issuance fee, then €20,000 a year in licence fees plus a €15,000 annual responsible-gambling contribution — €45,500 in year one, €35,000 a year after. OUG 82/2023 raised the RG contribution from a symbolic €1,000, deliberately pricing the licence for affiliates with real volume.

The licence runs ten years from grant under HG 111/2016 (art. 148), kept alive by the annual payments: the first year's fee is due by the 25th of the month after approval, later years at least ten days before each anniversary, and an unpaid first-year fee lapses the approval. On timing we won't invent what the regulator hasn't published: the ordinance's 30-day clock is written for B2C licences, and in practice a Class 2 file takes about a month to prepare and ≈1–2 months in ONJN review. Document readiness is the variable that matters.

The trigger is the activity, not your domicile: earning revenue for players you redirect to Romanian-licensed operators puts you inside the regime wherever you sit. In practice the market enforces it before the regulator does — .ro-licensed operators can only run their programmes through licensed affiliates.

Class 2 is Romania's licence class for B2B businesses involved in gambling. The fee annex lists eight activities: platform management and hosting, gaming-equipment producers and distributors, payment processors, gambling software producers and distributors, affiliates, certifiers, auditors and testing laboratories. Every category pays the same €20,000 a year, and the implementing norms (HG 111/2016, art. 148) grant a licence for each activity separately — a firm that both develops games and hosts a platform needs two. Supplier-side detail is on our B2B supplier licence page.

Class 1 is for operators with a direct contract with the player — the B2C online casino or sportsbook. It costs far more: a €300,000 annual licence fee, a €500,000 annual responsible-gambling contribution and, since 1 August 2025 under Law 141/2025, an authorisation tax of 30% of GGR, with a €480,000 annual minimum (previously 21% and €400,000). Class 2 covers the businesses around the operator — affiliates and B2B suppliers — at €20,000 a year. This page handles Class 2.

According to law-firm analyses (RTPR, PwC, WH Partners), it bars Class 2 licensees from serving unlicensed sites that target Romania — Romanian-language content, RON deposits or Romanian players — or sites on the ONJN blacklist, and requires software, hosting and payment licensees to report blocked access to the ONJN monthly. The ONJN can also order illegal content removed within five hours. Firms differ on how far the supplier ban reaches, so we read it against your client list at scoping. Separately, 2026 is the first renewal year for the ten-year B2B licences issued in 2016.

Different tools. Greece costs €1,000 and opens a regulated EU market cheaply — the natural first licence. Romania costs €35,000 a year and makes sense when your Romanian traffic already earns multiples of that. Serious EU affiliate businesses end up holding both — see our Greece affiliate licence page for the other half.

No licensed operator can lawfully contract or pay you, which removes the revenue; the operator side risks sanctions for using an unlicensed affiliate, so compliance teams check first. Beyond that, Romania actively polices unlicensed promotion — the honest answer on the affiliate-specific fine schedule is that we confirm it against the current text at engagement rather than quote folklore.