Romanian citizenship by descent: the 2026 conditions

Romanian citizenship by descent restores a family link rather than buying a passport. The basis is an ancestor who lived on the country's territory within the 1918–1940 borders, and since 2025 a language requirement has been added.

Here is who qualifies, what law 14/2025 changed and how long the road to the oath takes.

Who qualifies for Romanian citizenship by descent

The basis is an ancestor's link to Romanian territory within the borders between 1918 and 1940. Those borders covered today's Moldova, part of western Ukraine and parts of Serbia and Bulgaria.

Ethnic origin plays no part: what matters is that the ancestor was a citizen or resident of that territory in those years. Many families from Moldova and Bukovina who never considered themselves Romanian therefore qualify.

Descent is proved with civil status documents — birth and marriage certificates along the whole chain from the ancestor to the applicant.

What law 14/2025 changed

The law was published on 12 March 2025 and amended the citizenship law 21/1991. Two consequences matter for applicants:

1. 1Citizenship under articles 10 and 11 is now expressly conditional on knowing Romanian.
2. 2Civil status documents are accepted only when recent: extracts must be issued no earlier than two years before the application.

Foreign documents are accepted with an apostille or with consular legalisation through a Romanian diplomatic mission or the foreign ministry.

Romanian language: who needs the B1 certificate

Knowledge of the language is proved in one of two ways:

• a certificate at level B1 or above, issued by accredited Romanian universities running the preparatory year of Romanian, by the Institute of the Romanian Language or by the Romanian Cultural Institute, including its offices abroad;
• a certified copy of a school or university record confirming at least three years of study in Romanian.

Only two groups are exempt: those who were themselves Romanian citizens and seek restoration, and applicants who have turned 65 by the filing date.

On timing: you can file without the certificate and supply it later. Law 14/2025 gave a year for this, until 15 March 2026. Emergency Ordinance 16/2026 of 13 March 2026 extended the deadline by a year. The National Citizenship Authority names 14 March 2027 as the final date. If the certificate is not filed in time, the application is rejected. Whether an exemption applies to you can be checked in a consultation on Romanian citizenship.

Documents for Romanian citizenship

The package comes in three parts:

• the applicant's documents: passport, birth and marriage certificates, a criminal record certificate;
• documents on the ancestor and the chain of descent: archive records and certificates for each generation;
• proof of language: a B1 certificate or a school record of study in Romanian.

The archival part takes longest. The ancestor's documents are traced in the archives of Moldova, Ukraine or Romania, and the timeline depends on whether the records survived and how precisely names and dates are known.

How long Romanian citizenship takes

Under law 14/2025 the National Citizenship Authority reviews an application for up to two years from the registration of a complete package, with a further six months in complex cases.

In practice the wait more often stretches to two and a half or three years. After a positive decision the applicant takes the oath and only then receives the citizenship certificate.

Domestic documents follow: an identity card, a passport and, where needed, transcription of civil status records into the Romanian registry.

What a Romanian passport gives you

Romania is in the European Union, so citizenship carries the right to live, work and study across the EU without separate permits. The same basis opens access to European banks and simplifies travel.

The limitation matters too: descent is not a fast route. It is a two-to-three-year path with archive work and a language exam, and it suits those whose link to the territory is documented.

With no such link, other routes to a European status are worth looking at — entrepreneurial and start-up grounds are covered in the piece on start-up visas in Europe.

This article is for information only and is not legal advice. Requirements and fees change, so check the current conditions with a lawyer before you file: ask a question in a consultation.