The Order No. 377/2024 of the National Institute of Statistics updating the Classification of activities of the national economy – CAEN (the “Order No. 377/2024”), was published in the Official Gazette No. 385/25 April 2024 and shall enter into force on 1 January 2025. This updated Classification is also called CAEN Rev. 3.
At EU level, such updating is prescribed by the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/137 of 10 October 2022 amending Regulation (EC) No. 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2, pursuant to which Annex I to Regulation (EC) No. 1893/2006, comprising the current NACE Classification (NACE Rev. 2), is replaced by the Annex to this new Regulation providing for an updated Classification, called NACE Rev. 2 Update 1 (NACE Rev. 2.1). The classification under the Romanian CAEN Rev. 3 coincides with this classification under the NACE Rev. 2 Update 1 (NACE Rev. 2.1).
Although the classification rules laid down by the current Order No. 337/2007 of the National Institute of Statistics (CAEN Rev. 2), remain unchanged, the current classification by CAEN codes will be subject to several types of changes, as follows:
- certain existing CAEN codes will bear the same heading, but a different number (e.g. CAEN Code 4110 – Development of building projects becomes CAEN Code 6812 – Development of building projects)
- certain existing CAEN codes will bear the same number, but a different heading (e.g. CAEN Code 3313 – Repair of electronic and optical equipment becomes NACE Code 3313 – Repair and maintenance of electronic and optical equipment)
- certain existing CAEN codes will split in 2 or more separate CAEN codes (g. CAEN Code 3511 – Production of electricity splits in 2 new codes: CAEN Code 3511 – Production of electricity from non – renewable sources and CAEN Code 3512 – Production of electricity from renewable sources; CAEN Code 3514 – Trade of electricity splits in 3 new codes: CAEN Code 3515 – Trade of electricity, CAEN Code 3516 – Storage of electricity, and CAEN Code 3540 – Activities of brokers and agents for electric power and natural gas)
- certain existing CAEN codes will be merged into a single CAEN code (e.g. CAEN Code 4651 – Wholesale of computers, computer peripheral equipment and software and CAEN Code 4652 – Wholesale of electronic and telecommunications equipment and parts and CAEN Code 4666 – Wholesale of other office machinery and equipment will be merged into CAEN Code 4650 – Wholesale of information and communication equipment)
Correspondence tables between NACE Rev. 2 (which maps the existing Romanian CAEN Rev. 2) and NACE Rev. 2.1 (which maps the future Romanian CAEN Rev. 3), describing the concrete manner in which existing codes are updated, were developed by Eurostat and are available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nace/correspondence-tables.
Since all Romanian companies are required to identify all activities forming their business purpose by CAEN codes, it is unclear at this stage whether each company will be bound, after 1 January 2025, to update its business purpose in line with CAEN Rev. 3 or whether the Romanian Trade Registry will proceed with an automatic updating of the current CAEN Codes to reflect the CAEN Rev. 3 (save for the case where the current CAEN Code identifying the main activity splits in several new CAEN codes, in which case the concerned company could be required to identify its main activity among such new CAEN codes).
