Romania: TollRo could be postponed to April 2027, three weeks before it takes effect

From 1 October, heavy goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes travelling through Romania should start paying a distance-based toll under the new TollRo system, replacing the current rovinieta vignette. But three weeks before the deadline, the company that runs Romania’s national roads is itself asking for it to be postponed — and a bill to that effect is already before the Senate.

CNAIR requested the postponement on 7 September

CNAIR — Compania Națională de Administrare a Infrastructurii Rutiere sent a request to the Ministry of Transport on 7 September, copying the Prime Minister, proposing to push TollRo back to 1 April 2027. The reason: the system entered public pilot testing on 16 September, and even in a best-case scenario with no faults to fix, that phase cannot conclude before mid-October — after the date the payment obligation would take effect.

According to the same source, as of 18 September CNAIR had received no response from the ministry. The company warns that enforcing the deadline without a working system would leave hauliers exposed to fines for an obligation they have no way to meet, generating no revenue for the state while flooding the courts with appeals.

A bill has already been registered in the Senate

A legislative proposal registered on 21 September in the Romanian Senate, numbered B517/2026, would extend the deadlines in Law No. 226/2023 to 1 April 2027, keeping the current pricing system in place in the meantime. This is not the first delay: TollRo was originally due to launch on 1 July 2026, and the deadline had already slipped to 1 October for lack of completed technical testing.

What changes if the deadline is not postponed

Without a legislative change before 1 October, the current schedule stands: the vignette for vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes becomes differentiated by emissions class, and heavy vehicles above that threshold move to TollRo, charged by distance travelled.

For anyone hauling freight from Portugal or elsewhere to Romania, or transiting through the country, the safest approach is to follow the decision over the coming weeks rather than assume either timetable is final — neither the new system’s start date nor the postponement has official confirmation from CNAIR or the Romanian government as of this article.