The home page lists what you no longer have to worry about. This page explains why, citing the Romanian law behind each point, so that you can check every line with your accountant.
Nothing below replaces tax advice, and tax returns remain your accountant’s job. What we guarantee is that the program knows the rules below and applies them on its own.
Prescription glasses carry no VAT rate
CE-marked frames intended for corrective lenses, prescription lenses and the fitting supplied with them are exempt with the right to deduct under Article 294(5)(c) of Romania’s Fiscal Code. They are neither at a zero rate nor at the standard rate. Charging the standard rate has been wrong since 11 June 2023, and the VAT reform of August 2025 did not change the treatment of prescription glasses.
The eye examination is exempt too, but without the right to deduct, under Article 292(1)(a). The exemption requires the practice’s health authorisation. Until you enter it in Settings → VAT, the program charges the standard rate on the consultation.
On paper both show as “0”, so the program is the only place where they can be told apart. In OptiSwift an item carries a tax treatment rather than a rate, and the rate follows from the treatment; an exempt treatment allows no rate other than 0%. The exemption is set on each item, with the CE mark and the corrective use ticked. Until then the item sells at the standard rate. The legal basis is printed on the invoice and filled in on the e-Factura file.
A case, a cleaning solution or a glasses chain is not a corrective device and stays at the standard rate of 21%. This is why a single order can carry two different tax treatments, and why margin is calculated per line rather than per receipt: an exempt item and a VAT-able item cannot be added together until both have been brought to net.
The 395,000 lei threshold
The VAT exemption threshold for small businesses is 395,000 lei, raised from 300,000 by Government Ordinance (OG) 22/2025 from 1 September 2025.
The catch for an optical practice is that exempt sales with the right to deduct count towards the threshold, even though every document shows 0 lei VAT (Article 310(2)). A practice can therefore cross the threshold without seeing it coming. Once it does, the normal VAT regime applies from the very transaction that crosses the threshold, not from the following month.
OptiSwift keeps a running total from 1 January in Settings → VAT and warns you before the threshold is reached. Registering for VAT remains a matter for the company and its accountant.
The cash book
The mandatory cash book fills itself in for each location from what the program already records: a cash sale, a balance payment, a cash payment to a supplier, an expense. You enter the opening balance once, before the first print; without it, the program will not print the first cash book. Printing closes the day.
An expense charged to the company rather than to a location can be paid in cash only from the company’s central cash desk. The program keeps a central cash desk when the practice has more than one company. Otherwise, a company expense is paid by bank transfer.
The Z total from the fiscal cash register (the certified till Romanian law requires for retail sales) is typed in by hand from the register’s end-of-day report and set against the day’s cash sales in one of three states: not entered, matches or differs. The first state is kept separate, so a day for which nobody has entered the Z report is never shown as reconciled.
e-Factura and SPV
Electronic invoicing through e-Factura, Romania’s national e-invoicing system, is mandatory for B2B sales and, since 1 January 2025, for B2C sales too (Article 10¹(2) of Government Emergency Ordinance (OUG) 120/2021). Invoices are submitted through SPV, the online portal of ANAF, Romania’s tax authority. The deadline is five working days from issue, and no later than five working days after the 15th of the month following the supply.
What the program does:
- builds the RO_CIUS / UBL 2.1 file from an issued invoice;
- validates it against the EN16931 and RO_CIUS rules before passing it on;
- numbers it in the company’s register and links it to its document;
- keeps the Submissions tab: every issued invoice and credit note not yet in SPV, ordered by the nearest deadline rather than by issue date, with overdue ones flagged and counted;
- exports every file ready to submit in one click, so that you can upload them in a single portal session;
- records the upload index and then the response: accepted, with the Ministry of Finance’s seal, or rejected, with the reason and the error XML;
- keeps the archive downloaded from SPV, linked to its invoice, with the date and the file’s hash.
What the program does not do, and this matters: you upload the files to SPV yourself, through the portal. Automatic submission would need the company’s portal credentials, which only the company holds.
The original of an electronic invoice is the file signed by the Ministry of Finance and downloaded from SPV; the printed PDF is only a readable copy with no value as an original. SPV keeps the files on the portal for 60 days. After that the Ministry archives them, and the original has to be requested from ANAF. Invoices must be kept for five years.
An invoice accepted in SPV is final: the program no longer lets you regenerate it, because the law does not allow it to be changed. A pro forma invoice is not a fiscal document and is never submitted.
Fiscal receipts with a QR code
Mandatory from 1 November 2026, under OUG 68/2025.
The code is printed by the fiscal cash register, not by the program. The register needs its own update from the company that services it; software cannot replace a certified device with its fiscal memory. OptiSwift’s side is ready now; if anything else is needed before the deadline, it arrives as an ordinary update, with nothing to change in your installation.
Every change has a date
VAT rates, tax treatments, thresholds, prices and mark-ups are set with an effective date. A new rule takes effect from tomorrow and does not touch any sale made yesterday.
The example everyone in Romania lived through is the standard VAT rate: 19% until 31 July 2025, 21% from 1 August 2025. A sale made in July stays at 19% for good. Past sales are never rewritten; each rule carries its date.
Legal basis
- Fiscal Code, Article 294(5)(c): exemption with the right to deduct
- Fiscal Code, Article 292(1)(a): exemption without the right to deduct
- Fiscal Code, Article 310(2): what counts towards turnover for the threshold
- OG 22/2025: the 395,000 lei exemption threshold, from 1 September 2025
- OUG 120/2021, Article 10¹(2): e-Factura, including B2C from 1 January 2025
- OUG 89/2025: the e-Factura deadline tied to the date of supply
- OUG 68/2025: fiscal receipts with a QR code, from 1 November 2026