35 Years of Independence, and Three Days to Register a Company

On 27 August 2026 the Republic of Moldova turns 35 years old, counted from the Declaration of Independence adopted by Parliament in 1991. It is an age at which what got built is plainly visible: a currency, a constitution, a seat in European organisations, and an EU accession path that is open on paper, not only in speeches.

We have been registering companies here for years, so our view is narrow but concrete: how long a file takes, what a foreign founder asks, what gets stuck and where. From that angle the last 35 years look different than they do in official speeches. Here is the story, with the dates on show.

What happened on 27 August 1991

The Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted the Declaration of Independence on 27 August 1991, days after the failed coup in Moscow. On 2 March 1992 the country became a member of the United Nations.

International recognition came quickly. What followed was the less spectacular part of the story — building, from nothing, the instruments a state needs in order to function.

Stage one: a state from scratch (1991–1994)

A new state needs things nobody notices until they are missing. Money of its own, for instance. Moldova entered independence without a national currency and ran for almost two years on Soviet roubles and coupons. The Moldovan leu entered circulation on 29 November 1993 (Moldpres), and the Constitution was adopted on 29 July 1994.

Only from that point can you speak of a framework in which somebody registers a company and knows which rules they are playing by.

Stage two: institutions and opening up to trade (1995–2013)

On 13 July 1995 Moldova became the 36th member state of the Council of Europe (MFA). On 26 July 2001 it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).

At the time these sounded like protocol. The real effect showed up later: a state whose trade rules are aligned with the international standard is a state where a foreign investor does not have to learn a parallel system. For business, the period was one of settling — rules were being written, institutions were bedding in. The foundation the post-2014 acceleration was built on was poured then.

Stage three: anchoring in Europe (2014–2021)

Here the tempo changes. Visa-free travel to the Schengen area took effect on 28 April 2014, and the Association Agreement with the European Union, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, was signed in June 2014.

For a company, the agreement meant customs duties dropped for most goods heading to the EU. You can see the effect in the shape of today’s export figures, which we get to in a moment.

The same period produced the instrument that changes the arithmetic entirely for the tech industry: Moldova IT Park, launched on 1 January 2018, with a single 7% tax on turnover that replaces corporate income tax, payroll tax and employee social contributions. We covered how it works in detail here.

Stage four: candidacy and integration in practice (2022–2026)

Moldova applied for EU membership in March 2022 and received candidate status in June 2022. Accession negotiations opened in June 2024 (European Parliament). In October 2024 a referendum wrote European integration into the Constitution with 50.35% — about as narrow a margin as there is (EPRS).

What has happened in the last eighteen months matters more to a company than all the political declarations before it, because it shows up in the bank account and in the calendar:

• 6 October 2025 — Moldova connected to SEPA. Euro payments to and from the country run on the same terms as inside the Union (NBM). Ten months in, eight out of ten euro transactions were already going through the new system, and savings on fees had passed EUR 13.2 million (NBM).
• 1 November 2025 — accession to the Common Transit Convention, which simplifies customs formalities for goods in transit to the EU.
• 1 January 2026 — roaming at domestic rates across the European Union (Council of the EU).
• 15 June 2026 — in Luxembourg, the first negotiating cluster opens: Fundamentals — rule of law, functioning of democratic institutions, public administration, economic criteria (Council of the EU).
• 14 July 2026 — negotiations open on the external relations chapters (Council of the EU).

SEPA is the best example of a reform that gets no press and is felt immediately. A client collecting euros from a German partner used to pay an international transfer fee and wait. Now they get paid as if between two European accounts.

Where Moldova stands today, in figures

Indicator	Value	Date / source
Population with usual residence	2,365.6 thousand people	1 January 2026, NBS
Total goods exports	USD 3,782.7 million (+6.4%)	2025, NBS
Exports to the EU-27	USD 2,554.4 million — 67.5% of the total	2025, NBS
Moldova IT Park turnover	over USD 1 billion (+24.3%)	2025, Moldpres
IT Park resident companies	2,725, with over 25,000 specialists	2025, Moldpres
Export share of IT Park sales	88.5% (MDL 16.37 billion)	2025, Moldpres
Savings on fees since SEPA	over EUR 13.2 million in 10 months	2026, NBM

Two of those figures are worth reading together. Two-thirds of the country’s exports go to the European Union, and nearly 90% of IT Park companies’ sales leave Moldova. This is not an economy producing for the 2.4 million people who live here. It is an economy producing from here for somebody else — and that is exactly the model that works for a foreign founder.

There is another signal, quieter than the export numbers. The 2,725 companies in IT Park come from 44 countries, and 571 of them joined in the last year alone (Moldpres). These are not corporations relocating a factory — they are teams that worked out where it suits them to be registered and picked here. And the 7% regime is not a short-term promise: it is guaranteed through 2037.

What 35 years of reform means for a company opened today

In concrete terms, this:

An LLC is registered in about three working days from a complete file. A foreign citizen can own 100% of the company, with no local partner and no minimum share capital paid up in advance. Registration can be done remotely, by power of attorney, with the exception of opening the bank account — for that the founder has to be physically present in Moldova.

If the activity is IT, software, R&D or design, IT Park means 7% on turnover instead of the whole stack of profit and payroll taxes. The comparison against the standard regime is in our calculator.

The remaining obligations — accounting, filings, VAT above the threshold — are the usual ones, and we covered them in the guide to registering an LLC and in the article on taxes and fees in 2026. For founders who are not from Moldova, the extra steps are gathered in the guide for foreign founders.

MD35: 35% off, from 25 to 31 August

We are marking the anniversary the best way we know how — on price.

From 25 to 31 August 2026, the code MD35 gives you 35% off company registration packages:

Package	Standard price	With MD35	What you save
Starter	MDL 2,000	MDL 1,300	MDL 700
Business	MDL 6,000	MDL 3,900	MDL 2,100
Gold	MDL 12,000	MDL 7,800	MDL 4,200
Concierge Platinum	on request	−35% off the quote	35% of the fee

Worth knowing before you do the maths: the discount applies to our fee for the package. State fees stay separate, as always, and the MDL 3,000 supplement for obtaining an IDNP for foreign founders is not included in the discount. What you see in the table is exactly what you pay us.

The code works on whichever channel you reach us — mention it in the form, by email, on WhatsApp or on the phone. No account is needed and we ask for nothing up front to hold it; all that matters is that the request arrives by 31 August.

How to start

The simplest first move is checking whether the name you want is free — it takes seconds with the company name checker. Then fill in the registration form, write MD35 and send it. You get a request number and an access code to track the file.

From there it is our job: the legal form, the founding decision and the articles of association, the CAEM codes, the name reservation, the legal address, the filing with the Public Services Agency, the electronic signature and the bank appointment. For foreign founders we prepare the power of attorney and the IDNP, and if the activity qualifies we file the Moldova IT Park application too. Every service, individually and with the price on show, is on the corporate services page.

Happy birthday, Moldova. See you on 27 August — and if you have been meaning to do this, this week is cheaper than next.

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All figures in this article were verified against the primary sources linked in the text, on this date. The foreign trade and IT Park figures refer to 2025, the last fully reported year.

The MD35 discount is valid for requests received between 25 and 31 August 2026 inclusive, applies to the fee for registration packages and cannot be combined with other offers. State fees and the IDNP supplement are not covered by the discount.