What the sector pays and how big the market is
For 2025, 1,328 architecture, engineering and technical testing companies filed financial statements; together they employed almost 4,200 people and had sales revenue of about 2.4 billion lei. A year earlier there were 1,197, so their number grew by more than 130 in 2025.
Average gross monthly earnings in division 71 stood at 17,402 lei at the end of 2025, above the economy-wide average of about 16,400 and more than 2,000 lei higher than a year before.
Research and development has to be read separately, because the statistics see it in two ways that do not match. In the employment figures, division 72 has almost 2,600 employees. In the financial statements filed by companies, it has 63 economic agents with fewer than 350 people. The difference is the institutes and universities, which do most of the research and do not report as companies.
Demand for design shows most clearly in building permits: in 2025, 2,955 permits were issued for new buildings, more than 2,000 of them for individual houses and almost a third in Chișinău municipality. Every one of them started from a project signed by a certified specialist.
The state certifies people, not the company
Until 2017, construction design and topographic-geodetic work were licensed. Since then the licence has ceased to exist, and control has moved to the people who sign: the designer, the design reviewer, the technical expert, the site supervisor, the laboratory specialist, the cadastral engineer, the surveyor.
The practical consequence is that your company is worth exactly as much as the certified specialists it has. A design practice without an architect or an engineer certified in the relevant field can be registered at the Public Services Agency, but it cannot sign the project. A cadastre firm without a certified cadastral engineer on its staff may not carry out the work.
When you plan the company, the first question is not which CAEM code to declare but who signs. If you sign, you need your own certification. If you hire, it is the employee’s certification that opens the market to you — and if they leave, it leaves with them.
Design: notification, signature, review
The INST notification is the step almost everyone forgets
The Urban Planning and Construction Code requires legal persons that design, review projects or carry out technical expertise to notify the National Inspectorate for Technical Supervision, so as to be entered in the State Register in the field of construction. Without the notification, these activities are prohibited.
The procedure is simple and works in the company’s favour. You file the declaration on the composition of the teams, with the specialists certified in each field, the orders appointing the manager and the person responsible for the archive, and a declaration that you have a seat, an archive and equipment. The Inspectorate may not ask you for any other documents and must register you immediately after the 10 working days. If it does not respond, the notification is deemed valid. If the file is incomplete, you receive a provisional registration and 20 working days to complete it.
So the order is: register the company, notify INST, wait ten working days, sign the first contract.
Through the right of signature, the designer assumes professional liability for the project. Design documentation must be reviewed by a certified design reviewer, and unreviewed documentation may not be used. The designer and the reviewer are jointly and fully liable.
For a small practice, that means two things. First, you need an independent reviewer for every project, paid separately and shown in the budget. Second, a certified specialist may not hold two roles on the same building, so you cannot review your own project.
Certification of specialists
Certification is carried out by the commissions of the line ministry, through the Office for Spatial Planning, Urban Development, Construction and Housing, and is free. A designer needs a degree in the field and at least five years of experience, or three with a master’s degree or doctorate. The first certification has a written and an oral stage; recertification every five years is oral only.
Old certificates, obtained before 2025, remain valid until they expire. Certificates issued in European Union member states are recognised, with registration at the commission and a certified translation into Romanian.
Moldova has no separate law on architects and no mandatory professional chamber, unlike Romania, which has both. The professions of architect and construction engineer are regulated directly in the Urban Planning and Construction Code, and the state keeps a public register of certified architects, urban planners and engineers.
Surveying and cadastre: the difference between the two
They are often done by the same company, under the same CAEM code, but the law treats them differently.
Topographic, geodetic and cartographic work may be done by a certified individual or by a company with certified employees. The topographic-geodetic certificate requires higher education and at least three consecutive years of experience, or specialised secondary education and seven years, plus the list of works already entered in the state register. From 1 January 2027, new applicants also need a certificate of professional competence, obtained after a training programme.
Cadastral work is carried out only by legal persons — under public or private law — with at least one certified cadastral engineer on their staff. The work is not finished when it is handed to the client: it must be accepted by the institution that keeps the cadastre. The technical supervision inspectorate checks it, and the archive remains the company’s obligation.
Both certificates are issued free of charge, for five years, through the Agency for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre.
Periodic technical inspection: the most regulated branch
An inspection station is the only business on this page that needs an authorisation in the firm’s own name; the other certificates on this page are personal. The National Road Transport Agency issues it for each station and for each inspection category: vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes, over 3.5 tonnes, international transport, dangerous goods, perishable goods, buses. The decision comes within three working days.
The authorisation does not expire, but every five years you file the full set of documents again. The station manager must be an engineer or technician in road transport with at least five years of experience; inspectors need at least two years of experience and a driving licence. Both obtain certificates of competence from the same agency, after a course and a test, valid for five years. Equipment without valid metrological verification is grounds for suspension.
For a design practice with employees, a cadastre firm, a laboratory or a technical inspection station, an SRL. The cadastre law requires a legal person, and the INST notification is, by definition, an obligation of legal persons. Limited liability matters more here than in other fields, because the designer and the reviewer are fully liable for the project.
An architect or engineer working alone has, since June 2026, a new option: the independent entrepreneur regime, which includes 71.11 and 71.12. You pay 15% of income up to 1.2 million lei a year and 35% above that, with no accounting and no returns. The option has two limits. If your client is a company with more than nine employees, or if the payments to you exceed the limits set by law, the relationship is treated as employment for tax purposes. And the Urban Planning and Construction Code does not say explicitly whether a project signed by an independent entrepreneur, with no INST notification, will get through the building permit stage, so for projects that need a permit the SRL remains the safe choice.
Technical testing and research and development are not on the independent entrepreneur list.
For eligible research, the option to compare is the IT park regime. How it works is explained in the Moldova IT Park guide, and the tax can be checked against your own figures with the tax calculator.
We handle the choice of CAEM codes, the articles of association, the filing at the Public Services Agency and the opening of the bank account, and we can take over the company’s accounting from the first month. What each service includes is set out on the corporate services page.
