# How to open a clothing, textile or footwear factory in Moldova: garments, home and technical textiles, and footwear and leather goods

Clothing, textiles and footwear need no licence and no sanitary operating authorisation. Paperwork comes in at three points: when you work in lohn, with the client’s material brought in from abroad; when the product reaches consumers, with its composition label; and when a plant dyes or tans on a large scale. The page starts with garments, where two thirds of the field’s employees work, moves on to home and technical textiles, and ends with footwear and leather goods.

## In brief

- **CAEM codes:** 13.92, 14.13 and 15.20
- **Licence:** Not required (and no sanitary operating authorisation either)
- **Lohn:** Inward processing customs procedure (the client’s material comes in free of customs duty and VAT)
- **Label:** Composition, in Romanian for consumers

## Garment factory or tailoring workshop: lohn, the composition label and the approval for babywear

A garment factory needs neither a licence nor a sanitary operating authorisation. If it works in lohn, with the client’s fabric brought in from abroad, it needs an inward processing authorisation from the Customs Service, and its subcontractors invoice without VAT if listed by the Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalisation. Clothes sold in Moldova carry a composition label in Romanian, and babywear first needs a free sanitary approval from the National Agency for Public Health.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 14.13 | Manufacture of other outerwear | Coats, suits, ensembles, jackets, trousers and skirts, including made-to-measure tailoring and parts of these items. Clothing repair falls under 95.29. |
| 14.12 | Manufacture of workwear | Work clothing. Footwear falls under 15.20, and protective and fire-resistant clothing under 32.99. |
| 14.14 | Manufacture of underwear | Shirts, T-shirts, pyjamas, dressing gowns and lingerie, made of woven or knitted fabric or lace. |
| 14.39 | Manufacture of other knitted and crocheted apparel | Pullovers, cardigans, waistcoats and other knitted clothing. Socks and hosiery have their own class, 14.31. |

- **Authorisation: Authorisation to use the inward processing procedure** — Customs Service, valid for The period set in the authorisation, which can be extended on request. The factory receives fabric, leather, trims or semi-finished goods from abroad, processes them and ships the products out of the country. The authorisation is granted only to a person established in Moldova that allows customs supervision, and the foreign goods must be identifiable in the finished products. Until 31 December 2026, the authorisation is issued without a guarantee.
- **Notification: Inclusion in the List of Economic Agents – Light Industry Enterprises** — Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalisation, valid for For the service contracts named in the list. A garment, knitwear, leather-goods or footwear factory that processes, as a subcontractor, goods another Moldovan company has placed under inward processing. The file contains the application, the registration document, a Chamber of Commerce and Industry document confirming production capacity, and the contracts with the procedure holder. The ministry examines the application within 7 days.
- **Authorisation: Sanitary approval for series production** — National Agency for Public Health, valid for 3 years. Babywear and baby clothing accessories, knitted or woven, before they are placed on the market. The approval is based on a sanitary assessment and is free of charge.

**Who buys it:** Clients abroad who order in lohn and send the material, Moldovan companies that hold an inward processing authorisation and pass the sewing on, clothing shops and chains, companies and public bodies buying uniforms and workwear, and people ordering made-to-measure tailoring.

**What is different about the money:** In lohn, the material stays the client’s property and the factory is paid for the processing. Foreign material comes in free of customs duty and import VAT. Subcontractors on the ministry’s list invoice their services exempt from VAT but keep the right to deduct the VAT on what they buy. Clothes sold in Moldova carry 20% VAT, children’s clothes included.

## Bed linen, curtains, carpets or textile dyeing: the composition label and the 10-tonne-a-day threshold

A factory making bed linen, curtains, blankets, tents or carpets needs no licence. What matters is the label: a textile product is sold with the name and percentage of each fibre, in descending order, and “100%” may only go on a product made of a single fibre. Bleaching, mercerising and dyeing textiles need an integrated environmental permit only above 10 tonnes a day.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 13.92 | Manufacture of made-up textile articles, except apparel | Bed, table and bath linen, blankets, pillows, curtains, drapes, furniture and car covers, tents, tarpaulins and flags. |
| 13.30 | Finishing of textiles | Bleaching, dyeing, dressing and printing of fabrics and garments, including bleaching jeans and pleating. |
| 13.93 | Manufacture of carpets and rugs | Carpets, rugs, wall-to-wall carpeting and textile mats. Vinyl or linoleum floor coverings fall under 22.23. |

- **Authorisation: Integrated environmental permit** — Environment Agency, valid for 12 years. Washing, bleaching, mercerising or dyeing fibres and textiles with a capacity above 10 tonnes a day, and tanning hides and furs with a capacity above 12 tonnes of finished products a day. It costs 30,000 lei. Below these thresholds, the industrial emissions law requires no environmental permit for clothing, textiles, footwear or leather.

**Who buys it:** Home-textile shops and chains, hotels and restaurants, furniture factories buying covers and fabric, wholesale distributors and export buyers.

**What is different about the money:** Bed linen, curtains, carpets and other home textiles are sold with 20% VAT: the Tax Code gives them no reduced rate. Between businesses, the label may be replaced by the commercial documents that travel with the goods, provided they state the composition.

## Footwear, handbag or tannery business: a label on every pair and the 12-tonne-a-day threshold

Footwear needs no licence. Every pair sold to consumers shows what the upper, the lining and sock, and the outer sole are made of, by pictograms or in writing in Romanian. The label goes on at least one shoe of the pair, and the manufacturer answers for its accuracy. Tanning hides needs an integrated environmental permit only above 12 tonnes of finished products a day.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 15.20 | Manufacture of footwear | Footwear of any material and its leather parts: uppers, soles and insoles. Orthopaedic footwear falls under 32.50. |
| 15.12 | Manufacture of luggage, handbags and the like, saddlery and harness | Handbags, travel goods, non-metal watch straps and harness, made of leather or of other materials worked the same way. |
| 15.11 | Tanning and dressing of leather; dressing and dyeing of fur | Tanning, dyeing and finishing of hides and furs. Raw hides from the slaughterhouse fall under 10.11. |

- **Authorisation: Authorisation to use the inward processing procedure** — Customs Service, valid for The period set in the authorisation, which can be extended on request. The factory receives fabric, leather, trims or semi-finished goods from abroad, processes them and ships the products out of the country. The authorisation is granted only to a person established in Moldova that allows customs supervision, and the foreign goods must be identifiable in the finished products. Until 31 December 2026, the authorisation is issued without a guarantee.
- **Notification: Inclusion in the List of Economic Agents – Light Industry Enterprises** — Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalisation, valid for For the service contracts named in the list. A garment, knitwear, leather-goods or footwear factory that processes, as a subcontractor, goods another Moldovan company has placed under inward processing. The file contains the application, the registration document, a Chamber of Commerce and Industry document confirming production capacity, and the contracts with the procedure holder. The ministry examines the application within 7 days.
- **Authorisation: Integrated environmental permit** — Environment Agency, valid for 12 years. Washing, bleaching, mercerising or dyeing fibres and textiles with a capacity above 10 tonnes a day, and tanning hides and furs with a capacity above 12 tonnes of finished products a day. It costs 30,000 lei. Below these thresholds, the industrial emissions law requires no environmental permit for clothing, textiles, footwear or leather.

**Who buys it:** Footwear shops and chains, clients abroad ordering in lohn, companies buying work footwear, wholesale distributors and export buyers.

**What is different about the money:** Footwear and handbags are sold with 20% VAT. Footwear and leather-goods factories working as subcontractors for a lohn holder can join the ministry’s list and invoice their services without VAT, just as garment factories do.

## How the sector got here

- **21 November 2024 — Government Decision No. 856/2023.** The footwear labelling rules take effect: the upper, the lining and sock, and the outer sole are described by pictograms or in writing, in Romanian, on at least one shoe of every pair.
- **28 February 2025 — Government Decision No. 11/2024.** The EU rules on textile fibre names and composition labelling take effect. Textile products may be made available on the market only if they are labelled, marked or accompanied by commercial documents that state their composition.
- **31 December 2026 — Customs Code No. 95/2021, Article 427.** The last day on which the inward processing authorisation is issued and the procedure runs without a guarantee. Until then, equipment a foreign client brings into the factory under temporary admission needs no guarantee either. After that date the general rule applies: a guarantee is lodged where a customs debt may arise, and the holder may ask for it to be waived or reduced.
- **1 January 2027 — CAEM Rev. 2.1 classification.** The new classification takes effect. Division 14 is reorganised: knitted and crocheted clothing is brought together in 14.10, and the other garments get classes 14.21 for clothing, 14.22 for underwear, 14.23 for workwear, 14.24 for leather and fur articles, and 14.29 for other articles and accessories. The classes in divisions 13 and 15 keep their codes.

## How big the market is

For 2025, 446 clothing manufacturers filed financial statements, with 11,284 employees and sales revenue of 3.5 billion lei. By number of employees, clothing is the second-largest manufacturing division, after food. Textile manufacturing has 228 companies, 4,099 employees and 2.7 billion lei in sales, and leather and footwear 66 companies, 1,391 employees and 378 million lei. Of the 740 companies, 566 have fewer than ten employees.

The average gross wage in the fourth quarter of 2025 was 11,963 lei in clothing, 13,741 lei in textiles and 10,712 lei in leather and footwear. The manufacturing average for the same quarter was 14,025 lei, and the economy-wide average 16,355 lei.

## What permits apply

The list of permits includes no licence for clothing, textiles, footwear or leather. No sanitary operating authorisation is required either: the activities that need one are drinking-water supply, children’s camps, schools, clinics, beauty salons and a few other services, but no factory in these divisions.

That leaves three documents that depend on what you do rather than on the field. The customs inward processing authorisation is needed when you work with the client’s material brought in from abroad. The sanitary approval from the National Agency for Public Health is needed for babywear and baby clothing accessories before they go on the market: it is free and, for series production, valid for three years. The integrated environmental permit is needed only above the capacity thresholds for dyeing and tanning.

Labels are checked by the State Inspectorate for the Surveillance of Non-Food Products and Consumer Protection. The declared composition is compared with an accredited laboratory’s analysis, and a non-compliant product can be banned or withdrawn from the market.

## Lohn: the inward processing procedure

In lohn, the client sends the fabric, trims or cut pieces, the factory sews or assembles them, and the finished product goes back. The Customs Code calls this inward processing: foreign goods are used in Moldova without customs duty or other import charges. Goods placed under the procedure are also exempt from import VAT, except for a few foods, such as some types of meat, milk and sugar, which do not concern this field.

The procedure requires an authorisation from the Customs Service. It is granted only to a person established in the customs territory that ensures operations run properly, shows how it uses the goods and allows customs supervision and checks. Goods placed under the procedure must be identifiable in the processed products. The Customs Service sets the period within which the procedure must be discharged and can extend it on request. Machinery and tools cannot be placed under inward processing as production accessories. Equipment a foreign client makes available to the factory is placed under temporary admission.

Until 31 December 2026, the inward processing authorisation is issued and the procedure runs without a guarantee, and the foreign client’s equipment under temporary admission needs no guarantee either. From 1 January 2027 the general rule applies: a guarantee is lodged where a customs debt may arise, and the authorisation holder may ask for it to be waived or reduced.

Lohn does not change the CAEM code. As a rule, the classification puts a factory working under contract in the same class as one producing on its own account, so a sewing workshop in lohn registers under 14.13 like any other. A company that hands all its production to someone else without owning the raw material is classified as trade.

## Subcontractors and VAT

A company holding an inward processing authorisation can pass part of an order to other factories in Moldova. For them to invoice the sewing without VAT, they must be on the List of Economic Agents – Light Industry Enterprises, approved by order of the Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalisation. Services on the list are exempt from VAT with the right to deduct, so the subcontractor deducts the VAT it pays on thread, energy or rent.

The list covers the production of garments, knitwear, leather goods and footwear, and it is updated often: in 2026, up to 1 October, the ministry amended it 11 times. The application comes with the company’s registration document, a Chamber of Commerce and Industry document confirming its production capacity and the contracts with the procedure holder, and the ministry examines it within 7 days. For every order, the subcontractor keeps the contract, the tax invoice, the documents for receiving the raw material and returning the products, the certificate of work performed and proof of payment.

## Labelling clothing and textiles

A textile product may be sold only if it is labelled, marked or accompanied by commercial documents that state its composition. The label gives the name and percentage by weight of every fibre, in descending order, using only the names on the official list. Fibres that account for up to 5% of the weight each, or up to 15% together, may appear as “other fibres” with their percentage. “100%”, “pure” or “all” may only appear on a product made of a single fibre, with a 2% tolerance for foreign fibres that cannot technically be avoided.

A product made of several components with different compositions gives the composition of each, except for components that are not the main lining and make up less than 30% of the weight. Fur or leather in a textile product is flagged with the words “Contains non-textile parts of animal origin”. The label must be durable, legible and firmly attached, and for consumers it is in Romanian. When the product is sold online, the composition must be visible before purchase.

The manufacturer answers for the label, or the importer if the manufacturer is not based in Moldova. A distributor that sells under its own brand or changes the label becomes the manufacturer. The rules do not apply to products entrusted to a factory that processes the material it receives without becoming its owner — in other words, lohn work — or to made-to-measure clothes from self-employed tailors.

## Footwear

A footwear label describes three parts: the upper, the lining and sock, and the outer sole. For each, it names the material that makes up at least 80% of the surface of the upper and lining, or of the volume of the sole. If no material reaches 80%, the two main ones are given. The composition is shown by pictograms or in writing, at least in Romanian, on at least one shoe of the pair, by printing, gluing, embossing or an attached label.

The manufacturer, or its authorised representative based in Moldova, answers for the accuracy of the label. If neither is based here, the importer answers for it, and the shop is responsible for making sure the shoes on its shelves are labelled. Second-hand footwear, protective footwear, which follows the rules for personal protective equipment, and toy footwear are not labelled under these rules.

## Dyeworks and tanneries

The industrial emissions law puts two operations from this field on its list of activities with a significant environmental risk. The first is pretreatment, meaning washing, bleaching or mercerising, and dyeing of fibres and textiles with a capacity above 10 tonnes a day. The second is tanning of hides and furs above 12 tonnes of finished products a day. Above these thresholds, a plant may operate only with an integrated environmental permit from the Environment Agency, which costs 30,000 lei and is issued for 12 years. The list of low-risk activities contains no class from divisions 13, 14 or 15.

## Which legal form to choose

For a factory, the usual form is an SRL, which pays 12% income tax and whose liability is limited to the company’s own assets. The inward processing authorisation is granted only to a company established in Moldova, so a foreign client who wants their collections sewn here works either with a local factory or through its own Moldovan company.

We handle the choice of CAEM codes, the articles of association, the filing with the Public Services Agency and the opening of the bank account. We prepare the applications for the inward processing authorisation and for inclusion in the light-industry list, and the export paperwork, and for a foreign company we register a Moldovan company or a free economic zone resident. We can take over the accounting, including records of the material received in lohn, from the first month. What each service includes is on the [corporate services](/en/corporate-services) page.

## Frequently asked questions

### Do you need a licence to open a garment factory?

No. The list of permits includes no licence for clothing, textiles or footwear, and the factory does not need a sanitary operating authorisation either. Paperwork comes in only in specific cases: the customs authorisation if you work in lohn with foreign materials, the sanitary approval if you make babywear, and the composition label on everything you sell to consumers.

### What permits do you need to work in lohn?

An authorisation from the Customs Service for the inward processing procedure. With it, the foreign client’s fabric and trims come in free of customs duty and import VAT, provided they can be traced in the finished products, which then leave the country. The authorisation is granted only to a company established in Moldova. No guarantee is required until 31 December 2026.

### How does a subcontractor to a lohn factory invoice without VAT?

It joins the List of Economic Agents – Light Industry Enterprises, approved by the Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalisation. The list covers garments, knitwear, leather goods and footwear. Services on the list are exempt from VAT with the right to deduct. The subcontractor keeps the contract, the invoice, the documents for receiving the raw material and returning the products, the certificate of work performed and proof of payment.

### When does a dyeworks or tannery need an environmental permit?

When it exceeds the threshold in the industrial emissions law: 10 tonnes a day for washing, bleaching, mercerising or dyeing fibres and textiles, and 12 tonnes of finished products a day for tanning hides and furs. Above the threshold, the Environment Agency issues an integrated environmental permit, valid for 12 years, at a cost of 30,000 lei. Below it, the law requires no environmental permit.

### What must a footwear label say?

The material of the upper, of the lining and sock, and of the sole, by pictograms or in writing, in Romanian. The label names the material that makes up at least 80% of the surface of the upper and lining or of the volume of the sole. If no material reaches 80%, the two main materials are given. Second-hand, protective and toy footwear is not labelled under these rules.

### What must a clothing label say?

The name and percentage by weight of each fibre, in descending order, using only the names on the official list, in Romanian. “100%”, “pure” or “all” may only appear on a product made of a single fibre. Garments with several components state the composition of each, and leather or fur is flagged with the words “Contains non-textile parts of animal origin”.

### Which CAEM code does a factory sewing in lohn register under?

The same code as a factory producing on its own account: as a rule, the classification puts a contractor working for a fee in the same class. A company that outsources all its production without owning the raw material is classified as trade, because in substance it buys the finished product to resell it.

Choosing the CAEM codes, drafting the constitutive documents and filing with the Public Services Agency are part of the registration service.