How big the market is
The statistics office publishes no separate figures for class 47.91, so the size of online trade has to be pieced together from two other sources. The first is payments. In 2025, cards issued in Moldova made 40,095,287 transactions on e-commerce platforms, worth 18.37 billion lei, against 28,074,815 transactions and 13.46 billion lei in 2024. The first two quarters of 2026 added 4.85 and 5.01 billion lei. The figure includes purchases from foreign shops, so it shows how much people buy online, not how much Moldovan shops sell.
The second is the statistical survey of ICT use in enterprises, which covers firms with at least ten people. For 2025, 586 such enterprises reported internet sales of 7.34 billion lei excluding VAT, of which 5.08 billion went to final consumers. Of those enterprises, 233 are in trade. Small online shops with fewer than ten people are not in this survey.
For anyone opening now, the first figure says the demand exists and grew from one year to the next. It also shows who you share it with: the payments include foreign shops, which can send private individuals parcels of up to 150 euros with no charges at the border.
What permits you need
The e-commerce law, now called the law on information society services, says that an online seller’s activity is not subject to any prior authorisation. The exception is goods that are licensed anyway, however they are sold. Precious-metal jewellery, for example, is sold online under a licence, but without the 12 m² minimum shop size, a condition the law expressly lifts for e-commerce.
You still have to file the trade notification. The nomenclature of commercial units has a type of its own for an online shop: a “commercial unit carrying on e-commerce without a sales floor”. How customers pay and how goods are delivered does not change the type of unit. For a physical shop, online selling is just one way of selling and is not notified separately, unless it becomes the main activity.
Holders of an entrepreneur’s patent may not sell online: the law expressly excludes them.
What the website must show
The company’s details are published on the site in Romanian and must be easy to find at any time: the full name with the legal form, the IDNO, the legal address, the contact e-mail and phone number, and the VAT code if you have one. Alongside them go the delivery terms, the prices, stating whether they include taxes and delivery, the payment terms and how long the offer is valid. The law also requires you to publish the phone number and website of the State Inspectorate for Non-Food Product Supervision and Consumer Protection.
Before ordering, the buyer sees the total price with all taxes and delivery costs, the technical steps of the order, how to correct mistakes, which payment methods you accept and whether there are delivery restrictions. The final button must say clearly that a payment follows, for example “Comandă cu obligație de plată” (order with obligation to pay) or “Cumpără acum” (buy now). If the button does not say so, the consumer is under no obligation. The order is confirmed electronically, without undue delay, and the contract is confirmed on a durable medium no later than delivery.
The site also publishes the address of the exchange point, and the phone number and e-mail at which buyers can find out how an exchange works.
The exchange point
Any shop selling without a sales floor must have an exchange point in the locality named in its notification. That is where the buyer brings a product to exchange or return. The exchange point is not a commercial unit and is not notified, and buyers can also hand goods over to a company you designate, against a handover record, provided you publish its details.
An online trading unit may operate from a flat between 8.00 and 18.00, or from a house with the owner’s written consent. In a flat, however, you may not store, hand over or exchange goods, so the exchange point has to be elsewhere.
The online buyer’s rights
Selling online to consumers is a distance contract, and its rules are in the Civil Code. The consumer may withdraw from the contract within 14 days of taking possession of the goods, without giving a reason. If you did not inform them of this right, the period is extended by 12 months. Simply sending the parcel back or refusing it on delivery is not a withdrawal: the buyer sends you a statement, on the standard form or in any other clear form.
You refund everything you received, including standard delivery, within 14 days of the buyer telling you they are withdrawing, by the same payment method. You may hold back the refund until you get the goods back or proof that they were sent. The buyer returns the goods within 14 days and pays only the direct cost of returning them, provided you said so in advance. Opening the packaging does not mean the product has been damaged.
Goods made to the buyer’s specifications, goods that spoil or expire quickly, sealed goods opened for health or hygiene reasons, sealed recordings and software that have been opened, and newspapers and magazines cannot be returned. Unless you agreed another date, you deliver within 30 days of the contract being concluded.
Payments, personal data and advertising
A cash register is used for cash payments and for payments by other payment instruments, including cards, and the receipt can be sent electronically, by SMS, e-mail or platform, with a link to the full receipt.
The new personal data law has applied since 23 August 2026. An ordinary controller does not register with the National Centre for Personal Data Protection. It must keep records of its processing, and the exemption for firms with fewer than 250 employees does not cover processing that is not occasional or that carries risks. On the site you publish the terms on which you process data, including how you use cookies for marketing and how you obtain consent for them.
Promotional e-mails need the recipient’s prior consent. The exception is your own customers, whom you may write to about products similar to those they bought, provided you offer them a free way to opt out when you collect the address and in every message.
What cannot be sold online
Tobacco products, related products and their devices may not be sold online. Weapons, weapon parts and ammunition may no longer be sold at a distance, including online, since 1 July 2026. Alcohol can be sold online, but whoever hands it over asks for an identity document, including on delivery, and does not give it to anyone under 18. Selling food at a distance and delivering it by courier must both be registered with ANSA.
Imported parcels
Competitors abroad work under a rule worth knowing. A parcel of up to 150 euros sent directly from abroad to a private individual in Moldova enters free of customs duty, VAT and excise, except for alcohol, tobacco, perfume and non-occasional consignments. Goods you bring in to resell are released for free circulation with import duties paid, like any commercial import.
What it costs to open an online shop
The trade notification costs 100 lei, and the town hall may reduce or waive the fee, particularly for an online filing. If you sell food, the ANSA certificate costs 150 lei. An SRL can be registered with no minimum share capital.
An online trading unit is subject to the local tax on commercial units, like any shop, and the local council sets the amount. You can deliver yourself or use a courier company; the rules for couriers are explained on the page about warehousing, logistics, courier and customs.
The patent is not an option. The e-commerce law expressly excludes patent holders.
An SRL is the usual form for an online shop. Only the company’s assets are at risk, not your personal ones, and the bank account, card payments and the courier contract are all in the company’s name. Below the threshold of 1.7 million lei in sales over 12 months, a company that is not a VAT payer may apply the 4% tax on income. Above it you become a VAT payer.
A sole trader has no access to the 4% regime, because the law expressly excludes it, and the owner is personally liable for its obligations with everything they own.
We choose the CAEM codes, draw up the articles of association, file the application with the Public Services Agency and open the bank account. We file the trade notification for you as an online trading unit, and the ANSA registration file if you sell food. We prepare the information and documents the shop has to publish on its website. For a foreign company that wants to sell online in Moldova, we register the SRL or the branch, and we can take on the accounting from the first month. What each service includes is set out on the corporate services page.
