What people earn in recruitment and employment services
An employee in administrative and support services earned around 670 euro gross a month at the end of 2025, and the level had climbed by roughly 12% in a year. For a recruitment agency that figure is not a cost — it is the basis of the calculation: the fee is a percentage of the salary of the person placed, so wages that rise raise your invoice without you changing anything about how you work.
The figure is for the whole statistical section, not for one occupation: the same category gathers cleaning, guarding, secretarial work, recruitment and landscaping. The salaries you negotiate, for the roles you close, settle around other levels — higher in IT and construction, lower in retail and manufacturing. Read the roughly 670 euro as the market’s reference point, not as your own rate.
Direction matters more than level. A market where wages are rising is a market where employers are competing for the same people, and that is exactly the moment they outsource their recruiting.
Why now is a good time to open a recruitment agency
Because 2026 added a line of business that until now was done through contractual detours. Since 1 January, work through a temporary work agent has its own chapter in the Labour Code: you employ the people yourself, place them at the disposal of a user for an assignment of up to 12 months, and invoice the service. The rules are written down, and entry takes a notification to the State Labour Inspectorate rather than a licensing file. Anyone taking a position now does so under new rules that are the same for everyone.
The second branch — employment placement — needs a licence, and that is precisely why it is worth it. Eighty-four companies in the whole country hold one, and the list is public, so you can read it before you enter and know exactly who you are sharing the market with. The licence filters the competition: 3,250 lei, premises, diplomas, a clean record and the contracts agreed with the National Employment Agency. None of that is a high bar for someone building a serious firm, but it is enough to keep the market from filling with intermediaries who last a month.
The third source of revenue asks for nothing at all: HR consulting, assessment and training sell from the first month, with the same team and to the same clients. Many agencies start here, build their portfolio of companies, and file the licensing application once they already have somewhere to place people.
What it costs to open an employment placement agency
Registering the company is the cheap and fast part. An SRL has no mandatory minimum share capital, the file is submitted to the Public Services Agency, and the company is usually registered within a few working days.
The licence is the second cost and the easiest to plan: 3,250 lei — around 160 euro — or half of that, 1,625 lei, if the company was registered no more than a year before the application. That is a good reason not to postpone: the reduction applies once, in your first one-year window. Amending the licence when your details change costs 10% of the fee, capped at 585 lei.
The rest of the start-up budget goes into things that show up both in the file and in the sale: accessible non-residential premises with a telephone and electronic means of communication, an official web page, the diplomas and criminal record certificates of the team, plus the recruiting tools — platform subscriptions, your own candidate database, assessment tests. And if you also go into temporary staffing, you need working capital for wages: the people are on your payroll from the first day of the assignment, and the invoice to the user comes after.
What to know before you open the agency
The licence is prepared before the file, not after
The licensing conditions are not something you settle on the day you apply. The administrator, the associates and the employees of the agency must be citizens of the Republic of Moldova with permanent domicile or temporary residence in the country; the administrator and the employees must hold a bachelor’s degree; criminal record certificates are required for the administrator, the founder, the associates, the employees and for the company itself. The premises must be non-residential, easily accessible to all categories of citizens, and equipped with a telephone and electronic means of communication.
The right order is simple: first the structure of the company and the team, then the documents, then the application. We prepare the file in parallel with registration, so the licence arrives shortly after the certificate rather than half a year later.
The draft employment intermediation contract is drawn up in Romanian and agreed with the National Employment Agency before licensing. For placement abroad, add the collaboration agreements with foreign beneficiaries, their incorporation documents translated, notarised and apostilled, and the documents obtained during the prior verification of the beneficiary.
Also for placement abroad, the licensing authority asks for the opinion of the State Labour Inspectorate, which responds within seven working days on issuing or extending the licence. A single licence is issued, and each new foreign beneficiary is notified and registered as you go — so a portfolio of foreign clients can grow without a new file.
Temporary staffing brings a different cash flow
With placement you collect a fee after the person has been hired. With temporary work you pay wages for the whole assignment and collect on an invoice, on the terms agreed with the user. Two money models in one company, and the second one needs a cash reserve from the start.
It is worth the effort, because it brings recurring revenue and contracts that renew season after season. A temporary employee gets the same basic working conditions they would have if hired directly by the user, and no payment, commission or fee may be charged to them — the margin sits in the rate to the user. Payroll, contributions and the invoicing calendar are ours to run, so you can look after clients and candidates.
For a recruitment agency the answer is an SRL. Liability stays limited to the share capital, there is no minimum capital threshold, and the licensing file is built around a legal person: it asks for the criminal record of the founder, of the associates and of the company itself.
The individual enterprise looks simpler than it is. The law says plainly that it is not a legal person and appears in legal relations as a natural person trading individually, and that the owner bears unlimited liability with their entire personal estate. When your work means putting people into employment relationships and answering for what follows, the form that keeps your personal money out of the risk is the SRL.
A joint-stock company has no place here at the start. It is the form designed for capital brought in by several investors, not for a business built on contracts, on reputation and on a database of candidates.
