How big the market is
For 2025, 12,611 enterprises filed financial statements in division 47, with 74,228 employees between them. Of those, 11,636 have fewer than ten employees: the neighbourhood shop, the boutique and the market stall are the rule, not the exception.
The average gross wage in retail was 13,348.5 lei in the fourth quarter of 2025, against 16,355.1 lei for the economy as a whole. Headcount is rising year on year: by 3.2% in the fourth quarter of 2025, by 4.3% in the first quarter of 2026 and by 5.9% in the second, each against the same quarter a year earlier. For a new shop, that means hiring sales staff in a market where your competitors are hiring too, so plan the payroll on where wages are heading rather than on today’s figure.
What permits you need
The nomenclature of permissive acts has no licence for a shop. The licences that touch retail are few and specific: precious metals and stones, weapons and ammunition, pyrotechnics, medicines, and fuel sold at filling stations. Jewellery, for example, may be sold only under a licence, and in ordinary trade only in specialised shops or departments of at least 12 m², a condition that does not apply to online sales; that regime is explained on the page about pawnshops, lending and precious metals.
Every other shop starts from the trade notification. You file it with the town hall of the locality where the shop is, not where the company is registered, and you file one for each unit: two shops mean two notifications. The town hall passes the notification on to the National Inspectorate for Technical Supervision in every case. For an ordinary shop the National Public Health Agency does not receive it, because its list in division 47 covers only pharmacies and filling stations.
A food shop has one more step: registering with ANSA. The agency’s 2024 order puts on its registration list the food shop, the supermarket and the hypermarket, retail sale of meat, milk and eggs, bread and drinks, the food stall at a farmers’ market, and mobile units. The sanitary-veterinary operating authorisation, at the same price, remains for a market with a hall for food of animal origin and for units that store and sell imported products of animal origin.
Floor area decides more rules than you think
When you fill in the notification, you give the type of unit and its sales floor area. The nomenclature of commercial units sorts shops into four classes: up to 30 m², from 30 to 400 m², from 400 to 1,000 m², and over 1,000 m². A small shop sits in the first class, a supermarket in the second or third, a hypermarket in the fourth. The sales floor area includes the sales room: the space where goods are displayed, where customers pay, and the aisles for staff and shoppers.
The figures that matter for a new shop are few, and worth checking before you sign the lease. Under 20 m² you cannot sell alcohol. Also under 20 m², if you sell cigarettes, the shop must be at least 200 metres from a school or a medical institution. Over 30 m² you show the country of origin of food on the price label. Over 100 m², once the deposit-return system for drinks containers starts, you take back the bottles and cans your customers return.
Specialisation has a threshold too. A food shop may give at most 20% of its sales floor to non-food goods, and a non-food shop at most 10% to food. Beyond those shares the shop is mixed and is notified as such.
A shop cannot operate from a house or a flat. The internal trade law allows only a few types of unit in a dwelling, among them the online trading point, the café and the patisserie, and no type of shop is on the list.
The food shop
Besides its two papers, a food shop has a few operating rules that do not apply to other shops. It may not close for more than two days in a row over public holidays. It keeps the quality and safety documents for its products on the premises and shows them to any customer who asks. For goods sold by weight, it provides a check scale for customers.
The deposit-return system changes the till. Beer, cider, soft drinks, water, juices and nectars in single-use glass, plastic or metal containers from a tenth of a litre to three litres carry a deposit of at least 2 lei, and the system must be running nationwide by 25 January 2027 at the latest. The deposit appears separately on the shelf label and on the fiscal receipt, and the shop announces the system with an A3 poster. Shops of up to 100 m² are not obliged to take containers back; larger ones accept every deposit container, even for drinks they do not stock, and refund in cash, by voucher or in goods.
Alcohol and tobacco in a shop
Neither needs a licence at retail. You declare them in the trade notification by ticking the box for alcoholic products, beer and tobacco, and the rest comes down to the rules of sale.
For alcohol, the conditions are commercial premises of at least 20 m² and sales staff aged 18 or over. A shop does not sell alcohol between 22.00 and 8.00, does not sell it in plastic bottles smaller than 0.25 litres, and does not sell it to anyone under 18: the seller asks for an identity document, and if the age cannot be established, makes no sale. Imported alcohol for retail may be bought only through specialised warehouses. The local council may set a radius around schools, hospitals and places of worship within which alcohol is not sold, so check the address against the local trade regulation as well.
Tobacco has stricter display rules than alcohol. Tobacco products, e-cigarettes and heated products must be kept out of sight: on request, the seller shows a list of the products and their prices, printed in black on white paper. They may not be sold singly, from open packs or in packs of fewer than 20 cigarettes, may not be sold online, and may not be sold without the excise stamp for the year of manufacture. A notice in plain view states that sale to minors is prohibited and gives the amount of the fine.
Bars and buffets have their own alcohol rules, explained on the page about restaurants, cafés, bars and catering.
The non-food shop
Here the notification is the only paper, and the real work is in dealing with customers. Product information is given in Romanian, or in Romanian and Russian, and a product without complete and correct information in Romanian may not be put on sale. The price and the unit price are displayed for every product, in lei only. A discount is calculated against the lowest price charged in the last 30 days, not against a list price.
Clothes are sold with somewhere to try them on, and window samples are sold on request unless they carry a “Not for sale” label. Complaints are settled within 14 calendar days at most. From 22 August 2026, textile producers set up textile waste collection points at every location where their products are sold.
The market, the stall and the kiosk
The nomenclature distinguishes market units by size and construction. A kiosk is a prefabricated structure of up to 12 m², a tent is up to 12 m² and holds a day’s stock, a stall is up to 2 m², and a pavilion is larger than 12 m². The difference matters: alcohol is not sold from non-fixed trading units, except at fairs and events approved by the town hall, nor from pavilions of up to 20 m², and tobacco is not sold from any non-fixed trading unit.
The market rules are set by the Government and, outside fixed shops and food service venues, ban alcohol and wine products, as well as weapons, pyrotechnics, medicines and medical devices. Stalls and kiosks may not sell jewellery, unpackaged underwear, loose flour and groats in the open air, or home-made preserves, nor meat, fish, eggs and honey without the required papers and equipment. Food and non-food goods are not sold from the same unit. Market sellers must be at least 16.
Producers have places of their own. Someone selling household surplus with a household producer’s declaration does not register a company and files no notification. That is their regime, not yours: if you resell goods you have bought, you need a company, the notification and the contract with the market.
Second-hand
Used goods have a Government decision of their own. Clothing, footwear, textiles and toys may be sold only once cleaned, disinfected and disinfested, and each batch has its own certificate. For imported goods the certificate comes from the authority of the exporting country. For goods collected in Moldova, the treatment is done by specialised companies. The papers are shown to inspectors and to customers who ask.
Sales are allowed only at second-hand markets, mixed markets and specialised shops. The nomenclature has two types for them: the second-hand shop, for worn or used goods, and the consignment shop, which sells other people’s goods under a consignment contract. Goods received as humanitarian aid may not be sold.
What it costs to open a shop
The permits cost little. The trade notification is 100 lei for each unit, and the town hall may reduce or waive the fee, particularly for an online filing. A food shop adds the ANSA certificate, at 150 lei. An SRL registers with no minimum share capital.
The cost to plan for is the local tax on commercial units. It is paid every year, for each unit, and the local council sets it by type of unit, floor area, goods sold and opening hours. In Chișinău a shop’s tax rises in floor-area bands and goes up if you sell alcohol, if you sell tobacco (by a sum for each cash register), if you trade after 23.00, and if the shop front faces one of the main thoroughfares. For a small shop selling alcohol and cigarettes, the surcharges can exceed the base tax, so read the council’s decision before you sign the lease.
A cash register is compulsory. The list of activities that may take cash without one covers farmers selling their own produce at the market, newspapers and magazines, patent holders and fairs, but not shops. Taking cash without a cash register or without issuing a receipt carries a fine of 5,000 to 15,000 lei.
The patent is no longer an option for reselling. Every retail activity has been removed from the annex to the patent law. A few activities remain where a craftsperson sells what they make, from tailoring to handicrafts, with sales of no more than 300,000 lei over 12 months and no employees.
An SRL is the usual form for a shop. Only the company’s assets are at risk, not your personal ones, you can hire sales staff, and you can open a second shop without changing anything. 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, and from then on a food shop charges the 8% and 20% rates on the same receipt.
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. For a shop with staff and rent, limited liability and access to the 4% regime are the two reasons to choose an SRL.
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 with the town hall for you, with the alcohol and tobacco box ticked where it applies, and the ANSA registration file for a food shop. For a foreign company that wants to open shops in Moldova, we register the SRL or the branch. We can take on the accounting from the first month, including the cash register, the VAT rates and the local tax. What each service includes is set out on the corporate services page.
