What the sector pays and how big the market is
An employee in land transport earned around 600 euro gross a month at the end of 2025, against a national average of about 820 euro. The figure is for division 49, not for the statistical section, and the difference matters: the section it sits in — transport and storage — shows roughly 700 euro, because it also holds warehousing and the auxiliary trades, where the figure passes 1,070 euro. A payroll budgeted off the section figure therefore starts from a level your branch does not pay.
In the same year, the average number of employees in division 49 fell by almost 10%. It is the steepest fall in the table, and the quarterly release names transport and storage as the activity with the largest drop in employee numbers in the whole economy.
And yet more goods moved. Road transport carried 48.5 million tonnes in 2025, against 44.7 million in 2024, and tonne-kilometres rose to 7,706 million. The number of companies grew too: 3,072 economic agents filed accounts for 2025, against 2,904 for 2024, reporting 19.5 billion lei of sales revenue.
Three figures that look contradictory say one thing together: more is being carried, more companies are being founded, and each company holds fewer people. The work is moving from large fleets to small operators. For anyone entering now that means you are not competing with a consolidated industry — but it also means the scarce resource here is the driver, not the lorry.
Why it matters that the rules changed in January 2026
Until 31 December 2025 the financial standing requirement applied only to operators leaving the country. A domestic haulier or a taxi firm had to demonstrate nothing at all. From 1 January 2026 the requirement is general: 9,000 euro for the first vehicle, 5,000 for each additional vehicle over 3.5 tonnes, 900 for those between 2.5 and 3.5 tonnes, and 3,000 for each additional taxi car.
The sum is not deposited anywhere. It is demonstrated through capital and reserves, on the basis of annual accounts certified by an auditor. And here the law leaves a door open precisely for a new company: in the year of registration, when annual accounts do not yet exist, financial standing may be shown by a bank guarantee, by a document from a financial institution establishing access to credit, or by the balance sheet. The lei equivalent is fixed once a year, at the National Bank rate of the first working day of October, and applies for the whole of the following year.
The same package of amendments also worked in your favour. The obligation to own or finance-lease at least a third of the fleet narrowed to taxi cars — for lorries it is gone. And the obligation to carry out technical maintenance in an in-house service workshop disappeared entirely: until the end of 2025 it was one of the technical-base requirements.
Much of the guidance in circulation still describes the old rules. It is worth checking twice what you read about this field, including when it was written.
What it costs to start a transport company
The administrative part is cheap. An LLC has no minimum share capital, the file is lodged with the Public Services Agency, and the notification to the National Road Transport Agency costs nothing — neither does the extract from the Register of Road Transport Operators, nor the copies for each vehicle. Route authorisations for passenger services are issued free of charge as well.
The money goes elsewhere. International haulage authorisations have both a price and a stock: 240 euro for the annual multilateral ECMT authorisation, 20 euro for the short-term one, 5 euro for the international transport authorisation, 750 lei for the INTERBUS booklet. The country-by-country stock arrives through bilateral agreements and is distributed in proportion to each operator’s eligible fleet, which means access to export work grows in steps, with the fleet, not with ambition.
Then comes the equipment the law requires. A lorry and a coach must carry a tachograph and a speed limiter; a taxi, by contrast, a cash register recorded with the tax service. The road-use charge is paid annually for each vehicle, and the periodic technical inspection is not carried out without it.
The first year’s budget, though, breaks in a place most people do not expect. The vehicle is not the problem — it goes on lease. The problem is the gap between paying for diesel and wages and being paid by the forwarder.
What to know before you start
The company cannot be registered without the person who will actually run it
This is the field’s peculiarity and the source of most of its surprises. The law requires a transport manager: a natural person who continuously and effectively directs the undertaking’s transport activity. Their individual employment contract is attached to the very notification filed with the Agency, so the person is hired before the company has the right to operate, not after the first journey.
The conditions attach to them personally, not to the company. They must hold a valid certificate of professional competence, issued by the Agency after an initial qualification course and a multiple-choice test passed with at least 75% of the marks. The certificate runs for five years. Not everyone is admitted to the test: you need a higher degree in law, economics or engineering, or a post-secondary technical qualification in motor engineering, or proof of having run a transport undertaking for at least five years. Anyone holding a higher degree in road transport itself receives the certificate with no course and no exam, if they apply within three years of graduating.
Three things to plan for from day one. The manager must be domiciled in the Republic of Moldova, be employed by the company and be paid by it — a foreign founder may own the company outright but cannot fill this role remotely. One person may act as manager for at most four different undertakings, with a combined fleet of 50 vehicles, so a “borrowed” manager may already be full. And if they leave, you have 30 days to replace them, extended to two months in case of death or physical incapacity; during that window the conditions count as met, after it they do not.
There is also a risk running the other way, which few people see: the manager’s certificate is suspended or withdrawn if their conduct has cost an operator its good repute. After annulment, a new certificate may only be obtained a year later. This person is not a signature on a file.
Drivers are employees, not contractors — and they need a certificate too
The company’s professional competence condition is met only if both the manager and the drivers hold certificates of professional competence. Of a driver the law requires, cumulatively: a valid licence for the vehicle’s category, a certificate of professional competence, proof of being employed by the operator, and a medical and narcological opinion issued no more than 12 months before the certificate is applied for.
“Proof of being employed” closes a door many would try: a driver paid under a services contract does not meet the condition. And for international work, for carrying passengers, and for oversize or dangerous goods, at least three years’ experience as a professional driver is additionally required. That narrows the hiring pool sharply in exactly the best-paid segment — and explains why employee numbers in the field are falling while tonnage rises.
A driver’s certificate is withdrawn and annulled if they commit more than five road transport offences in 12 consecutive months. Their offences also count, separately, towards the company’s good repute.
VAT behaves differently in each of the three branches
One CAEM division, three regimes.
International carriage of goods, forwarding included, is exempt with the right of deduction. You invoice without VAT and deduct the VAT on diesel, parts, tyres, repairs and leasing, so you sit in a refund position as a matter of course. Domestic haulage runs at the standard rate, with VAT charged and deducted in the ordinary way.
Carriage of passengers inside the country — taxis included — is exempt without the right of deduction. No VAT goes on the ticket, but none comes off the coach, the car, the fuel and the servicing either: it becomes a cost and goes straight into the price. This is precisely the difference a business plan copied from a haulage company misses, and the effect shows in the margin from the first month.
On top of that, municipal, town and village routes attract a monthly local charge per vehicle, calculated on the number of seats, at a rate set by the local council and paid every six months, by the 25th of the month following the half-year.
The seat is no longer an address, it is a testable condition
Since 1 January 2026 the law describes the seat in detail: the place holding the originals of the working documents — transport contracts, vehicle papers, accounting and personnel records, employment contracts, documents on the posting of drivers, on cabotage, and on driving and rest times. There, the law says, the undertaking effectively and permanently carries on its administrative and commercial activity, with the appropriate equipment.
The same article requires the number of vehicles and drivers to be proportionate to the volume of operations and, for international work, that vehicles return to one of the operational centres. A correspondence address does not pass that test, and the test is not applied at filing: the notification is made on the operator’s own responsibility, and an inspection may come within the first ten working days or at any time after.
Even own-account transport must be notified
If your company does not sell transport but hauls its own goods with a lorry over 3.5 tonnes, or moves its staff in a vehicle with more than nine seats, you fall under the simplified notification regime. The notification and the list of vehicles go through “e-Autorizație transport”, and the Agency issues — unconditionally and free of charge, within five working days — the extract from the register of undertakings carrying goods on own account.
The penalty for failing to do so is the same as for unregistered carriage for hire: 25,000 to 30,000 lei for a legal person, double on a repeat in the same calendar year. It is exactly the kind of obligation a bakery or a warehouse learns about after its first roadside check.
For transport the usual answer is an LLC. Liability stays limited to the share capital, there is no minimum threshold, the form admits 100% foreign founders, and it is what forwarders, platforms and the authorities running route tenders expect to see.
The sole trader deserves a closer look here, because the law treats it differently from how it appears: it is not a legal person, and the holder is liable without limit, with their entire personal estate. The Road Transport Code does recognise it explicitly — in a sole trader undertaking the transport manager may be that very person, which saves one hire. But in a field whose daily risk is a crash with expensive cargo aboard, unlimited liability remains a high price for that convenience.
A joint-stock company has no place at the start. It is a form designed for capital contributed by several investors, not for a business that grows one lorry or one route at a time.
