# How to open an electronic communications or audiovisual company in Moldova

The two halves of this domain look like neighbours and are not. An internet or telephony provider files a notification, pays nothing and can start the same day. An audiovisual service — a radio or television station — goes through a nine-year licence and through the strictest ownership regime in the whole of Moldovan business law.

## In brief

- **CAEM codes:** Divisions 60 and 61
- **Authorities:** Two, by branch (networks to one, programmes to the other)
- **Share capital:** No minimum
- **Time to start:** Same day or 30 days (depending on the branch)

## Electronic communications: what you file to supply internet, telephony or data transport

Supplying electronic communications networks or services is not licensed. You file a notification with the National Agency for Regulation in Communications, free of charge, and you may begin at once — the law says in terms that no decision and no administrative act is needed for you to start. Licences appear only when you need radio frequencies or telephone numbers, that is, scarce state resources.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 61.10 | Wired telecommunications activities | Internet and telephony over fibre or copper, plus the cable networks television travels on. Notification to ARCOM, no licence — but a numbering licence if you allocate telephone numbers, and a retransmission authorisation from the Audiovisual Council if you carry TV channels. |
| 61.20 | Wireless telecommunications activities | Mobile telephony and fixed radio access. Notification to ARCOM plus a spectrum licence — frequencies are not optional here — and a numbering licence for subscriber numbers. |
| 61.30 | Satellite telecommunications activities | Satellite links, including capacity resold onward to a domestic client. Notification to ARCOM and a frequency licence for the earth station. |
| 61.90 | Other telecommunications activities | Resale of capacity, access over another operator network, services that fall outside the other three classes. Notification to ARCOM; a licence only if you end up using spectrum or numbering of your own. |

- **Notification: Notification and entry in the public register of electronic communications network and service providers** — National Agency for Regulation in Communications (ARCOM), valid for Unlimited. Any supply to the public of electronic communications networks or services. The notification is free and carries a minimum data set — name, IDNO, seat, contact person, description of services, estimated start date. Within one week the Agency issues the standard declaration confirming registration, and if it does not, tacit approval applies. Changes are reported within 10 working days, cessation 30 days in advance.
- **Licence: Licence to use the radio frequency spectrum** — National Agency for Regulation in Communications (ARCOM), valid for 5 years as a rule; 15 years for radio relay; 20 years, extendable by 5, for broadband bands. Use of frequencies for which the Agency has decided individual rights are needed. Where the interference risk is low, the Agency may leave the band under the general authorisation or take it out of any regime at all. Where the number of rights is limited, they are awarded by competitive selection, and the licence fee starts from a floor set by the Government.
- **Licence: Licence to use numbering resources** — National Agency for Regulation in Communications (ARCOM), valid for Set in the licence. Allocating telephone numbers to subscribers. Issued with no licence fee. Number-independent interpersonal communications services — a messaging or calling app with no numbering — fall under neither this licence nor the general authorisation regime at all.

**Who buys it:** On the residential segment you compete with the large operators on price and coverage, and a connected customer rarely switches. The easier sale is business: dedicated links for banks and retail chains, colocation in data centres, data transport between sites. Cable television distributors are customers too — and, at the same time, the most common combination, because your own network plus retransmission means both regimes at once.

**What is different about the money:** Division 61 reported 8.6 billion lei of revenue in 2025, shared among 279 economic agents, which means a concentrated market: a few large operators and a long tail of local providers. The heavy cost is infrastructure, and access to public and private property is regulated precisely because otherwise there is no way to lay cable.

## Audiovisual: what the broadcasting licence requires and who may not own a station

A radio or television station needs a broadcasting licence from the Audiovisual Council, one for each media service, valid for nine years. The file contains the concept of the service, the weekly schedule, the editorial project, the business plan and the list of beneficial owners. The Council decides within 30 days, with the option of extending that term by a further 30.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 60.10 | Radio broadcasting | A radio station. A broadcasting licence from the Audiovisual Council for each service, plus a frequency licence for the transmitter — the latter granted for the term of the broadcasting licence. |
| 60.20 | Television programming and broadcasting activities | A television station, whether it reaches the public over the air, by cable or by satellite. A broadcasting licence from the Audiovisual Council, one per media service. |

- **Licence: Broadcasting licence for a linear audiovisual media service** — Audiovisual Council, valid for 9 years. Any linear audiovisual media service — a radio or television station with a schedule. One is granted per service and it is valid from the day the Council decision is published in the Official Monitor. The fee is set by Law 160/2011: 3,250 lei, or 1,625 if the company was registered no more than a year before applying. The licence is withdrawn if the fee goes unpaid after two warnings.
- **Authorisation: Retransmission authorisation** — Audiovisual Council, valid for 10 years. Retransmitting other providers audiovisual media services to the public — cable, IP or satellite television. Issued without competition, within 30 days, on the basis of the list of retransmitted services, the agreements with their providers and the list of beneficial owners. The package of retransmitted services is approved separately, within 15 working days, and re-approved on every change.

**Who buys it:** The payer is the advertising agency, not the viewer, and budgets are allocated against measured audience share. For media service distributors — cable and IP television — the customer is the subscriber, and the package of retransmitted services must be approved separately by the Council. This is a market where entering means taking audience from someone who has held it for ten years.

**What is different about the money:** Division 60 reported sales revenue of 128.23 million lei in 2025, against 175.09 million in 2024, with 75 economic agents and 1,024 employees. In other words, all of Moldovan radio and television together earns in a year what one mid-sized software company earns, and the figure is falling. Whoever enters here enters for something other than margin.

## How the sector got here

- **1 January 2019 — Audiovisual Media Services Code 174/2018.** The code replacing the 2006 Broadcasting Code enters into force. The broadcasting licence gets its nine-year term, the retransmission authorisation its ten, and the ownership regime for media service providers is written down for the first time with named prohibitions.
- **13 May 2025 — Law 72/2025.** The new electronic communications law is published, transposing part of the European Electronic Communications Code — Directive (EU) 2018/1972. Article 127 sets its entry into force nearly eight months later, to leave time for alignment.
- **1 January 2026 — Law 72/2025.** The law takes effect and repeals the Electronic Communications Law 241/2007, except chapter VIII, which survives until 13 May 2027. The authority loses the words "electronic and information technology" from its name and becomes the National Agency for Regulation in Communications, which now presents itself as ARCOM.

## What the domain pays and how big it is

Someone employed in electronic communications earned around 21,500 lei gross a month at the end of 2025, against a national average of roughly 16,400. The figure belongs to division 61 and it is the one shown in the tiles above, because that is where nearly everyone in the domain works. In division 60 — radio and television broadcasting — pay is around 18,600.

Both sit far below the section they belong to. Information and communication shows around 37,100 lei, but that average belongs to the software companies, not to telecom operators and still less to television stations. A payroll budgeted on the section figure would be double the reality in this domain.

The two halves are not comparable in size either. Division 61 reported 279 economic agents for 2025, 4,369 employees and sales revenue of 8.6 billion lei. Division 60 reported 75 economic agents, 1,024 employees and **128.23 million lei**, down from 175.09 million in 2024.

That last figure is worth reading twice. All of the radio and television registered in Moldova earns less in a year than one mid-sized software company, and the sum fell by nearly a third in a single year. Employment in division 61 fell 3.4% against the same period a year earlier.

The practical conclusion is that this is not a domain you enter for margin. You enter it for infrastructure, which amortises over years, or for influence, which does not appear in the accounts at all.

## Why it matters that the law changed in January 2026

Until 31 December 2025 the Electronic Communications Law 241/2007 applied. From 1 January 2026 Law 72/2025 applies, transposing part of the European Electronic Communications Code. The old law was repealed the same day, with one exception: chapter VIII stays in force until 13 May 2027.

Three things changed for anyone opening a company now.

**The notification became a genuine formality.** Article 17(2) says supply is subject "only to a general authorisation, carried out free of charge in the form of a standardised notification", and paragraph (3) adds that exercising the rights flowing from it requires "no decision or explicit ruling and no other individual administrative act". There is no waiting period, unlike road transport, where the notification to the sector agency requires ten working days before the first journey.

**The authority changed its name.** The new law says "National Agency for Regulation in Communications" — without "electronic and information technology". The agency now presents itself as ARCOM. Guides and forms still writing ANRCETI describe an authority that no longer carries that name, and that is a good freshness test for any material you read about this domain.

**Licences remain only on scarce resources.** Radio frequencies and telephone numbers are state assets distributed in finite quantity, so they are licensed. The rest is not. And where the interference risk is low, the Agency may decide that a band is used under the general authorisation or under no regime at all — article 48(7) gives it that power expressly.

## What to know before you start

### In audiovisual, who owns the company matters more than what it broadcasts

This is the peculiarity of the domain and the reason a broadcasting licence file resembles no other permit file in Moldova.

Article 28 of the Audiovisual Media Services Code prohibits a named list of beneficial owners: Parliament, the President, the Government, central bodies, local authorities, publicly funded institutions and commercial organisations, **political parties and socio-political organisations**, **trade unions** and **religious cults**. The prohibition runs through intermediate companies too: a company founded by any of them may not be a beneficial owner either.

On top of that come per-person ceilings. A natural person may be the beneficial owner of at most **two television services** and at most **two radio services**. Anyone holding more than 50% of one company in the field may not hold more than 20% of another under Moldovan jurisdiction. And a person holding office in the legislative, executive or judicial administration, or an elective office in a party, has no voting rights in an audiovisual company where they are a founder or shareholder.

### Selling shares goes past the Council before it goes past the registrar

The practical consequence of article 28(11): if you want to sell a holding in a company that holds a broadcasting licence, or in the company controlling it, the buyer needs the **prior approval of the Audiovisual Council**. Not subsequent — prior. The registrar records the change in the State Register of Legal Entities only once that approval is produced.

It is a restriction a buyer used to ordinary SRL transactions does not have in mind, and it can block a sale already negotiated. The single exception is acquisition by succession, reported to the Council afterwards, within 30 days.

There is one more prohibition aimed at the structuring itself: article 28(12) forbids a company applying for or holding a licence from using a third party name in a way that circumvents the ownership rules or audiovisual pluralism. Nominees, in other words, are anticipated by the law.

### The annual report is neither optional nor an accounting document

Media service providers file an annual activity report with the Audiovisual Council **by 31 March**, on an approved form, electronically. It contains the names and citizenship of the beneficial owners, the ownership and share capital structure, the budget of the service and its sources of funding, and the delivery of the service concept over the previous year. It is published on the provider own website within three days of approval.

It is a document about ownership and funding transparency, not a financial report, and the accountant cannot complete it alone.

### The network and the programming are two authorisations, not one

A cable operator building its own network and selling a channel package needs both: the notification to the Agency for the network and the retransmission authorisation from the Audiovisual Council for the channels. Article 17(18) of Law 72/2025 says so directly — a network provider may broadcast or retransmit audiovisual programmes only after completing the authorisation procedures in the audiovisual field.

The retransmission authorisation is issued without competition, for ten years, within 30 days of the request. But the channel list is a separate document: the **package of retransmitted media services** is approved by the Council within 15 working days and re-approved whenever it changes. A package that changes often means a file that is refiled often.

### The intelligence service has a standing say

Article 17(27)–(29) requires providers of networks and services, whatever their form of ownership, to inform the Security and Intelligence Service in advance of any network change that could affect the continuity of special investigative measures, and to give **at least six months notice** of any planned modernisation or extension. The notification carries a detailed description of the technical characteristics, and the Service confirms receipt within five working days.

The six-month term is the one that catches people out. A network expansion plan has to be thought through more than half a year ahead, not for technical reasons but for compliance ones.

## Which legal form: SRL, sole trader or joint-stock

For both branches the answer is an SRL, but for different reasons.

In electronic communications the notification is filed by a legal person or a sole trader, so the form is not an obstacle. The SRL wins because liability stays limited, and infrastructure is frequently financed through credit and leasing, where the counterparty wants a legal person.

In audiovisual the SRL wins for an additional reason: the whole ownership regime in article 28 is written in terms of share capital, voting rights, shareholders and members down to the level of the natural person. A sole trader — which is not a legal person and whose holder is liable without limit — fits badly with a file in which the Council asks for the list of beneficial owners and approves every change of holding in advance.

A joint-stock company makes sense only at scale, when capital comes from several investors. It carries a disadvantage of its own here, though: the broadcasting licence must contain the identification data of shareholders down to the natural person, except for shareholders that are joint-stock companies with bearer shares or listed on international exchanges — a narrow exception an ordinary Moldovan company does not reach.

## Frequently asked questions

### Do you need a licence to supply internet in Moldova?

No. Since 1 January 2026 the supply of electronic communications networks and services rests on a general authorisation, obtained through a free notification filed with the National Agency for Regulation in Communications. Law 72/2025 says at article 17(3) that no decision, no explicit ruling and no individual administrative act is required to exercise the rights flowing from the general authorisation. A licence remains necessary only for radio frequencies and numbering resources.

### Does a messaging or calling app have to be notified?

No, not if it uses no telephone numbers. Article 17(2) of Law 72/2025 expressly removes number-independent interpersonal communications services from the general authorisation regime. A chat or calling app used between its own users files nothing. The moment it starts allocating numbers or terminating calls on public networks, it enters the regime.

### How long before an electronic communications company can start?

In theory, from the day of the notification. In practice the term that matters is the one week in which the Agency issues the standard declaration confirming entry in the public register — the document you take onward to request access rights over property or interconnection with other providers. If the Agency neither issues it nor asks for additions, tacit approval applies. The exception is the border zone, where the notification is filed 15 working days before works begin and passes through opinions from the intelligence service, the Border Police and the local authority.

### Who may not own a radio or television station?

The list is in article 28 of the Audiovisual Media Services Code and is unusually long: Parliament, the President, the Government, any central body or local authority, publicly funded institutions and commercial organisations, political parties and socio-political organisations, trade unions and religious cults. Companies founded by any of them may not be beneficial owners either. On top of that, a natural person may be the beneficial owner of at most two television services and two radio services.

### Can shares in a company holding a broadcasting licence be sold freely?

No. Article 28(11) requires the prior approval of the Audiovisual Council before anyone increases or acquires holdings in the share capital or voting rights of the licence holder or of the company controlling it. The registrar records the change in the State Register of Legal Entities only once that approval is produced. The single exception is acquisition by succession, which is reported afterwards, within 30 days.

### Which CAEM code does a cable company with its own network use?

Both branches, because both are real activities: 61.10 for the wired network and, if you also produce and broadcast your own programming, 60.20. The permits accumulate the same way: a notification to the Agency for the network and a retransmission authorisation from the Audiovisual Council for the channel package. Law 72/2025 says so directly at article 17(18) — a network provider may broadcast or retransmit audiovisual programmes only after completing the authorisation procedures in the audiovisual field.

### Do you charge VAT to a subscriber abroad?

The place of supply for electronic communications services and for radio and television broadcasting services is, under article 111(2) of the Fiscal Code, the seat or residence of the beneficiary. For a client outside the country the supply is treated as made there and falls outside the scope of Moldovan VAT; for domestic subscribers the standard rate applies.

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