Unaffiliated deputies Dumitrița Albu and Aurora Tăsică Simu, of the UNIT party, on Wednesday, 21 October, tabled a bill for an effective 0% VAT rate on hygiene products. The legal form is an exemption with the right of deduction. This is a bill tabled, not a law in force.

Albu’s communique lists sanitary pads and other menstrual products, children’s nappies, incontinence products and condoms. Wall-Street.ro also names other initiators: Andrei Csillag, Gheorghe-Petru Pîclișan and Mariana Vârgă. The change would complete Law 227/2015 on the Fiscal Code. Until a vote and promulgation, the shelf rate does not change.

Albu says Directive (EU) 2022/542 allows member states preferential tax treatment for certain essential goods. The directive allows, it does not require. The government would, in the usual procedure, issue an opinion. Albu asks for a favourable one. That is a request, not an opinion issued today.

The exemption would, if it passed, apply at the point of sale, whoever buys, without papers on income, age or health. Classification would follow objective characteristics, not only single-use or material. Those are provisions in the bill, not in the Official Gazette.

The initiator rejects the populism label: she is not asking for privileges or social aid, but for VAT not to be charged on basic needs. That is her argument. A tabled bill can be rejected, amended or buried in committee.

Until Parliament passes it and it appears in the Official Gazette, VAT stays. A bill tabled, not a law.

Image: Sludge G, Palace of the Parliament from Bulevardul Unirii, June 1996, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons; the palace, not a photograph of the 21 October 2026 filing.

Sources consulted: Bill tabled in Parliament to remove VAT on several hygiene products - Digi24; Five deputies ask for VAT to be removed from condoms and other hygiene goods - Wall-Street.ro, 21 October 2026.