Romania has climbed eight positions to the 42nd place in PwC’s Paying Taxes 2018 ranking, which measures the ease of paying taxes for a typical company in 190 economies around the world.

This is Romania’s best position ever. The country has reduced the total fiscal burden and has introduced the possibility to pay taxes online.

Romania has become the best-ranking country in the region, except for the Baltic countries. By comparison, several countries in the region have gone down in the ranking. Croatia, for example, dropped from the 49th place to the 95th position. Hungary ranked 93rd, down from 77th in the previous report.

An average company in Romania needs to pay 14 taxes every year, compared to a global average of 24 taxes and a EU average of 12 taxes a year. The total tax rate, which measures the share of taxes and contributions paid by a firm as a percentage of profit, was of 38.4% in Romania in this year’s edition, below the EU average (39.6%) and the global one (40.5%).

When taking into consideration the number of hours necessary to comply with the tax legislation, Romania is one of the best performing states in CEE, with 163 hours per year, compared with an EU average of 161 hours and a global average of 240 hours.

The Paying Taxes ranking is part of the World Bank’s Doing Business annual report. It is one of the most watched indicators when investors decide on their global investment strategy. Romania ranked 50th last year.

The Paying Taxes 2018 report uses fiscal indicators valid for 2016.

editor@romania-insider.com