Romanian documents for Ukraine: prefecture, tribunal, civil registry

The Romanian route looks simpler than it is, right up to the moment you discover that “getting an apostille in Romania” is not one address but three different institutions. And the choice between them is made by the signature on the document, not by its subject.

The second peculiarity of this route: the Romanian state issues very convenient multilingual extracts that are worth nothing for Ukraine. More on that below — it is where most of the wasted time goes.

Who brings us Romanian documents

• People who have recovered Romanian citizenship — Romanian certificates, confirmations and identity documents to be filed in Ukraine.
• Families — birth records of children born in Romania, marriage and divorce certificates for the Ukrainian civil registry.
• People who worked in Romania — employment and earnings records for the Pension Fund of Ukraine.
• Probate matters — death certificates, notarial acts, court judgments.
• Business — trade registry extracts (ONRC), articles of association and powers of attorney of Romanian companies, for a Ukrainian registrar or bank.
• Education — diplomas from Romanian universities for recognition in Ukraine.

Three apostille authorities: the signature decides

Who signed the document	Who applies the apostille
Civil status office, administrative body	county prefecture (prefectura)
Notary — notarial acts, notary-legalised translations	county notarial chamber (Camera Notarilor Publici)
Court, bailiff, trade registry	tribunal (tribunalul), on the Ministry of Justice track

This is the same principle as Italy’s split between the Prefettura and the Procura della Repubblica: what decides the competent body is whose seal is on the document, not what the document is about. Picking the wrong one costs you a trip — the request is simply not accepted.

A request to the prefecture may be filed where the document holder lives or where the issuing body is based. The Romanian consular portal notes that in some cases the holder’s spouse or a relative up to the second degree may file it — a useful option if you are already in Ukraine and the document stayed in Romania.

Romanian guides report that the prefecture’s apostille is free of charge. Timings and fees at the notarial chamber and the tribunal differ — check with the specific body.

The multilingual extract: the main time sink

Romania issues the extras multilingv, a multilingual extract from a civil status record under the Vienna Convention of 1976. In contracting states it is accepted without an apostille and without translation, and that is genuinely convenient.

Ukraine never joined that convention. The same goes for the multilingual standard forms under EU Regulation 2016/1191 — those operate between EU member states.

So for a Ukrainian registry office, notary or registrar, a multilingual extract:

• does not remove the apostille — the receiving authority looks at the stamp, not at the languages in the heading;
• does not remove the translation — Ukrainian is not among the form’s languages;
• helps only the translator — the field-by-field layout reduces the risk of error.

If you have already ordered one, do not throw it away, but do not assume it saved you anything. If you have not ordered yet and the document is bound for Ukraine, order an ordinary certificate (certificat) or a full extract — those are what the Ukrainian registry works with.

Is an apostille needed at all

Ukraine and Romania are bound by the Treaty on legal assistance and legal relations in civil matters: signed on 30 January 2002, ratified by Law of Ukraine No. 2822-IV, and in force since 2006 according to legal databases. Ukrainian lists place it among the treaties that exempt official documents from legalisation. Layered on top, since 9 February 2023, is Cabinet Resolution No. 107: during martial law and for six months afterwards, documents are accepted without special certification if that was the practice as of 24 February 2022.

And yet every commercial page sells the apostille as mandatory. The reason is not a conspiracy but a caveat from the Ministry of Justice: the wording of these articles differs between treaties, some of them cover only documents exchanged between the parties’ competent authorities, and where a treaty does not reach, reciprocity applies — in which case the document is accepted only with an apostille or consular legalisation.

The practical rule: ask the authority, preferably in writing. No answer — get the apostille. It is never wrong; it is only sometimes unnecessary.

Certificates issued before 1998

Romanian guidance limits apostilles to original civil status certificates issued after 1998. An older form will not be stamped. The way out is the same as with Soviet-era forms in Ukraine: order a replacement certificate from the primăria of the place of registration and apostille that one. It is a separate step and separate time — build it into the plan, especially if the Ukrainian filing has a deadline.

CNP, diacritics and two spellings of one surname

Romanian documents carry a CNP (cod numeric personal), a 13-digit personal code encoding sex and date of birth. It is carried over character by character in the translation: a Ukrainian authority matches the person by it just as it does by name, and one transposed digit creates a discrepancy.

The second failure point is the diacritics: ă, â, î, ș, ț. Typical scenarios:

• “ș” and “ț” typed with a cedilla instead of a comma (ş, ţ) — they look like different letters across documents, and in scanned text they sometimes vanish altogether.
• A Romanianised given name. On a Romanian certificate Olena quite legitimately becomes Elena, and the surname may be written in Romanian orthography. To the Ukrainian registry that is a different person if the Ukrainian passport says otherwise.

How Ukrainian authorities treat spelling discrepancies, and what to do about them, is covered separately in name mismatch across documents. In the translation we keep the spelling that already appears in your Ukrainian documents and do not change it between orders.

Romanian or Moldovan

In the price list it is one line: Romanian (Moldovan). In procedure they are two different states. A Romanian document is apostilled by a Romanian body; a Moldovan one by Moldova, and Ukraine has its own legal-assistance treaty with Moldova, whose Article 15 the Ministry of Justice cites directly. The route is planned separately even when the translator is the same. If you are unsure which document you have, send a scan — the form itself shows it.

Court judgments and corporate extracts

A Romanian judgment does not become effective in Ukraine through translation alone: there is a separate recognition procedure, which we set out in foreign court decisions in Ukraine. ONRC extracts and the articles of association of Romanian companies follow the general logic of EU corporate paperwork — see EU corporate documents for Ukraine, which explains what a registrar checks in the translation of an extract.

What Ukrainian law requires of the translation

A Ukrainian authority accepts a foreign document together with a Ukrainian translation whose accuracy, or whose translator’s signature, has been certified in the established manner. In practice, for the civil registry, a notary, a registrar or a court, that means a notarized translation. A Romanian traducere legalizată made in Romania does not substitute for a Ukrainian notary: the notary certifies a translation by a translator whose qualification they can verify.

Translation from Romanian (Moldovan) starts at UAH 450 per standard page (1,800 characters with spaces), notarization is UAH 400 per document and the agency stamp UAH 100. The full price list is on the prices page. The whole text of the document is translated, including the apostille and the annotations on the reverse.

When documents travel the other way — from Ukraine to Romanian authorities — you need to obtain an apostille on the Ukrainian document. The overall picture of our work with the country is on the Romania country page.

Common mistakes

• Looking for a single apostille authority. There are three, and the signature decides.
• Taking a trade registry extract to the prefecture. That is the tribunal’s track.
• Counting on the multilingual extract. For Ukraine it removes neither apostille nor translation.
• Trying to apostille a certificate issued before 1998. Get a replacement from the primăria first.
• Losing a diacritic or transposing a CNP digit. To a Ukrainian authority that is a mismatch in the person’s data.
• Confusing a Romanian document with a Moldovan one. Different states, different bodies, different treaties.
• Ordering the translation in Romania. A Ukrainian authority will almost always reject it.
• Not asking the authority about the apostille. The treaty and Resolution No. 107 sometimes make it unnecessary.

How we handle it

We start by establishing where you are filing the document and who signed it: the first decides whether an apostille is needed, the second decides which Romanian body to approach. Then we translate directly from Romanian, carry the CNP and the diacritics over character by character, align the spelling of names with your Ukrainian documents, have the translation notarized and hand over a package ready to file.

For civil status records that means birth certificate translation and marriage certificate translation; for court matters, court decision translation; for extracts and articles of association, corporate document translation; for larger legal volumes, legal translation.

Send the scans and the name of the authority asking for them, and you will have a quote in 15 minutes.