Romanian citizenship: schemes, scams and red flags

The short answer

There is no lawful way around the requirements: not the language, not filing in person, not proving descent. Anything sold as “sorting the problem out” is either a scam for your money or participation in forgery — for which the applicant answers, not the intermediary. Since 2025 the ANC has an express power to verify the authenticity of documents, including in cases filed years earlier.

The four most common schemes

1. “Ancestry to order.” They promise to find or “arrange” an ancestor for people who have none: a birth record for an ancestor in the right district, a fabricated chain of descent. Romanian prosecutors have pursued cases involving thousands of passports obtained this way. For the client it ends in annulment, criminal proceedings and an entry ban.

2. Forged or “improved” documents. Altered dates, added entries, certificates from archives that do not exist. Today this is the most expensive kind of mistake: a suspicion of forgery triggers a separate check across the whole file and adds up to six months to the timeline — and if confirmed, it ends in refusal.

3. A “guaranteed result” and “expediting”. They claim influence over the commission, “their own channels”, a decision within a fixed time. There is no official way to expedite: cases are allocated in order, and the only thing that genuinely shortens the timeline is a properly assembled file that prompts no queries.

4. Fake citizenship certificates. A person is handed a “citizenship document” the ANC never issued. It usually surfaces at the passport stage — when the money is long spent and years have passed. It is trivial to check: the authenticity of the order and the certificate is visible in the ANC’s official lists.

Red flags when choosing a provider

• They promise a result or quote an exact “turnkey” timeline.
• They say the language certificate is “not a problem” or that they will “make” one.
• They offer to file by power of attorney, without you being present.
• They ask for the full amount upfront, with no contract and no breakdown by stage.
• They will not name the legal entity, its address and registration details.
• Asked “what if there is no basis?”, they answer “we will find a basis”.
• They do not show the sources of the requirements — they work on “we know how it is done”.

How to check it yourself in 20 minutes

1. Open cetatenie.just.ro and compare the requirements you are being told with the list of documents for your article.
2. Check whether the language centre offered is among the issuers the ANC accepts (universities with the “An pregătitor” programme, the ILR, the ICR, Romanian cultural institutes abroad).
3. Ask for the case number and check it in the Stadiu dosar section — if the file is “submitted” but the number appears in no list, that is worth a conversation.
4. Ask for the contract and look at what it promises: support, or “a result”. A promise of a result in this field is a sign of a scheme, not of confidence.

What the client, specifically, risks

Responsibility for the content of the file lies with the applicant: they sign the application and three declarations personally, on their own responsibility. The intermediary appears nowhere in the case. So the consequences of forgery — refusal, annulment of citizenship already granted, prosecution and an entry ban — fall on the client.

How we work

We are an information and consulting company: we prepare documents, check the file and provide support at every stage. We do not file documents on behalf of clients and do not represent them before state authorities — the decision is the ANC’s. If there is no basis or the timeline is unrealistic, we say so before you pay: a refusal at the door is cheaper than a lost year.

Frequently asked questions

I am being promised a passport within a year. Does that happen? Not under article 11. Review times are measured in years, and this is visible in the public data on case movement.

I have already paid a company that promised to “sort it out”. What now? Stop sending money, gather the correspondence and documents, check whether the case exists at all, and judge the situation by what was actually filed in your name.

Can I check whether my file really was submitted? Yes — by the case number in the Stadiu dosar section. If you were never given a number, that is already an answer.