Romanian ID card (buletin): how to get a Romanian electronic identity card

The Romanian identity card (carte de identitate, commonly called the buletin) used to be available only to citizens with a home address in Romania. That changed on 27 March 2025. Since then, a Romanian citizen who lives abroad can apply for an electronic identity card without a Romanian address. The card is issued in Romania, at a population records office, and not yet at consulates. For someone who has just become a Romanian citizen by descent, it is therefore usually the second document, after the Romanian passport.

This article explains what the card is, who can get it, what has to happen before you apply, and how it compares with the passport. Throughout, it follows one example. Imagine Daniel, a British citizen who lives in London. His grandfather was born in 1931 in Bălți, in Bessarabia, which was part of Romania at the time. Daniel has recently taken the citizenship oath and holds his Romanian citizenship certificate. He wants to know whether he needs a buletin, and how to get one.

What is the Romanian ID card?

The Romanian ID card is the national identity document of a Romanian citizen. Inside Romania it is the document people show at banks, notaries and public offices; outside Romania it is a travel document within the European Union. There are two versions:

• the electronic identity card (carte electronică de identitate), which carries a chip with the holder’s data and two fingerprints. It is valid for travel in the EU;
• the simple identity card (carte de identitate simplă), without fingerprints, which proves identity in Romania but is not a travel document.

The electronic card is the one that matters for citizens abroad. The simple card is tied to an address in Romania, so it is not available to someone who lives elsewhere.

Can you get a Romanian ID card if you live abroad?

Yes. Government Emergency Ordinance 17/2025, in force since 27 March 2025, added Article 28¹ to Government Emergency Ordinance 97/2005, the law that governs Romanian identity documents. It provides that a Romanian citizen who lives abroad may request an electronic identity card without a domicile in Romania. The change followed a 2024 judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (case C-491/21), which concerned a Romanian citizen living in France who could not obtain an identity card because he had no address in Romania.

On a card issued this way, no address is printed. The chip records either the holder’s Romanian address or the words fără domiciliu în România, meaning “no domicile in Romania”.

To show that you live abroad, you bring one of two things:

• a valid Romanian passport that records your country of domicile, which is the passport issued to citizens living abroad; or
• original documents from the authorities of your country of residence that prove you live there, with a certified Romanian translation.

You also need a verified account on the Romanian Interior Ministry’s online portal, hub.mai.gov.ro, which is where appointments are booked. This requirement does not apply to applicants under 18.

For Daniel, this means that he does not have to register an address in Romania, or ask a relative there to host him on paper, in order to get a buletin.

Where to apply: in Romania, not yet at a consulate

The electronic ID card is currently issued only in Romania. You book an appointment through hub.mai.gov.ro and attend any local population records office (SPCLEP), in any town or sector, regardless of where you have lived before.

The law also allows Romanian consulates to issue the card, but only “from the date when the necessary technical conditions are in place”. In July 2026 the Interior Ministry stated that its own testing had been completed in April 2026 and that the launch at consulates depended on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As of October 2026 the service has not started, and the Romanian consulate in London states that identity cards are issued only in Romania.

In practice, therefore, a citizen abroad gets the card during a visit to Romania. You need to attend in person, because your photograph and fingerprints are taken, and the card cannot be applied for through a representative. According to the Interior Ministry, the electronic card is issued within 5 to 30 calendar days. The fee is shown on the booking portal when you make the appointment.

Before you apply: a Romanian birth certificate

Romanian identity documents are issued on the basis of Romanian civil records. A British, American or Israeli birth certificate is not enough on its own: it first has to be entered in the Romanian civil register, a procedure called transcription (transcriere). Once this is done, you receive a Romanian birth certificate and a Romanian personal identification number (CNP), which every Romanian identity document carries.

Citizens who have never had a home address in Romania apply for transcription to the civil status office of Bucharest’s Sector 1. The request can be made in person or by a representative with a notarised power of attorney, which means it can be arranged from abroad. The office’s own processing time is 30 to 90 days; when the request is made through a representative in Bucharest, it is sensible to allow about three and a half months. If you are married, your marriage certificate is transcribed in the same way.

The same Romanian birth certificate is needed for the Romanian passport, so in practice transcription is done once, straight after the oath, and serves both documents.

ID card or passport: which comes first?

For a citizen living abroad, the passport usually comes first. The two documents differ in where you can get them and where they take you:

	Romanian passport for citizens abroad (CRDS)	Electronic ID card without domicile
Where to apply	Romanian consulate or any passport office in Romania	Population records office in Romania only (for now)
Valid for travel	Worldwide	EU and some other European countries
Romanian address needed	No	No
Requirement for citizens abroad	Must be obtained within three years of receiving the citizenship certificate	Optional

The passport can be obtained without leaving your country of residence, and it is also one of the documents that proves you live abroad when you later apply for the ID card. That is why the usual order is transcription, then passport, then ID card on a trip to Romania. How to get a Romanian passport by descent describes the passport stage step by step.

For Daniel, this means applying for the passport at the Romanian consulate in London first. When he next visits Romania, he can book an appointment at any population records office and get the ID card with the passport as proof that he lives abroad.

How long the card is valid

The validity of the electronic ID card depends on the holder’s age when it is issued:

Age of holder	Validity
Under 2	2 years
2 to 14	4 years
14 to 18	5 years
18 to 70	10 years
Over 70	No expiry

Fingerprints are taken from the age of 12.

Travelling to the UK with a Romanian ID card

Within the European Union, a Romanian electronic ID card can be used instead of a passport. The United Kingdom is different. Since 1 October 2021, the UK accepts EU identity cards at the border only from people who hold one of a short list of documents, mainly settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, an EUSS family permit or a Frontier Worker permit. Anyone else, including a British citizen who also holds Romanian citizenship, travels to the UK on a passport.

For Daniel, who is British, the Romanian ID card is useful for travel within the EU and for dealing with Romanian offices, but not for entering the UK.

How ORIGO helps after citizenship

Once the oath has been taken, the remaining steps are administrative, but they take place in Romanian and in a set order: transcription of the birth and marriage certificates in Bucharest, the passport application, and then, if the client wants one, the ID card appointment in Romania. ORIGO arranges the transcription through a representative in Bucharest and checks the documents and translations before each appointment. When a client applies for the passport in Bucharest, the ID card appointment can be planned for the same trip. If you are still at an earlier stage, in person in Romania or at a consulate explains which steps of the process require you to be present.

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Wherever you are in the process — still researching your family’s history, waiting for the decision, or already holding a citizenship certificate — we can tell you what the next step involves. Write to us with the names, places and dates you know, and we will take it from there.