EPBD (Directive EU 2024/1275) transposition in Romania: what has been transposed and what is missing

Directive (EU) 2024/1275 on the energy performance of buildings, known in the field as the "recast EPBD", was published in the Official Journal of the EU on 8 May 2024 and has been in force since 28 May 2024 (the 20th day after publication, art. 37). For energy auditors and design verifiers in Romania, the practical question is not "what does the directive provide", but a simpler and more uncomfortable one: has any of it reached the Romanian legislation that we apply today? The answer, verified directly from official sources on 24 September 2026 (the verification date in the page header), is "only a small part, and that late and with a detour through the Constitutional Court".

What the recast EPBD is, in brief

The recast EPBD is the third generation of the EU framework directive on the energy performance of buildings (after the 2002 and 2010 versions). The European Commission summarises its core as follows: new buildings must become "zero-emission buildings" and be "solar-ready" (structurally prepared for photovoltaic or solar thermal panels); Member States must phase out financial incentives for individual fossil-fuel boilers, with a first milestone already passed — the end, at the latest from 1 January 2025, of incentives for new stand-alone fossil-fuel boilers; and for non-residential buildings, mandatory minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) are introduced, calculated on thresholds set at national level, which must bring the worst-performing 16% of buildings under the threshold by 2030 and 26% by 2033 (art. 9 para. (1)). The directive also introduces "renovation passports" — guidance documents for owners who want to renovate for energy in stages.

The transposition deadline for most of the directive was 29 May 2026; for the specific provision on incentives for fossil-fuel boilers (art. 17 para. 15), the deadline was earlier, 1 January 2025. Both dates are officially confirmed by the European Commission.

What changes, in practice, for auditors and verifiers in Romania

Here it is important to separate what the directive provides from what already applies in Romania — the two do not coincide, and this confusion is exactly what can trip up an auditor issuing energy performance certificates (CPE) today.

The framework that Zephren and, in general, the whole Romanian certification market use now — Mc 001-2022 for the calculation methodology (approved by Order MDLPA 16/2023; the certificate model is in chapter 5 of the methodology), Law 372/2005 (republished and amended by Law 238/2024, in force from 25 July 2024) as the legal basis, Order MDLPA 348/2026 for the regulation on the attestation of auditors — does not yet contain the elements specific to the recast EPBD: the current Romanian legislation has no "zero-emission building" definition aligned with the new directive, there are no mandatory minimum performance standards (MEPS) for non-residential buildings, the renovation passport has only a definition in Law 372/2005 (art. 3 point 38) and a mention as an "optional system" (art. 4 para. (1) lit. c)), without an operational system under art. 12 of the EPBD, and "solar-ready" type requirements for new buildings are not transposed. These elements will become relevant for auditors only once the act of full transposition has been adopted — and, as the next section shows, this act does not yet exist, at the verification date, not even as a public draft.

The only piece of the recast EPBD already translated into Romanian law is the ban on public financial incentives for individual fossil-fuel boilers.

The REAL status of transposition in Romania

The situation, reconstructed from official documents:

1. Only art. 17 para. (15) has been transposed, and late. The Government adopted Ordinance no. 16 of 21 August 2025, which transposes only this provision (the ban on financial incentives for new fossil-fuel boilers) and amends GEO 18/2009 on increasing the energy performance of residential apartment blocks. The legal deadline was 1 January 2025 — GO 16/2025 came almost eight months late.

2. Romania has already been the target of infringement for this delay. On 27 March 2025, the European Commission opened infringement proceedings against Romania and other Member States, including Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Austria, Poland and Slovenia, precisely for failing to transpose art. 17 para. (15) on time.

3. The law approving GO 16/2025 went through a constitutionality review. The Chamber of Deputies supplemented the approval law with a derogation allowing the authorities to still grant incentives for fossil-fuel boilers for another two years. President Nicușor Dan referred the matter to the Constitutional Court on 27 April 2026, invoking the primacy of EU law and the risk of sanctions. The CCR rejected the referral on 15 July 2026, by majority vote — the law, with the two-year derogation included, remains in force.

4. The general deadline of 29 May 2026 was missed — by Romania and by all the other 26 Member States. The European Commission officially confirmed, on 15 July 2026, that none of the 27 Member States had notified a full transposition of the directive on time, and sent letters of formal notice to all of them, granting an additional two-month period to reply before considering a reasoned opinion.

5. At the verification date, there is no public draft law for full transposition. The annual plan for transposing EU directives for 2026 (published by the General Secretariat of the Government) indicated for this act an internal deadline of 19 December 2025, which has also been exceeded. A direct check, on 24 September 2026, of the MDLPA page with draft normative acts of general interest shows no draft related to Law 372/2005 or to EPBD transposition; nor did the Government meeting of 18 September 2026 include any act on this subject. At the Romania Efficiency Forum on 25 May 2026, the topic was discussed explicitly as an open "challenge", not as a closed process.

Honest conclusion: on 24 September 2026, Romania has transposed, out of a directive with dozens of substantial articles, a single narrow provision — the partial ban on incentives for fossil-fuel boilers, with a two-year derogation validated by the CCR — and is officially in infringement proceedings from the European Commission for the rest of the directive, with no publicly visible draft law to cover the gap.

What this means, in practice, for those who issue CPEs today

For auditors working now: the calculation and certificate-issuing rules have not changed because of the EPBD. The legal basis remains Mc 001-2022 and Order MDLPA 16/2023, and the attestation classes A→G, the methodology and the CPE format are those already known. At the verification date there was no additional obligation derived from the recast EPBD that an auditor should apply to an issued certificate.

What is worth actively monitoring, because it may change the workflow once adopted: the draft law for full transposition (when it becomes public), any new requirements for non-residential buildings linked to minimum performance standards, and any renovation-passport type mechanism that could become part of the documentation associated with a CPE. Until then, the only area in which legislation has actually moved is the financing of fossil-fuel boilers — relevant mainly for auditors involved in thermal rehabilitation programmes for apartment blocks, not for the standard certification workflow.

Zephren generates CPEs in accordance with the regulations in force — discover the program.