Associate loan to an SRL in 2026: bank transfer, 10% tax on the day interest is paid, and CASS from RON 24,300

On Thursday 15 October 2026, a transfer from your personal account into the SRL account is not, by itself, a dividend, a salary, or an increase of share capital. The dividends guide explains the 16% tax and the Law no. 239/2025 block when you take profit out. The cash-ceiling guide explains why the same loan may not pass through the cash register. The sole-associate guide says a contract with your own company is void without a written instrument. None of them answers how you lend to the company, on which day you pay the 10% on interest, or from what net amount health-insurance contribution (CASS) appears.

The five searches of this URL: (1) a loan from an associate to an SRL in 2026, by written contract and bank transfer, (2) 10% tax on interest, withheld and paid on the day you pay the interest, not on the 25th, (3) CASS on interest, with thresholds of RON 24,300 / 48,600 / 97,200 anchored to the RON 4,050 minimum wage of 1 January 2026, (4) repayment of principal is not a dividend, but Law no. 239/2025 can stop it, (5) a capital contribution versus a loan. This is not a guide to whether the interest is deductible, and it is not a Form 100 calendar for the micro regime.

An associate may lend to the SRL. For a sole associate, art. 15 of Companies Law no. 31/1990 requires every contract between the company and the sole associate to be in writing, on pain of absolute nullity. A verbal arrangement of the kind «I will put in RON 20,000 and you will give it back» does not create a loan. The sole associate’s decision, under art. 196^1, is a separate paper from the contract: the sole-associate guide treats that decision. With several associates, the absolute nullity in art. 15 is the sole-associate rule; a written contract and a resolution are still needed, because the cash ban and the tax on interest do not depend on how many associates you have.

Art. 4(4) of Law no. 70/2015, in the form given by GEO no. 115/2023, is categorical: receipts and repayments of loans between an SRL and individuals are made only by non-cash payment instruments. There is no leftover RON 10,000 that is «allowed». The fine is 25% of the whole amount, at least RON 500, and the High Court, in ruling HP no. 51/2026, tied the base to the entire cash operation, not to a ceiling that does not exist. The example and the arithmetic are in the cash guide. On Thursday 15 October 2026, RON 20,000 from the associate’s personal account into the company’s payment account is the loan principal. It is not revenue and it is not a dividend. Without the company’s account there is nowhere to receive the sum: new companies have 60 working days to open one, in the bank-account guide.

In the contract you write the parties, the amount, the currency, the date the money is handed over, the repayment date or the rule for demanding repayment, and either an interest rate or an express clause that the loan bears no interest. The 10% in the next section is the tax, not a mandatory interest rate. The Fiscal Code does not publish a market percentage for a «founder’s loan in October 2026». Art. 11 allows ANAF to adjust transactions between affiliated persons to market value; an associate who holds control is an affiliated person. Do not copy a percentage from a blog post. The debt is recorded in the company’s double-entry books. Who may keep those books is in the accounting guide, not in this contract.

Interest paid to an individual under a civil contract is taxed at 10% of the amount, and the tax is final. Art. 97(2) of Law no. 227/2015 says that, for loans granted under civil contracts, the payer calculates the tax when the interest is paid, and the tax is paid at the moment the interest is paid. The 25th of the following month, in the same paragraph, is for term deposits and savings instruments. Dividends, in art. 97(7), are at 16% with a deadline of the 25th of the following month — the calendar in the dividends guide. 25 October 2026 is a Sunday, so many returns move to Monday 26 October. That move does not postpone the 10% on interest you pay today.

Worked example on Thursday 15 October 2026. Principal of RON 20,000, transferred the same day, with no tax on the principal. The contract provides gross interest of RON 1,000, also paid today. Withholding is 10% × 1,000 = RON 100, paid to the state budget the same day. The associate receives RON 900. Art. 132(1) ties calculation, withholding, payment, and declaration of the tax to the payment deadline, so again to the day of the interest. Repaying the RON 20,000 later is not interest and does not fall under paragraph (2). If the contract says no interest is due, there is no interest payment and no 10% on that day. If you write «with interest» and omit the rate, the gap is civil law, not a flat 10%. The 10% applies to interest you actually pay.

Art. 132(2) adds a return for each beneficiary, by the last day of February inclusive of the following year, for the expired year. For interest paid in 2026, that last day is Sunday 28 February 2027, so the next working day is Monday 1 March 2027. ANAF applied the same move in 2026: the Cluj regional directorate, in its notice of 20 February 2026, moved Form 205 off 28 February and 1 March, both non-working, to 2 March 2026. Form 205 does not replace the payment on 15 October. On the micro 1% regime, interest you pay does not reduce the tax, because the base is revenue, not profit — the rule is in the micro guide. This article does not calculate whether the interest is a deductible expense under corporate profit tax.

The SRL does not withhold CASS from this interest. The associate may owe CASS of 10% on a fixed base if the year’s income under art. 155(1)(c)–(h) of the Fiscal Code reaches 6 gross minimum wages. Art. 135^1(3), amended by GEO no. 128/2024 (Official Gazette no. 1125 of 11 November 2024) and applicable to income from 2025 onward, uses the minimum wage in force on 1 January of the year the income is realized, even if the wage changes during the year. On 1 January 2026 that wage was RON 4,050. The rise to RON 4,325 from 1 July 2026, by Government Decision no. 146/2026, does not move these thresholds. 6 × 4,050 = RON 24,300. 12 × 4,050 = RON 48,600. 24 × 4,050 = RON 97,200.

Under art. 170(4)(d), the ceiling takes the interest paid, reduced by the tax withheld: the RON 900, not the RON 1,000. Dividends also enter net of the 16% withholding, for distributions from 2018. Rent and the other letters (c)–(h) join the same pool. Salary CASS on Form 112 is a different base. Below RON 24,300 you do not owe CASS on this pool. From RON 24,300 inclusive up to but not including RON 48,600, the base is RON 24,300 and CASS is RON 2,430. From RON 48,600 inclusive up to but not including RON 97,200, the base is RON 48,600 and CASS is RON 4,860. From RON 97,200 upward, the base is RON 97,200 and CASS is RON 9,720. The word «inclusive» in art. 170(3) sits on the lower edge of each band.

If the only income in this pool in 2026 is net interest of RON 900, you are under RON 24,300 and you do not owe this CASS. If in the same year you also receive net dividends of RON 24,000, the pool becomes RON 24,900, so the first band, and CASS is RON 2,430, not 10% of RON 24,900. The associate declares it on the single return, Form 212, by Tuesday 25 May 2027. The day is a working day: Orthodox Easter in 2027 is Sunday 2 May, and Pentecost is 20–21 June, so 25 May does not move. The company does not pay the RON 2,430 through Form 112. How net dividends join the same ceiling is developed in the dividends guide; here only the interest net of 10% comes in.

Repaying the RON 20,000 is payment of a debt, not a distribution of profit. It is not taxed at 16% under art. 97(7), and it does not repeat the 10% on interest, as long as the sum is principal and the contract says so. Cash stays forbidden on repayment as well: art. 4(4) of Law no. 70/2015 covers giving the money back, not only receiving it. A transfer of the whole amount is the path described in the cash guide.

Law no. 239/2025 blocks repayment of loans received from associates when net assets are below 50% of subscribed share capital, until net assets are restored. On share capital of RON 500, half is RON 250. The fine for a repayment in that situation is RON 10,000–200,000. If, two years after the financial year in which the loss was found, net assets are still not restored and the company still owes the loan, the claim is converted into share capital, with a fine band of RON 40,000–300,000. The worked figures and the restoration deadline are in the dividends guide. A correct bank transfer does not repair net assets below the line.

Do not label a dividend as «loan repayment» to avoid 16%. Recharacterisation remains an inspection risk. The other ways to take money out — a mandate or a salary — are in the director remuneration guide, with CAS 25%, CASS 10%, and income tax 10%, which are not the 10% on interest. Waiving the debt is not a silent repayment: cancelling the claim is a separate act and can create income at the company. Do not do it in a message. This article does not compute that income.

A capital contribution is equity. A loan is a liability. The contribution goes into the articles of association, and an increase after incorporation is a filing at the Trade Register (ONRC). The loan is not filed there and does not change the tax identification number. The RON 500 and RON 5,000 thresholds in Law no. 239/2025 are in the share-capital guide. Filing the increase is in the ONRC amendments guide. Do not record the loan as «capital paid in», and do not record the capital paid at incorporation as an associate’s loan.

A loan, if Law no. 239/2025 allows repayment, comes back without a new ONRC file. Share capital does not leave by the same transfer: a capital reduction is a company-law procedure. Art. 97(5) taxes at 10% the part of a capital reduction that is not a return of contributions, by the 25th of the month after the distribution. Returning the actual contribution is the exception in that paragraph. Mixing the labels makes a transfer of RON 20,000 look either like a hidden capital increase or like a hidden distribution.

Three paths, on Thursday 15 October 2026, for the same RON 20,000. Path A: a loan, a contract, a bank transfer, a debt in the books, later repayment only if net assets allow it, interest only if the contract provides it. Path B: a capital increase, an associates’ decision, updated articles, an ONRC filing, money that is equity, not a debt you can call next month. Path C: a dividend, which needs distributable profit and 16%, in the dividends guide. You choose the path in the contract, before the transfer, not in the narrative on the payment order after the money has left.

Walk through the steps before the transfer. The figures are those in force on Thursday 15 October 2026. The 25th of the month is the calendar for dividends and for deposits, not for interest on a civil contract.

Tavoris prepares the SRL incorporation dossier for the Trade Register, from the identity document and the registered-office contract. It does not draft the loan agreement, draw up the sole associate’s decision, make the transfer, withhold the 10% tax, or file Form 205 or the single return.

After the certificate, the account that can receive the loan is in the bank-account guide, and recording the debt belongs to the person who keeps the books, in the mandatory-accounting guide. This article covers only the line between a loan, capital, and a dividend, plus the tax and the CASS on interest.

Informational guide as of 15 October 2026. Sources checked on that date: Companies Law no. 31/1990, art. 15 and art. 196^1; Law no. 70/2015, art. 4(4), in the form of GEO no. 115/2023, and High Court ruling HP no. 51/2026; Law no. 227/2015, art. 11, art. 97(2), (5) and (7), art. 132, art. 135^1(3) as amended by GEO no. 128/2024, art. 155(1)(c)–(h) and art. 170; Law no. 239/2025 for the block on repayment when net assets are below 50% of share capital; Government Decision no. 146/2026 for the RON 4,325 minimum wage from 1 July 2026, which does not change the CASS threshold anchored to RON 4,050. The Fiscal Code does not fix the contract interest rate. Check legislatie.just.ro and anaf.ro. This is not tax, accounting, or legal advice.