According to Eurostat, in 2024 foreign-controlled companies employed about 1.31 million people, 27.5% of persons employed in the business economy. They are 3.0% of companies.
According to the National Bank of Romania, companies with foreign direct investment accounted for 73.3% of the country's goods exports in 2024.
By our calculation from Eurostat data for 2024: about €27,100 per person employed at a foreign-controlled company, against about €12,900 at a domestic company.
According to the National Bank, the stock of foreign direct investment in Romania reached €125 billion at the end of 2024. Germany leads with 14.9%.
Carrefour sold its 478 stores in Romania to Pavăl Holding, owned by the founders of Dedeman. According to EY, the deal was completed on 30 June 2026.
Western brands in Romania: the short answer
Western brands are today a central part of Romania's economy. According to Eurostat, in 2024 there were about 31,400 foreign-controlled companies in Romania. That is 3.0% of businesses in the business economy, but they employed 27.5% of everyone working in it, produced 40.9% of value added, and paid 44.4% of all personnel costs. According to the National Bank of Romania, companies with foreign direct investment account for 73.3% of the country's goods exports.
And money flows in the other direction too. In 2026 Carrefour Romania passed into Romanian ownership, that of the owners of the Dedeman chain. Dacia, the symbol of successful privatisation, produced almost 300,000 cars at Mioveni in 2025, even though Renault's plant in Tangier, Morocco, overtook it for the first time. And part of the foreign companies' profits is reinvested in Romania, with the rest distributed to their owners.
In plain words: an average foreign company in Romania pays a worker roughly twice what an average local company does. Most people work for local companies, and Romanian groups are already starting to buy for themselves.
In numbers: how much of the economy is in foreign hands
| Indicator, 2024 | Foreign-controlled companies | Domestic companies |
|---|---|---|
| Number of companies | 31,392 | 999,211 |
| Persons employed | 1,310,126 | 3,458,002 |
| Value added (€ million) | 62,108 | 89,614 |
| Value added per person employed (€ thousand) | 47.4 | 25.9 |
| Personnel costs per person employed (€ thousand, our calculation) | About 27.1 | About 12.9 |
Source: Eurostat, foreign affiliates database (fats_activ), business economy excluding the public sector. The last row is our calculation: personnel costs divided by the number of persons employed. Note that "persons employed" also includes owners of small businesses who draw no wage, so the actual pay gap may be smaller.
According to the National Bank, the stock of foreign direct investment in Romania reached €125 billion at the end of 2024. 65.4% of it is registered in the Bucharest-Ilfov region, and by country of the ultimate investor Germany leads with 14.9%, followed by Austria (11.3%), France (10.3%) and the United States (6.7%). On the gap between Bucharest and the rest of the country, see our article on GDP per head in EU regions.
Privatisation: who bought what, and for how much
Most of the large industrial assets passed into foreign hands in the decade and a half after 1989. We wrote about the transition to a market economy itself in our article on 1989. These are the deals that shaped industry:
| Year | What was sold | To whom | Price, per the sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | The car plant in Craiova | Daewoo | $156 million for a majority stake |
| 1999 | 51% of Dacia | Renault | $50 million, plus a commitment to invest more than $200 million by 2003 |
| 2001 | The Sidex steelworks in Galați | Lakshmi Mittal's LNM Holdings | The plant then employed about 28,000 people |
| 2004 | 51% of Petrom | OMV | €669 million for 33.34%, plus a capital increase of €830 million |
| 2006 | 61.88% of BCR bank | Erste | €3.75 billion |
| 2008 | The Craiova plant (after Daewoo's bankruptcy) | Ford | No price found |
| 2022 | Ford Craiova | Turkey's Ford Otosan | €575 million, plus up to €140 million subject to conditions |
What can be said from the sources: the plants passed to owners who committed to invest in them, and most of them still operate today.
Cars: Dacia and Ford, plants on a European scale
Under Renault, Dacia became one of the best-known plants in Europe. According to Puterea.ro, in 2025 the Mioveni plant produced 297,182 cars, the third fall in a row, from 322,086 in 2023. For the first time, Renault's plant in Tangier produced more: 299,395. According to Renault's website, 6,096 people worked at the Mioveni plant at the end of 2025.
Ford Otosan in Craiova assembled 248,328 vehicles in 2025, according to Stiripesurse citing Profit.ro, a slight fall from 2024. Most of the output is the Puma and the Courier family.
Our interpretation: together the two plants produce almost half a million vehicles a year, and put Romania on the map of the European car industry. The Dacia brand is now bigger than its plant: according to Puterea.ro, more than 90% of output in Tangier in 2025 was Dacia models.
An average foreign company in Romania pays a worker roughly twice what a local company does, and Romanian groups are already starting to buy for themselves.
Accounting, consulting and service centres
The four big accounting firms have operated in Romania for three decades:
- Deloitte: according to the company's website, more than 3,300 professionals in Romania.
- KPMG: in Romania since 1995, with more than 1,300 professionals and offices in Bucharest, Iași, Constanța, Timișoara and Cluj.
- EY: in Romania since 1992, with more than 1,000 employees in Romania and Moldova together, according to AmCham Romania.
- PwC: also operates in Romania. No current headcount has been published.
The really big story is the service centres: accounting, IT, HR and customer service that international companies run from Romania. According to a Deloitte study for the industry association ABSL, Romania has more than 1,000 service centres and more than 280,000 employees. The sector produced value added of €35.5 billion in 2025, about 10% of value added in the economy. According to a report by ABSL and PwC, the average gross wage in the sector was 13,060 lei, after an average rise of 5.8% in 2025.
For comparison, according to INS, the average gross wage in the economy as a whole in July 2026 was 9,709 lei. These are two sources and two different periods, but the direction is clear: working at an international service centre pays above the average. For where many of these centres are based, see our article on the business districts of northern Bucharest.
Hotels: a Hilton that became an InterContinental, and 39 projects on the way
The historic Athénée Palace hotel in central Bucharest was a Hilton for many years. Since 1 January 2023 it has been the InterContinental Athénée Palace Bucharest, under a 20-year management contract with IHG, according to Economedia. On 24 March 2025 the Corinthia Grand Hotel du Boulevard opened, in a 19th-century building listed as a national monument, with 30 suites. The owner is the NIRO group, and the hotel is managed by the Corinthia chain.
According to Marriott, in September 2024 the chain had six hotels in Romania, five of them in Bucharest. It announced three new hotels by 2029, in Sibiu, Cluj and Timișoara. According to a report by RHN from March 2026, 39 hotel projects with more than 5,300 rooms are planned for 2026 to 2029, 15 of them in Bucharest. The article does not give the source of the data, so this is an estimate.
And what about demand? According to Colliers, average occupancy in Bucharest's five-star hotels in the first 11 months of 2025 was 72%, and the average room rate about €140 a night. Romania as a whole recorded its highest number of overnight stays in three decades in 2025.
The chains: Lidl, Kaufland, Mega Image, and a chain that returned to Romanian hands
| Chain | Owner | 2025, per the sources |
|---|---|---|
| Lidl | Germany | Turnover of more than 27.3 billion lei, profit of 1.4 billion lei to be reinvested in Romania, almost 14,000 employees |
| Kaufland | Germany | Turnover of almost 21 billion lei, net profit of 796 million lei, about 190 stores, more than 15,300 employees |
| Mega Image | Ahold Delhaize | Bought Profi for €1.3 billion (completed in January 2025). Together: about 2,700 stores |
| Carrefour | Passed into Romanian ownership in 2026 | 478 stores sold to Pavăl Holding, owned by the founders of Dedeman, for €823 million |
| IKEA | Sweden | A budget of €130 million for 2027 to 2029, including ten new stores |
The Carrefour story shows how much Romanian capital has strengthened. A French chain sold its entire Romanian business to a Romanian group, that of the brothers Dragoș and Adrian Pavăl, owners of the Dedeman chain. According to EY, it was the largest deal in Romania in the first half of 2026, and it was completed on 30 June 2026. We wrote about abundance in the shops and malls in the eighth chapter of this investigation.
What did this do to jobs and pay?
Three findings from the data:
- Foreign companies pay more. By our calculation from Eurostat data, personnel costs per person employed at a foreign-controlled company in 2024 were about 2.1 times those at a domestic company. They also produce 1.8 times more value added per worker. That fits the picture of large, mechanised, export-oriented companies.
- They grow mainly in productivity, not in headcount. According to the National Bank, between 2014 and 2024 the turnover of foreign direct investment companies rose by 93.7%, and their headcount by only 9.7%. In 2024 they employed an average of 1.299 million people, 2% fewer than in 2023.
- Part of the profit stays at home. According to the National Bank, 31.8% of the profits of foreign direct investment companies in 2024 were reinvested in Romania, and the rest was distributed as dividends. Foreign investors' income from their investments in Romania was 1.9 times the new foreign investment that came in that year.
The general rise in pay in Romania is linked to several forces together: foreign companies, the minimum wage, emigration and labour shortages. More on this in the chapter on what drives growth and in the chapter on who earns what.
Frequently asked questions
How many workers in Romania work for foreign companies?
According to Eurostat, in 2024 foreign-controlled companies employed 27.5% of persons employed in the business economy, about 1.31 million people. According to the National Bank, companies with foreign direct investment employed an average of 1.299 million people.
Who is the largest foreign investor in Romania?
According to the National Bank, by country of the ultimate investor, Germany, with 14.9% of the foreign investment stock at the end of 2024. After it come Austria, France and the United States.
Is Dacia still Romanian?
The brand and the Mioveni plant are Romanian, but ownership has been Renault's since 1999. In 2025 Renault's plant in Tangier produced more cars than the Mioveni plant.
How much do international service centres pay?
According to ABSL and PwC, the average gross wage in the business services sector in 2025 was 13,060 lei a month, above the economy-wide average.
The bottom line
Western companies are a large part of Romania's economy today: about a quarter of workers, more than two thirds of exports, and pay well above the average. They brought capital, technology and access to markets. Alongside them, Romanian capital has grown: most Romanians work for local companies, and in the past year a Romanian group bought an entire French chain. Anyone living in northern Bucharest sees Western brands on every corner, and alongside them the Romanian companies that grew up with them.
Moti Azulay, Compass Group Romania
Sources: Eurostat: foreign-controlled enterprises by activity (fats_activ) · National Bank of Romania: foreign direct investment in Romania in 2024 · Cotidianul: the Renault and Dacia contract, 2.7.1999 · OMV Petrom: acquisition of 51% completed, 14.12.2004 · Wall-Street.ro: 20 years of Erste at BCR · IndustriALL: Sidex sold to LNM, 2001 · Gasgoo (AFP): Daewoo and Ford in Craiova, 2007 · IndustryWeek (AFP): Ford in Craiova, 2012 · Transport Engineer: Ford Otosan buys Craiova · Puterea.ro: Dacia output in 2025 · Renault Group: Mioveni plant · Stiripesurse: Ford Otosan output in 2025 · Deloitte Romania · KPMG Romania · AmCham Romania: EY · HotNews: Deloitte study for ABSL, August 2026 · Revista Biz: ABSL and PwC report 2025 · ZiarulProfit: average wage, July 2026 (INS) · Economedia: Athénée Palace becomes an InterContinental · Journal des Palaces: Corinthia opens in Bucharest · Business Forum: Marriott in Romania, September 2024 · RHN: 39 new hotels by 2029 · Business Forum: Colliers on the hotel market in 2025 · Wall-Street.ro: Lidl Romania in 2025 · Bugetul.ro: Kaufland in 2025 · Economedia: Mega Image completes the Profi acquisition · Digi24: Carrefour sold to Pavăl Holding · Digi24: Competition Council approval · Economedia: the largest deals of H1 2026 (EY) · Actual de Cluj (ZF): IKEA's investment plan
This article is for general information only and is not investment advice. The figures come from the sources above, and in some cases refer to different years or were calculated by us, as stated in the text. Correct as of 23 October 2026.
Forget the dictatorship economy
- Forget the dictatorship economy: the new Romania
- Who earns what in Romania today
- Agriculture: Europe's breadbasket
- Finance: banks, the stock exchange and money
- Tech: from UiPath to Bitdefender
- Food and wine
- Culture: festivals, film and music
- Abundance: malls, consumption and brands
- Western brands: consulting, accounting and hotels (you are here)
- What drives growth: EU funds versus investment
- From dictatorship to market economy: what remained and what was built
Now you know more.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult local professionals before any transaction.
