Marius Comper · PHC 2021 · Housing stock

Population and Housing Census · 1 December 2021

The Empty
House. 1 in 4 stands
empty.

Romania has 9.93 million conventional dwellings. At census date, 2.53 million were unoccupied — 25.5%. In Mehedinți, 36.3% of dwellings had no one inside. In Maramureș, 19.0%. The emptiness is not where rents hurt most.

31 august 2026 NIS · Tables 7.1 and 8.18 revised (Feb 2026) Sources and method
What does “unoccupied” mean? A conventional dwelling with no person recorded as resident on 1 Dec 2021. It does not automatically mean abandoned or uninhabitable — it can be under renovation, an unsettled inheritance, a secondary dwelling or a house left after emigration. The limit sits next to every percentage.
National vacancy rate
25,5%
2 533 876 din 9 929 935 locuințe
Occupied 74.5%
7 396 059
1 dec 2021
A street of 20 houses at the national average5 empty · 15 occupied
National vacancy composition: main empty 55.9% secondary 37.1% holiday 7.0%

Counties

Where the emptiness gathers.

The highest share is not in Bucharest (21.1%), but in the depopulated south-west and north-east. Select a county to see the local street.

Urban / Rural

The village holds more emptiness than the city.

Diferența nu e dramatică, dar ruralul e peste urban cu 3,3 puncte. Și la oraș, 1 din 4 locuințe stă neoccupied.

Urban
24,0% empty
1 285 788 din 5 363 187
Rural
27,3% empty
1 248 088 din 4 566 748
Sursa: aceleași tabele, rândurile URBAN / RURAL. Urbanul include municipii și orașe; ruralul — comune.

Why

Emptiness alongside population change.

The counties with the largest population losses in 2011–2021 are also among those with high shares of unoccupied dwellings. For someone renting in Cluj, though, what matters is where those dwellings are and whether they are offered on the market, not only how many stand empty.

Caraș-Severin
−16.6% population (2011–2021)
35.6% empty
Teleorman
−14.9% population
25.4% empty
Mehedinți
−13%+ (inter-censal estimate)
36.3% empty
Reading: High unoccupied shares appear in counties with large population losses: Caraș-Severin (−16.6%) and Teleorman (−14.9%) lost more than 1 in 7 residents between the two censuses, while Mehedinți, with the highest unoccupied share (36.3%), lost about 13%. Teleorman's 25.4% unoccupied share is close to the national average of 25.5%, so the share alone does not show what caused each county's emptiness. Bucharest and Ilfov grew in population (Ilfov by about 30%) yet together hold 298,184 unoccupied dwellings: 57.5% are empty permanent dwellings, 40.7% secondary dwellings and 1.9% holiday homes (the census records no investment purpose). The link between population loss and emptiness is ecological, at county level, not causal proof for any individual dwelling.

Registry

All counties, sortable.

Click a column to sort. Values are from the RPL2021 revised tables (Feb 2026).

County Total Unoccupied Rată Main empty Secondary Holiday

Total județ = locuințe convenționale (T7.1 col 3). Unoccupied = T8.18 col 1. Descompunerea pe statut din T8.18 col 3/5/7.

Sources and limits

What the map measures and what it does not.

Sources

  • INS, Recensământul Populației și Locuințelor 2021 — Tabel 7.1 revizuit (Clădiri, locuințe, camere, pe județe) și Tabel 8.18 revizuit (Locuințe empty după statut, pe județe), publicate feb 2026, referință 1 dec 2021. Fișiere arhivate cu hash în public/data/.
  • Definiții: Metodologia RPL2021 — locuință convențională, statut de ocupare.
  • Populație 2011–2021: Comunicatul INS „Primele date provizorii RPL2021” (30 dec 2022) + tabele definitive demografice Tabel 1.01.

How we calculated

Rată județeană = Unoccupied (T8.18 col 1) / Total convenționale (T7.1 col 3). Țară = 2 533 876 / 9 929 935 = 25,515% → 25,5% afișat. Urban/rural din rândurile URBAN/RURAL ale acelorași tabele. Reproducibil: python openpyxl pe cele două XLSX.

Limits — what the map does not say:
  • Unoccupied ≠ abandoned. Poate fi casă în renovare, succesiune nedezbatută, locuință ținută pentru copii plecați, navetă, sau casă de holiday nefolosită la 1 dec.
  • It does not measure quality, utilities, roof condition, or whether the owner wants to rent/sell.
  • It is not available stock for rents in Cluj/Bucharest — many empties are in depopulated counties without demand.
  • Data at 1 Dec 2021; the 2022–2026 market moved, but the housing stock changes slowly.

Downloads

Exact source files used:

Tabel 7.1 XLSX Tabel 8.18 XLSX county_rates.json

Hash SHA256: 7.1 ec0f6079…, 8.18 f344d84c… — vezi SOURCES.md.