Bucharest · earthquake risk · the accommodation register
Tourist rental flats inside Bucharest’s red-dot earthquake-risk buildings
Since 6 January 2024, Romanian law has banned renting out homes in buildings rated seismic risk class I, the ones marked with a red dot. Yet the last complete copy of the Tourism Ministry’s accommodation register, dated 30 July 2025, still listed 24 flats and rooms to let and one hostel, with 92 beds, in 17 red-dot buildings, all within 1.2 km of University Square.
415 red-dot buildings#
On Bucharest City Hall’s list, updated on 6 October 2026, 415 buildings are rated seismic risk class I. According to their engineering assessments, these buildings could partly or wholly collapse in the earthquake that new buildings are designed for. They carry a red sign on the façade, hence the Romanian nickname “bulină”, the red dot.
384 of them were built in or before 1945, most in the city centre. Across all 415, the list records 6,586 flats.
1,846 accommodation units on the Ministry’s register#
The Tourism Ministry keeps a register of accommodation units that hold a classification certificate, the licence a property needs to be offered legally to tourists. On 30 July 2025 it listed 1,846 units in Bucharest, 1,614 of them flats and rooms to let, mostly in the same old districts.
The warm glow shows where they cluster. The register covers classified units only; a studio let on a booking platform without a certificate does not appear here.
17 buildings, 25 units, 92 beds#
At the addresses of 17 red-dot buildings, the register lists 24 flats and rooms to let and a ten-bed hostel registered at a flat number. The buildings went up between 1890 and 1959, 16 of them by 1945, and all lie within 1.2 km of University Square: on Calea Victoriei, Magheru Boulevard, Carol I Boulevard, Ion Ghica Street, Franceză Street and the streets around them.
Most certificates were issued before the ban. One certificate was issued in August 2024, after the ban took effect, for a unit at Calea Victoriei 101, in a building rated class I in 2021.
23 units struck off, most at the request of whoever ran them#
The Ministry’s list of struck-off units, as of 7 June 2026, holds 23 units in 14 red-dot buildings; two of these units were still in the July 2025 copy of the register. For 18 of them, removal was requested by whoever ran them. 17 units have a dated removal request; for eight of them the request came after 6 January 2024, in just three requests: one for three units, 25 days after the ban took effect, one in December 2024 and one for four units, in April 2025.
None of the 4,535 removals nationwide gives seismic risk as the reason. The register empties when those running the units ask; the list shows no removal ordered because of a red dot.
Is the building you plan to stay in on the red-dot list?#
Type the street and number, or tap a building on the map. The search covers all 2,798 buildings on City Hall’s list, in every class.
Examples:
The result appears here, with what City Hall’s list and the accommodation register show for the building.
Tap a point for details. Drag to move the map; use + and − to zoom.
What the law says about renting out flats in red-dot buildings#
Law 212/2022 on reducing the seismic risk of buildings was amended by Law 426/2023, in force since 6 January 2024. Article 5(3) reads:
“Renting out, or lending for use, spaces intended as dwellings in buildings rated seismic risk class RsI by a technical assessment report is prohibited, from the date of that rating until the acceptance of the completed strengthening works […]”
For buildings already in class I, Law 426/2023 applies the ban from the day it took effect, 6 January 2024, and rental contracts then running ended automatically after 30 days. For buildings rated class I later, the ban applies from the date of the rating. An owner who rents out anyway risks a fine of 5,000 to 10,000 lei (about €1,000 to €2,000), in force since 2 February 2024; in Bucharest it is imposed by the control bodies of Bucharest City Hall (Primăria Municipiului București).
A “flat to let” or “room to let” is a Ministry category: the classification rules describe them as flats and rooms “in family homes” offered to tourists. The ban concerns spaces intended as dwellings; the register category shows how a unit was classified and does not by itself settle the legal use of each space. The law sets no minimum length of stay and makes no exception for tourist accommodation; it covers any renting out or lending for use of a dwelling. Airbnb tells hosts in Romania the same in its rules for hosts: they may not rent out homes in class I buildings. The Ministry’s classification rules do not expressly ask for any document about the building’s seismic class. The law exempts class I residential blocks whose strengthening works contract was signed by 14 July 2022 under the programmes of the old Ordinance 20/1994; the earlier rules still apply to them. City Hall’s list does not mark such contracts.
There was no ban on renting out homes before 2024. From 2015 until July 2022, Government Ordinance 20/1994 banned only activities “involving crowds of people” in the public spaces of these buildings, and Law 212/2022 repealed the ordinance without keeping that ban, until the 2024 amendment (the blocks in the exception above kept the old rules). For a large hotel or hostel, the crowd rule applies again from 2024: at least 50 people at once in one room, with less than 4 m² of floor each.
The 17 buildings and what the register shows at each#
| Building | Built | Class I assessment | On the register, July 2025 | Struck off |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| · District 3 | 1938 · P+8E | 1993 | 3 units, 6 beds rooms to let; 2021, 2023, undated | 4 |
| · District 1 | 1959 · 2S+P+7E | 2022 | 2 units, 6 beds rooms to let; 2022, 2022 | 1 |
| · District 1 | 1938 · S+P+10E | 2021 | 2 units, 6 beds flats to let and rooms to let; 2023, 2024 | 1 |
| · District 1 | 1935 · S+P+8E | 2022 | 2 units, 8 beds rooms to let; 2022, 2022 | 2 |
| · District 3 | 1932 · S+P+5E+Ma | 2023 | 2 units, 10 beds flats to let and rooms to let; 2022, 2022 | 2 |
| · District 1 | 1938 · P+9E | 1998 | 2 units, 4 beds rooms to let; 2022, 2022 | — |
| · District 1 | 1902 · S+P+4E | 1994 | 2 units, 4 beds flats to let; 2023, 2023 | — |
| · District 2 | 1929 · S+Ds+P+7E | 2001 | 1 unit, 10 beds hostel; 2021 | — |
| · District 2 | 1934 · P+8E | 1993 | 1 unit, 2 beds rooms to let; 2018 | — |
| · District 1 | 1938 · S+P+7E | 2022 | 1 unit, 18 beds rooms to let; 2022 | 3 |
| · District 1 | 1945 · S1+S2+P+Mz+7E+Ma | 1994 | 1 unit, 2 beds rooms to let; 2023 | — |
| · District 5 | 1890 · S+P+3E | 1993 | 1 unit, 2 beds rooms to let; 2020 | — |
| · District 3 | 1937 · S+P+4E+Ma | 2022 | 1 unit, 4 beds flats to let; 2021 | — |
| · District 1 | 1939 · S+P+Mz+8E | 1995 | 1 unit, 2 beds rooms to let; 2022 | — |
| · District 1 | 1940 · S+P+8E | 1994 | 1 unit, 4 beds flats to let; 2023 | 1 |
| · District 3 | 1936 · S+P+6E | 2023 | 1 unit, 2 beds flats to let; 2023 | — |
| · District 1 | 1936 · P+6E+Ma | 2023 | 1 unit, 2 beds flats to let; 2023 | — |
The address is the one on City Hall’s list; floor and flat numbers are not published. “Struck off” counts units at the same address on the 7 June 2026 list of removals.
Addresses with a question mark
At five more class I addresses, the register shows seven units that are not in the count above because the match is uncertain: Edgar Quinet 3 moved from class II to class I by a 2025 assessment, and the list gives no month; at Vasile Conta 7–9 and Berthelot 10 only some wings are on the list, and the register does not give the wing; at Piața Romană 9 the list names only some staircases; Academiei 3–5 is listed as an office building of City Hall, and the ban concerns homes.
Do red-dot buildings have fewer rental flats than other buildings?#
For every 100 class I buildings, uncertain addresses included, the July 2025 register lists 7.7 accommodation units; in class II, where renting is not banned, 16.5. Most of that gap comes from size: class I buildings have fewer flats on average. Per flat, for buildings with a recorded flat count, the numbers draw close: 4.4 units per thousand flats in class I, 4.6 in class II. With so few units, a gap like that can arise by chance, so it shows neither that the ban is being obeyed nor that it is being ignored.
Units struck off, as a share of the units seen at those addresses in the July 2025 register or the June 2026 removals list
The list of removals says more. Of the units seen at red-dot addresses in either the July 2025 register or the June 2026 removals list, 43% had been struck off by June 2026; in class II, 5%; across Bucharest, 17%. This comparison was added after the pre-set count, and the numbers are small.
What to check before you book or rent out#
- Look the address up on City Hall’s list (amccrs-pmb.ro, in Romanian) or in the search above. The list only covers buildings that have been assessed: a building missing from it is not necessarily safe.
- Ask the host for the exact address, with the building number, before you pay. Booking platforms usually show it only after you book.
- If you live in a red-dot building and see flats let to tourists, the law gives enforcement in Bucharest to the control bodies of Bucharest City Hall. The fine falls on the owner who rents out, not on the guest.
- If you own a flat in a red-dot building whose legal use is residential and hold a classification certificate, the law has banned renting it out since 2024 (or since the rating, if the assessment is newer) until the formal acceptance of the completed strengthening works, except in blocks whose works contract under the programmes of Ordinance 20/1994 was signed by 14 July 2022; removal from the register is requested from the Ministry.
What these data do not show#
The register shows classification certificates, not tourists. A unit on the register may no longer be let, and a studio let without a certificate does not appear at all. The numbers here are a floor of what is officially registered, not an estimate of actual rentals.
The copy used is from 30 July 2025, the last complete one found: the register’s website (situr.gov.ro) was not responding in October 2026. The removals list is from 7 June 2026, so a unit removed after that date still appears here.
City Hall’s list only covers residential buildings that have been assessed; a building without an assessment has no class. AMCCRS, the City Hall agency for seismic strengthening, citing the World Bank, puts the number of vulnerable buildings in Bucharest at about 20,000.
How the addresses were matched#
Each register unit was linked to a building on City Hall’s list only when street, district and number all agree, after removing diacritics and words such as “street” or “general”; number 17 does not match 17A, and a block named on the list must be the same as the one in the register. The register’s own coordinates are often wrong (the same address appears 10 m or 5 km from the building), so they served only as a check, and the map shows units at the building’s point.
The matching rule and the counts were set on buildings of the other classes, before class I buildings were counted, together with two stopping criteria: fewer than five flats found, or more than one wrong match in ten. An independent review showed that register spellings (“G-ral”, “Gen.”, initials as in “Alexandru D. Xenopol”) and notes on City Hall’s list (“formerly …”, “corner with …”, two addresses on one row) hid matches; the rule was extended for them; under the original rule the count was 17 units in 11 buildings. All 34 matches to class I buildings were read one by one. Two were rejected: Mihail Moxa “16-18” (there is no second floor at no. 18, a house with a ground floor and one storey) and a hotel at Piața Amzei 8, matched only by the last word of the name to Biserica Amzei Street no. 8; five addresses were left with a question mark.
The overlap counts only buildings rated class I on both 2026 versions of the list (May and October), with the assessment made by 2025: 414 of 415; the city totals and the class comparison use all 415. 273 register units carry no street name and could not be matched.
Sources#
- Romanian Ministry of Economy, Digitalisation, Entrepreneurship and Tourism, SITUR open data: list of classified accommodation units, copy of 30 July 2025, and list of struck-off units, copy of 7 June 2026 (Internet Archive).
- Bucharest Municipal Administration for the Strengthening of Seismic-Risk Buildings (AMCCRS), list of assessed buildings, updates of 6 October 2026 and 19 May 2026; building points from OpenStreetMap and DupăCutremur (CC BY 4.0).
- Law 212/2022 on measures to reduce the seismic risk of buildings, consolidated text of 19 August 2026, with the amendments of Law 426/2023 (Official Gazette no. 1, 3 January 2024).
- Law 282/2015 amending Government Ordinance 20/1994 (Official Gazette no. 863, 19 November 2015).
- Map: streets from OpenStreetMap (ODbL).