Mirror statistics · Romania and the EU · 2007–2025
Almost half the fruit and vegetables shipped to Romania from the EU were missing from Romania's statistics. In 2012 they appeared within months
Goods that cross a border inside the European Union are recorded twice: by the country that sends them and by the country that receives them. In 2009, for fruit and vegetables bound for Romania, the two records differed by 408,600 tonnes. In 2012 the difference fell from about 40% to almost zero within months.
EU countries recorded as sent to Romania734,500tonnes of fruit and vegetables, 2009
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Romania recorded as received325,900tonnes of fruit and vegetables, 2009
The difference: 408,600 tonnes in a single year. At 20 tonnes a lorry, that is about 56 lorries a day that appear in one record and are missing from the other.
recorded by EU countries as sent to Romania
recorded by Romania as received
sent and not recorded
Fruit and vegetables (chapters 07 and 08 of the customs nomenclature) moving from the other 26 member states to Romania, thousand tonnes a year. Red area: recorded by the senders and not by Romania. Source: Eurostat, Comext.
Between 2008 and 2011 the other member states reported 2.86 million tonnes of fruit and vegetables dispatched to Romania. Romania reported 1.51 million tonnes arriving. Almost half the quantity (47%) is missing from the Romanian statistics: 1.35 million tonnes. In value, the two totals differ by 696 million euro. More than a quarter of the difference (28%) comes from goods dispatched from Greece.
Why a statistical difference matters: goods bought from another EU country arrive free of VAT, and the tax is owed by the buyer, at home. If that buyer is a company that disappears before declaring anything, the goods are sold on with VAT collected from customers and never paid to the state. The same goods are then missing from the trade statistics too, which are compiled from company declarations.
If the whole difference in value had been undeclared goods, which the data cannot show, the VAT on it at the rates of those years (19%, then 24% from July 2010) would have been about 150 million euro over four years. The sum illustrates the order of magnitude. No authority has established it, and a difference between two records has other causes as well, described below. One of them shows in these same data: for Romania's own exports of fruit and vegetables, the two records differed by 28% in the same years.
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When the difference closed: spring and summer 2012#
The difference had begun to shrink in 2011: 51% in 2010, 40% in 2011, a year in which the quantity Romania recorded grew by 36%. In the 12 months before March 2012, an average of 41% of the quantity dispatched was missing from the Romanian record. Then the fall accelerated: 32% in March 2012, 10% in May, 1% in July. In every year from 2013 to 2025 the Romanian total has been larger than the senders' total.
These percentages are net: they add up all sending countries, and surpluses from some cover shortfalls from others. Counting only the countries from which Romania recorded less than was declared, the shortfall was 61% in January 2012 and 12% in July. Since 2013 it has stayed between 3% and 9% a year.
In the 12 months after March 2012, compared with the 12 months before, the quantity Romania recorded rose by 71% and the quantity the senders declared fell by 4%. Part of the rise comes from a single country. In 2012 Romania recorded 147.8 thousand tonnes arriving from Poland, while Poland declared 72.5 thousand tonnes sent; most of that difference is in potatoes. Without Poland, the quantity Romania recorded rose by 38% and the quantity the senders declared fell by 12%. Also without Poland, the difference in July 2012 is 1%, and from August to December it stays, month by month, between −8% and 9%.
Fruit and vegetables, month by month, 2010–2014: the share of the quantity declared by senders that was missing from Romania's record (red bars, upwards), or by how much Romania recorded more (green bars, downwards).
What the tax authority was doing at the border in 2012
From 15 March 2012, according to a press release from ANAF, the Romanian tax agency, the Financial Guard (the tax police of the time) began monitoring shipments of goods entering from other EU countries. Goods judged to carry a high tax risk, listed as fruit and vegetables, meat, excise goods and flowers, were to be sealed on entering the country and unsealed at their destination. The procedure had been set by an order of the head of ANAF. ANAF's report for the first half of 2012 says that more than 85% of the Guard's staff took part and that by the end of June 222,582 shipments had been monitored, of which 55,115 were sealed.
In an interview in February 2013, the Guard's commissioner general at the time gave the numbers for the whole of 2012: 492,519 shipments monitored, of which 118,934 sealed. The same interview puts the staff permanently involved at 40–50% of officers and says other kinds of control suffered as a result.
For meat, the difference went from 7% to −21% over the same 12 months, and for sugar from 18% to −10%. For meat, the quantity declared by senders fell by 13% while the quantity Romania recorded rose by 14%. For sugar both fell, the senders' by 36%. For cut flowers, also named in the press release, Romania was already recording more than the senders in 2009–2011. Dairy, coffee, cereals, plastics and electrical equipment show no comparable change.
The data show a match in time, in one country, for some of the goods named in the press release. On their own they do not prove that sealing lorries caused the change. The decline had begun a year earlier, and other controls, other changes in how companies declared their purchases, or changes in how the statistics estimate companies that do not file may have played a part in the same months.
Bananas, tomatoes, apples, poultry: the two records, product by product#
Pick a product. The yellow line shows what EU countries recorded as sent to Romania. The green line shows what Romania recorded as received.
For example:
Bananas, 2010: EU countries recorded 93,800 tonnes sent to Romania; Romania recorded 18,700 tonnes received. 80% was missing from the Romanian record.
In 2023–2025 Romania recorded 6% more than the senders.
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All products in the list
The difference between the records as a percentage of what the senders declared. Positive values: the senders recorded more than Romania did. Food is compared in tonnes; eggs and other goods in euro.
The same calculation can be done for each of the 27 states that are members today (Croatia joined in 2013; the United Kingdom is not included). Between 2008 and 2011 Romania had the largest difference for fruit and vegetables: 47.2%. Hungary came next with 31.2%, then Cyprus with 15.0%. In Poland and Czechia the two records were almost equal. At the other end, Lithuania and Belgium recorded far more than their senders declared. Large differences therefore also occur in the opposite direction, where undeclared arrivals cannot be the cause.
In Hungary the difference stayed at 25% or more until 2019. In Romania it fell by 32 percentage points in a single year, 2012. Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Czechia show no comparable change in 2012, so the Romanian fall does not come from a change in European statistical rules. The comparison cannot rule out a change in the method of the Romanian statistics.
Fruit and vegetables, 2008–2011: the share of the quantity declared by senders that was missing from the destination country's record. Negative values: the destination country recorded more than the senders.The same difference, year by year, for Romania and four countries in the region.
VAT on food in Romania fell from 24% to 9% on 1 June 2015, on the argument that a lower tax leaves less room for evasion. Since 1 August 2025 the reduced rate has been 11% and the standard rate 21%. Mirror statistics allow a partial check: if the level of the tax decided how much is hidden, the difference between the records should grow when the tax rises and shrink when it falls.
The tests below were written down before the monthly data and the other countries' data were opened. Those that failed are shown like the others.
PassedRomania was an outlierThe difference for fruit and vegetables, 2008–2011: Romania 47.2%, against an average of 9.7% in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Czechia. Threshold set in advance: at least 20 points above the mean and above each of the four.
PassedThe difference closed before the VAT cut84% of the fall in the fruit and vegetable difference between 2010 and 2016 had happened before 1 June 2015, while VAT was 24%. Threshold: two thirds. At the end of 2016 the difference was −22%: Romania was already recording more than the senders.
Passed formallyAfter the VAT cut, Romania recorded even more food than the senders didBetween 2013–2014 and 2016–2017 the difference for food moved down by 14 percentage points relative to other goods (95% confidence interval: 4 to 25); without cereals, by 8.4 points (0.4 to 16.7). But the difference for food was already below zero: it went from −3.6% to −13.3%. The two records moved further apart, which is not a sign of fewer hidden goods. On whole chapters, the same calculation gives −9.4 points for Romania; in the four comparison countries, where VAT did not change, it gives Bulgaria 17.4, Hungary 12.4, Poland 4.4, Czechia −1.4. The threshold set in advance is met, but four of the other 26 states show a downward move at least as large, and without cereals Romania (−3.6) is close to Czechia (−1.4). The test passes formally and says little about VAT.
FailedHypothesis: the 2010 VAT rise widened the differenceIn the 12 months after the rate went from 19% to 24% (July 2010), the difference for all goods grew by 2.3 points, under the threshold of 3. For food it grew by 5.2 points; for fruit and vegetables it fell by 8 points.
FailedHypothesis: exports show no similar differenceThey do. Between 2008 and 2011 Romania recorded 28% more fruit and vegetables dispatched to the EU than its partners recorded as received. The difference lasted until 2015. The quantities are small (about 100,000 tonnes a year), and the data cannot say whether these were deliveries that existed only on paper.
What holds up: the large difference, in fruit and vegetables, closed in 2012, three years before the tax was cut and at the highest VAT rate Romania has had. On the role of the rate, the data give a weak and mixed signal. They say nothing about evasion that never crosses a border: undeclared sales at home, fictitious invoices, companies that do not pay the tax they declare. The export test also shows that, for these goods, differences of tens of percent can arise from causes other than undeclared arrivals.
For fresh food, nowhere in the pre-2012 sense. Of the 17 categories of fruit and vegetables with more than 5,000 tonnes a year, 12 had a difference above 30% in 2009–2010. In 2023–2025 there is none where the senders recorded over 10% more than Romania. The difference now runs the other way: depending on the year, Romania records 11–19% more fruit and vegetables than the senders declare. A large part comes from Poland. The data do not explain why, which shows that before 2012, too, the difference was not an exact measure of undeclared goods.
Across all goods, 39 of the 632 categories worth more than 10 million euro a year now show a difference above 20% where the senders recorded more. In 2009–2010 it was 49 of 439. The largest difference today, in money, is for tractors and road tractors: 283 million euro a year, or 26% of the value the senders declared. It is not new: the senders have recorded more than Romania in every year since 2008. It may have lawful causes, such as leasing or registration in another state. The data do not show the cause.
In total, nothing is missing: Romania recorded more goods arriving from the EU than its partners declared sending in every year from 2007 to 2025. The differences have always been in particular products.
The categories with the largest difference in money, average of 2023–2025. A difference can have lawful causes: goods bought by private individuals, leasing, confidential data, triangular trade.
Category
Declared by senders (€ million a year)
Recorded by Romania
Difference
Tractors and road tractors
1,087
804
283 (26%)
Machines with individual functions, not specified elsewhere
707
583
125 (18%)
Vaccines, sera and blood products
1,113
1,028
85 (8%)
Radar and radio-navigation apparatus
120
54
65 (54%)
Integrated circuits
1,776
1,714
62 (4%)
Special-purpose motor vehicles
212
153
59 (28%)
Miscellaneous chemical preparations
230
172
58 (25%)
Gold
117
60
57 (49%)
All major groups of goods, year by year
Romania recorded morethe senders recorded more
The difference in value, as a percentage of what the senders declared, for 36 chapters of the customs nomenclature. Red: the senders recorded more than Romania. Green: Romania recorded more.
What a difference between two records can and cannot show#
Reporting thresholdsCompanies whose yearly trade is under a threshold file no statistical declaration. Statistical offices estimate their share, each with its own method. In Romania the threshold for arrivals was 300,000 lei in 2011 and in 2012 and rose to 500,000 lei in 2013; in 2025 it was one million lei. So the threshold did not change in 2012.
Companies that do not fileFor companies that file nothing, the statistics use estimates. A company that disappears a few months after it is set up is hard to estimate correctly. This page could not check whether the Romanian estimation method changed in 2012.
Deliveries on paper onlyA difference can also arise in the sending country: goods declared as sent to Romania so that they leave free of VAT, and in fact sold elsewhere. For fruit and vegetables in 2012 the Romanian side rose (by 38% without Poland) and the senders' side fell by 12%, which fits better with goods that arrived and had not been declared. For sugar it was mainly the senders' side that fell, which fits better with deliveries on paper only.
The routeGoods can pass through a third country, be unloaded in a port and attributed to the port's country, be invoiced from one place and shipped from another, or be classified under different codes on departure and on arrival.
Private individualsWhat people buy for themselves is not in company declarations. This explains part of the difference for passenger cars.
Estimated weightsFor some goods, kilograms are estimated from other units. A difference that appeared for eggs in 2024–2025, in kilograms only and in one sending country's data only, was set aside for this reason: the values in euro match.
The year 2007In 2007, Romania's first year in the EU, the difference for fruit and vegetables was 15%. It rose to 43% in 2008, when the quantity declared by senders grew by 69% in one year and the quantity Romania recorded by 14%. The data do not show why.
RevisionsTrade statistics are revised for years. This page uses the data as published on 10 November 2026.
That is why this page speaks of goods recorded in one set of records and not in the other. No company, person or country is accused of anything.
The data come from Eurostat's Comext database (dataset DS-045409, intra-EU trade by customs code), downloaded on 10 November 2026, for 2007–2025. For each product and year two numbers were set side by side: the sum of dispatches to Romania declared by the other 26 states that are members today (the same set for all years), and the sum of arrivals from those states declared by Romania. The difference is given as a percentage of the first number.
Fruit and vegetables are chapters 07 and 08 of the nomenclature, compared in tonnes. The monthly data cover 20 chapters. The comparison between the 27 countries uses the same definition, with each state in turn in Romania's place.
The test on the VAT cut compares 152 food categories with 959 non-food categories, weighted by value; the interval comes from 2,000 resamples. Without cereals, which had a different VAT regime from 2011, the result is 8.4 points (0.4 to 16.7). The comparison with other countries was done on whole chapters, more coarsely than the original plan.
The lorries are an illustration: 20 tonnes a lorry, 365 days. The page has not been reviewed by a foreign-trade statistician and does not include a response from ANAF or from the National Institute of Statistics.