1 dot = 100 people

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Romania's trade register, 1990–2026

In her name

Since 1990, more than 4 million founders' and administrators' names have been written into Romania's trade register. Each dot on the screen is 100 of them: women above the line, men below.

Among names whose sex can be read from the first name (92 in 100), women are 36 in 100. That share has moved little in 36 years, but a lot has changed underneath it: who opens a business in their own name, in which trades, who signs for the family firm and how long the business lasts.

No names of people or firms. Maps show only places with at least 100 founders, and every number shown is at least 5 people.

Companies

A line that climbs slowly#

Each column is a year of founding. Among companies (SRL, SA) founded in 1991, women are 27 in 100 of the administrators on file today. Among those founded in 2017, 38, and for later years between 34 and 38.

Closed firms stay in the register with the last administrator on file, who is not necessarily the founder. So a column shows the firms started that year and the people who run them now, or ran them when they closed.

A business in your own name

Who opens a business in their own name#

A PFA (an authorised self-employed person) or a sole proprietorship carries the name of the person behind it. Here, women went from 29 in 100 in 1991 to 45 in 2014.

Then, in 2025, the line drops to 36. It looks like a step back.

Two waves

The taxi#

The bright dots are one-person businesses with land transport among their activities. Almost all are men.

The first wave comes in the autumn of 2003 and fades by the spring of 2004: taxis, in the months when the deadline in the taxi law (Law 38/2003) was running, before it was pushed back several times. The second starts in April 2025 and peaks in October: 2,433 new transport PFAs and sole proprietorships in a single month, most of them for on-demand passenger transport with a driver. Also in 2025, the tax office (ANAF) began receiving data on drivers from ride-hailing platforms (form 397). The two overlap in time; a causal link is not tested.

In 2025, 14,167 new PFAs and sole proprietorships had land transport among their activities, almost three times as many as in 2024. Women: 5 in 100.

New transport PFAs, by month

New PFAs and sole proprietorships with land transport (CAEN 49) among their activities. For 2003–2004 only firms that still carry codes in the register appear, so the real wave was larger.

Without transport

Almost half#

Take out the firms in land transport and the line no longer falls. Among the rest, with a known activity, women were almost 47 in 100, in 2024 and again in 2025: the highest share since 2009.

The 2025 drop is a wave of men in one trade, not women stepping back. The line and the dots start in 2009: before that, most firms that closed have no activity left in the register.

Glass walls

The same market, different trades#

Here are only the firms active today, sorted by trade. Women hold 77 in 100 of the one-person businesses in personal services (hairdressing, beauty, tailoring), 66 in teaching and half in shops. In building they are 4 in 100, in transport 7.

Among companies the gaps are smaller: 59% women among administrators of health firms, 21% in building, 25% in transport. By CAEN division, everyone together: 74% women in accounting and law, 64% in clothing, 8% in fishing. Shares use the activities declared in the register, not the main activity: a firm with activities in three divisions counts a third in each.

Women among administrators and holders, by CAEN division (active firms)

accounting, law74%
personal services68%
clothing64%
health61%
teaching59%
other manufacturing54%
recruitment50%
office services50%
insurance, brokers49%
travel agencies46%
retail45%
lodging44%
food industry44%
advertising43%
management, consulting43%
restaurants42%
sport, leisure41%
design, photo, translation40%
property38%
arts38%
cleaning, gardening38%
financial services33%
wholesale32%
farming31%
publishing31%
IT services30%
rental29%
warehousing28%
architecture, engineering25%
wood25%
repair of goods24%
civil engineering22%
programming22%
cars: sales, repair20%
buildings20%
metal products20%
machine repair19%
land transport18%
specialised building18%
couriers17%
fishing8%

Divisions with at least 3,000 people, active firms, CAEN Rev.2 and Rev.3 codes. Each distinct division a firm declares counts 1/n.

The family firm

She is a member, he signs#

In a family firm (întreprindere familială), the register lists a representative and the members. Women are 53 in 100 of the members and 36 in 100 of the representatives.

Among companies where every administrator's first name can be read, 30 in 100 have only women, 61 only men, and 9 in 100 have both.

On paper and at work

The name on the papers and the person at the counter#

The register shows the name on the papers, not who runs the business. The EU Labour Force Survey asks people what they do: in 2025, women were 26 in 100 of Romania's self-employed without staff and 24 in 100 of employers with staff. In the register, ONRC counts 39% women among holders of active PFAs and 36% among associates of active companies.

One possible explanation is a business in the wife's name with the husband doing the work, or the other way round. Another is that the two sources count different things: the survey counts people and their main job, the register counts firms, including some that no longer trade. The data cannot say how much each weighs.

In the 2021 census, 37 in 100 of the people who said they were employers were women, close to the register's 35 among administrators. But county by county the two do not match: the test set in advance asked for a correlation of at least 0.5 and got 0.45 for employers and 0.21 for the self-employed. The map below shows where firms are registered, not where the people who run them live.

Women, in 100

Solid line: holders of active PFA/II/IF businesses per ONRC (December). Dashed: self-employed without staff per the Labour Force Survey (Eurostat), Romania and the EU average.

How long they last

Women's one-person businesses close a little more often#

The solid dots are PFAs and sole proprietorships opened between 2010 and 2021 that still operate today; the faded ones have closed or are suspended. Of women's, 37 in 100 are left; of men's, 41.

To make sure this is not just a difference of trade, the test set in advance compared women and men in the same trade, county and year, among firms with a single CAEN division (1,642 such groups). With the definition fixed then (only firms coded "in operation" and nothing else), women's PFAs stay active 3.3 points less often (interval 2.8–3.9), and for companies the gap is 0.2 points, inside the error.

A later check: if firms in operation with an expired registered office also count as active, the gap grows to 5.0 points for PFAs (4.4–5.5) and appears for companies too: 2.5 points (1.7–3.2). For PFAs the result holds however it is counted; for companies it depends on the definition.

The map

Where they are registered#

Each circle is a commune or town, sized by how many people opened a business there in their own name: holders of PFAs and sole proprietorships, and representatives of family firms. Warm means more women than the country average, cool means fewer.

Among places with at least 300 founders, the lowest shares are in Slobozia Bradului (Vrancea, 10%) and the Danube Delta, where one-person businesses fish: 11% in Crișan, 12% in Murighiol. The highest, just over half, are the mining towns of Gorj (Rovinari 53%, Motru 51%), with the resorts of Mangalia and Bran at half. Smaller places go further: 3% in Grindu (Tulcea), 58% in Bucovăț (Timiș).

Then and now

What changed#

In 315 of 379 places with enough founders in both periods, women's share rose between 1990–2007 and 2016–2026. In Vlăhița (Harghita), from 18% to 50%.

By county, the most women among active holders are in Maramureș (45%), the fewest in Tulcea (29%). Touch the map to pick a place.

Before 1990

The husband's consent#

Until 1932, Romania's Commercial Code of 1887 (art. 15) required a married woman to have her husband's consent to trade. A law of 20 April 1932 lifted married women's civil incapacity. Today's register starts in 1990, with Decree-Law 54 and Law 31.

How this was done#

The source is Romania's trade register (ONRC open data, 19 October 2026): 4.2 million firms registered since 1990, including those struck off. For companies, the people are the natural-person administrators in the legal-representatives file (roles administrator, sole general manager, legal representative; court-appointed administrators excluded). For PFAs and sole proprietorships, the person is the one named in the firm's name. For family firms, the representative and the members. A person with two firms appears twice.

Sex comes from the given names: the first one found in the classified list decides (if the first word after the surname is an initial or a rare name, the next one does). 2,755 given names borne by at least 10 people were classified by two independent readers; they agreed on 97.8%, weighted by bearers. Ambiguous names (Vasilica, Aurica, Gheorghiță) and names with no listed given name stay unclassified: 8 in 100 rows. Every share on the page is among classified rows.

The check: ONRC itself publishes, by county, how many women and men hold active PFA/II/IF businesses (39.0%). The method gives 38.2%, and across the 42 counties the correlation is 0.98, with a mean gap of 0.9 points. For company administrators ONRC publishes only associates (36.2%); the method gives 35.5% among administrators, county correlation 0.89. The roles differ but sit close.

Tests set in advance (SHA-256 fingerprint of the file, before computing): the county map against the 2021 census (failed: 0.45 and 0.21 against a threshold of 0.5), and survival by sex within the same trade, county and founding year (PFAs: −3.3 points, interval −3.9 … −2.8; companies: −0.2, interval −1.0 … +0.5). Active there meant only the "in operation" code; counting firms with an expired registered office too gives −5.0 and −2.5. Elsewhere on the page, "active" means in operation, including with an expired office, and not suspended, dissolving or struck off.

Trades come from the authorised CAEN codes, at the latest version on file for each firm (Rev.2 or Rev.3, same two-digit divisions), each of a firm's n distinct divisions counting 1/n. Codes from the 1998 and 2003 versions are mapped to the same groups by their own numbering (for example 60 = land transport). Before 2009 most closed firms have no codes left in the register, so the trade lines start in 2009.

The register shows who is on the papers, not who runs the business, and the place is the firm's registered address, not where people live. No person or firm is named, and every number shown for a commune is at least 5 people.