Vote 16 September 2026 · Chamber of Deputies · savings and investment accounts law
The vote passed. Your share is still zero.
500 lei a month, from 25 to 65: ≈234,000 lei in today's money (763,000 lei nominal)
The Chamber of Deputies adopted the CEI law with 262 votes for and one abstention. The law is not promulgated, and the cap, lock-up, instruments and providers stay unpublished.
Evidence checked 17 September 2026.
Calculator: your pension, in today's lei
Move the sliders. Every result is an illustration built on constant assumptions, with no fees.
Total savedPaid in by youStarted laterOrdinary account
At 65: total ≈234,000 lei, paid in by you ≈74,000 lei.
The CEI line holds only if the unpublished annual cap covers your contribution.
| Hypothetical annual return | Nominal total | Total in today's lei | Monthly, today's lei, 20 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3% | 463,000 lei | 142,000 lei | 600 lei |
| 5% | 763,000 lei | 234,000 lei | 1,000 lei |
| 7% | 1,312,000 lei | 402,000 lei | 1,700 lei |
Assumptions: constant yearly return, constant yearly inflation of 3.0 %, no fees, monthly compounding. Large amounts round to 1,000 lei, monthly ones to 100 lei.
CEI-S and CEI-D: same road, different tax
Follow 1,000 lei of gross salary through both accounts, if the money doubles. Move the rates and see when each one wins.
CEI-S Roth-style · TEE
CEI-S takes the tax on the way in and nothing on the way out.
- You pay in900 lei
- You get out1,800 lei
CEI-D Traditional-style · EET
CEI-D postpones the tax to the way out.
- You pay in1,000 lei
- In the account at the end2,000 lei
- You get out1,800 lei
At equal rates, the two accounts give the same result.
Architecture from the Senate draft: special accounts at investment firms (SSIFs), for any resident with taxable income, holding both types at once, at the same firm or different ones. The Senate draft uses another acronym (CIIP), and the adopted final text is still unpublished, so details may differ. Whether the CIIP draft is an earlier version of the adopted law or a parallel initiative is unclear from public sources.
Four countries, four philosophies
America gives large employer shelters, Sweden gives simplicity with no cap, Britain gives a clear limit. Romania gives, for now, a law without a published cap.
Yearly tax-sheltered amount, in euro
Euro amounts at the ECB reference rate of 17 September 2026: 1 euro = 1.1481 dollars = 0.85830 pounds.
| Romania · CEI | USA · 401(k) | Sweden · ISK | Britain · ISA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsor | You, individually | The employer | You, individually | You, individually |
| Tax model | S: net in, free out · D: gross in, taxed out | Traditional or Roth, same idea | Yearly charge of about 1% on the balance, no tax per trade | No tax inside the limit |
| Who picks the investments | unknown, SSIF-held accounts in draft | You, from an employer menu | You, directly on the market | You, directly on the market |
US 2026 thresholds: an extra $8,000 from age 50, $11,250 between 60 and 63; a separate $7,500 IRA. Sweden exempts the first 300,000 SEK from 2026.
401(k) balances: average and median
The median is under a quarter of the average (Fidelity, Q2 2026, all-time high). The average is pulled up by large balances, the median shows the typical participant far below.
of Swedes hold an ISK account, launched in 2012, with no per-trade reporting.
Why now
The 2026 context, in three numbers: fewer working-age persons for each pensioner, a stock exchange at all-time highs, and a dividend tax that makes shelter valuable.
Working-age persons per 65+
IMF, the 2050 forecast is a dashed line. The dependency ratio reached 31.6% in December 2025, an all-time high (Eurostat).
Bucharest Stock Exchange, billion lei
Regulated market: BVB reports (2024, 2025), ASF analysis (31 July 2026).
Active client accounts
Up 9.4 times in seven years. The BET index was up 47.1% year to date, first in Europe.
Pillar II and the road here
- 2008
Pillar II starts at 2%, promising to reach 6%.
- 2018
The contribution is cut to 3.75% instead of rising.
- 2024
The contribution rises to 4.75%.
- 2025
The Constitutional Court rejects the first payout law (25 November).
- 2026
Law 2/2026: from 5 January 2027, at most 30% cash and the rest in instalments over 8 years.
- Feb 2026
The Senate tacitly approves 5.25% (2026) and 6% (2027); the bill is not law.
- now
228 billion lei (€43.5 billion) for 8.5 million participants.
- now
+19.2% in 2025 and €17.8 billion net gain in 18 years.
- now
Pillar III returns +19.6%, with €400 deductibility frozen for over a decade.
- now
Dividends are taxed at 16% since January 2026. An account sheltering them starts 16 points above money kept outside.
- 16 Sept 2026
The Chamber of Deputies adopts the CEI law: 262 votes for, one abstention.
What the research says
Automatic enrollment, before and after
Madrian and Shea (2001), the studied firm.
Save More Tomorrow, contributions
Thaler and Benartzi (2004), first implementation, one firm, 78% of employees joined.
Press reports and the Senate draft show CEI without the two proven engines, automatic enrollment and the employer match, but the verdict stays provisional until the final text. Pillar II is the mandatory participation that works: 8.5 million people contribute with no monthly decision to save.
Five things we do not know yet
The final text is unpublished. Any number you read about them is, today, invented.
- Unknown until the final textThe annual cap.
It decides whether CEI is a pension or a symbolic gesture. Pillar III never took off at €400 a year.
- Unknown until the final textThe lock-up and the penalty.
Too hard and nobody joins. Too soft and it becomes a trading account with a tax leak.
- Unknown until the final textEligible instruments.
Romanian securities only, or global ETFs too? Real diversification is decided here.
- Unknown until the final textThe providers.
Banks, brokers, insurers? Authorization speed decides whether it launches quickly or years from now.
- Unknown until the final textPromulgation and the final text.
The 16 September vote is a promise. The Official Gazette is the law.
Method and sources
- The CEI vote and mechanism come from the press that covered the 16 September 2026 session and from the Senate draft documents; the final text is missing, and the page marks everything depending on it as unknown.
- The American and British thresholds come from official documentation (IRS, GOV.UK), read directly; the Swedish mechanism, from the Wikipedia article on the ISK (an unofficial source), read directly; the exchange rate, from the daily ECB reference.
- Demography, markets and pension funds come from the institutions that publish them (IMF, Eurostat, BVB, ASF, APAPR, Fidelity), via cross-checked press reports.
- The calculator uses the future value of a monthly annuity, at a constant hypothetical return. It is not a forecast and not personalized advice.
Sources
- Informat.ro, CEI law adopted on 16 Sept 2026 (vote, mechanism, initiators)
- Senate, CIIP draft text · explanatory memorandum (architecture under debate)
- IRS, 2026 401(k) limit: $24,500 · IRS, 2026 COLA table
- Wikipedia (EN), Investeringssparkonto (mechanism, 300,000 SEK from 2026; unofficial source)
- GOV.UK, ISA: £20,000 in 2026–27
- ECB, euro reference rate of 17 September 2026 (1 euro = 1.1481 dollars = 0.85830 pounds)
- IMF, Romania labour force and demographics
- Eurostat, 31.6% dependency ratio · BVB via Transilvania Investments Q1 2026 report (cap 350.3 to 523.1)
- ASF analysis, 704.8bn lei at 31 Jul 2026, accounts, BET +47.1%
- APAPR via ActMedia, Pillar II: 228bn lei, 8.5m participants
- Senate tacitly approves rise to 5.25%/6% (Agerpres, 4 Feb 2026)
- Madrian–Shea 2001 (49% to 86%): Urban Institute · NBER · Thaler–Benartzi 2004, RePEc record
An educational page: past numbers are cross-checked from press and public documents, calculator scenarios are illustrations. Evidence cutoff 17 September 2026; the page updates when the final text of the law and the ASF–ANAF norms appear. Fonts: Source Serif 4 and Source Sans 3, SIL Open Font license.