The map
Net registered-domicile changes, year by year
Search for a locality or click it on the map. The card shows registered-domicile arrivals and departures in the selected year, their net balance and rate relative to domicile population. The data include international migration; domicile is not the same as actual residence. Press “Play the years” to follow address-registration balances on the map from 1992 to 2025.
On a small screen the map zooms with two fingers or the corner buttons; search remains the safest route.
The city and its ring
Cities and neighbouring communes: registered-domicile balances
For the 13 largest cities, we compared average annual net registered-domicile-change rates with the averages for directly bordering communes in two periods: 1995–2004 and 2015–2024. In the more recent period, nine cities had negative averages; in all 13 comparisons, the bordering-commune average was positive and higher. Bucharest and Iași had the highest positive values among the 13 cities. These indicators include international migration and describe domicile registrations, not total population change or direct moves between a city and its neighbours.
The magnets and the localities emptying out
Where registered arrivals outweighed departures — and where departures outweighed arrivals
For each locality, we summed annual registered-domicile arrivals minus departures from 1992 to 2025 and divided by the 2025 domicile population. This compares a cumulative flow with the population at the end of the period; it does not show what share of people registered there in 2025 had moved there. Localities with at least 500 residents in 2025 are included.
The magnets (top 12)
- 1commune, Timiș county+866.222,699
- 2commune, Timiș county+840.627,328
- 3commune, Ilfov county+822.912,159
- 4commune, Timiș county+821.120,184
- 5town, Ilfov county+815.436,914
- 6commune, Cluj county+814.055,766
- 7commune, Ilfov county+796.540,647
- 8commune, Brașov county+790.413,754
- 9commune, Iași county+784.017,565
- 10commune, Iași county+770.733,726
- 11commune, Dolj county+770.38,943
- 12commune, Iași county+754.910,020
Emptying out (top 12)
- 1commune, Vâlcea county−956.61,106
- 2commune, Caraș-Severin county−821.4543
- 3commune, Dâmbovița county−759.71,968
- 4commune, Alba county−748.1532
- 5town, Harghita county−705.07,208
- 6commune, Vâlcea county−681.92,062
- 7commune, Hunedoara county−646.2783
- 8commune, Alba county−632.9692
- 9commune, Bistrița-Năsăud county−609.33,079
- 10commune, Buzău county−600.82,262
- 11commune, Sibiu county−597.53,506
- 12commune, Buzău county−591.9615
The figure beside each locality is its cumulative net balance relative to 2025 domicile population, per thousand; below it is the 2025 registered population. The highest positive rates are mostly in satellite communes around large cities; negative rates appear mainly in isolated or mountain communes. This flow-to-population ratio does not show what share of current residents moved there.
Annual changes
Localities with the highest annual net domicile-change rates
Four localities in Iași, Botoșani and Vaslui counties, along the border with the Republic of Moldova, recur among the highest annual net domicile-change rates. These balances include changes within Romania and from abroad; they do not measure total population change or show how many people arrived from abroad.
| Locality | Year | Rate per 1,000 | Net domicile-change registrations | Domicile population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| commune, Iași county | 2014 | +1,639.4 | +3,405 | 2,077 |
| commune, Iași county | 2014 | +925.6 | +3,668 | 3,963 |
| commune, Vaslui county | 2024 | +664.6 | +981 | 1,476 |
| commune, Iași county | 2013 | +591.8 | +1,508 | 2,548 |
| commune, Vaslui county | 2023 | +558.5 | +1,174 | 2,102 |
| commune, Iași county | 2024 | +511.8 | +1,775 | 3,468 |
| commune, Botoșani county | 2021 | +438.6 | +904 | 2,061 |
| commune, Botoșani county | 2023 | +395.4 | +565 | 1,429 |
| commune, Botoșani county | 2018 | +384.0 | +1,386 | 3,609 |
| commune, Vaslui county | 2025 | +375.1 | +939 | 2,503 |
| commune, Botoșani county | 2022 | +369.2 | +1,126 | 3,050 |
| commune, Iași county | 2025 | +333.5 | +583 | 1,748 |
The rate is registered-domicile arrivals minus departures per 1,000 people in the domicile-population series. The net count is the raw annual difference in registrations. Localities with a domicile population under 150 are excluded from the ranking.
Domicile records
Why did domicile-population figures rise in some communes?
From 2014 to 2025, domicile-population figures rose sharply in several communes near Moldova, and later fell in some. These records describe registered domicile, not how many people actually lived there. INS’s POP107D methodology says immigration of people born in the Republic of Moldova influenced some jumps, naming Ripiceni and Scânteia. The source does not assign that cause to all six localities.
INS explicitly warns in its POP107D methodology that immigration of people born in the Republic of Moldova influenced some jumps at Ripiceni and Scânteia. Romania’s citizenship reacquisition procedure requires applicants to declare a domicile in Romania; alongside the INS warning and the communes’ location near the border, this may explain part of the recorded increases. The aggregated series does not confirm the same cause for every commune or show whether later declines involved the same people.
The overall picture
Most localities had cumulative net domicile-change rates close to zero
The distribution of cumulative net registered-domicile changes (1992–2025), divided by 2025 domicile population, for the 3,153 localities with more than 500 residents shows a central mass close to zero and long tails in both directions — communes on city edges to the right, isolated communes to the left.
Method and limits
How everything was calculated
The source is INS, TEMPO-Online: matrices POP307A (arrivals with a new home address, including international migration) and POP308A (departures with a new home address, including international migration), by county and locality, 1990–2025; and POP107D (population by domicile, as of 1 January, all ages and sexes summed), 1992–2026. For every locality and year, the net rate is 1000 × (Arrivals − Departures) / Population. 1990–1991 are excluded from the rates because the population series starts in 1992; they are included only in the national totals.
- "Domicile" does not mean actual residence: someone can live and work elsewhere, in another locality or another country, without changing their official address. Arrivals and departures include international migration, per INS's own definition of these matrices.
- Localities created or reorganised after 1990 have no registered population before their creation; their series start at the first year with data, not at zero, so their creation does not read as an artificial "arrival."
- The cumulative net rate in "Magnets" and "Distribution" divides the summed net domicile-change flow across 1992–2025 by the 2025 domicile population. It compares an accumulated flow with an end-period population; it does not show the share of people registered in 2025 who moved there or how many remained.
- The neighbour relationships used for the city–ring comparison and for each locality's card come from the SIRUTA administrative geometry (geo-spatial.org, CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, ANCPI), the same geometry used elsewhere on this site.
- The explanation offered for the border phenomenon (domicile tied to citizenship) is a reasonable inference from context — geographic proximity, the known legal mechanism of citizenship reacquisition, INS's own explicit warning for Ripiceni and Scânteia — not a direct, locality-by-locality confirmation from INS or another authority.
Every figure, formula and check is in the published methodology of this project.