Tezaur or Fidelis

Every 2026 rate has sat below recent inflation

Romania went into the summer of 2026 with annual inflation above 10%. The national statistics office reported 10.42% for June, 8.16% for July, and 6.2% for August — a drop of more than four points in three readings. Measured against those three readings, the single highest rate in each of the 15 Tezaur and Fidelis emissions launched through September has, almost every time, stayed below them.

Measured against the year's highest reading (10.42%, June), all 45 rates published across the 15 emissions fall short — including the best of them, 7.60%, offered twice: on Fidelis's six-year tenor in April, and again on its ten-year tenor in June. Measured against July's 8.16%, the result is the same. Measured against the lowest of the three, 6.2% in August, 41 of the 45 clear it; one matches it exactly — Tezaur's one-year coupon from September, at 6.20% — and three sit below it: Tezaur's one-year coupon from March (5.85%), Fidelis's two-year coupon from the same month (5.90%), and Fidelis's two-year coupon from February (6.15%).

What the comparison above says is what inflation was in those particular months — not what it will be over the years a bond actually stays in a portfolio. A rate fixed today answers to inflation still to be measured over the whole time it's held — one year for Tezaur's shortest tenor, up to ten for Fidelis's longest — not to inflation that has already passed. What a rate fixed today is worth, in real money, depends on an assumption about future inflation, not a reading that has already been published; the calculator below lets the reader choose exactly that assumption, for their own amount and tenor.

Two ways to lend the state money

Tezaur and Fidelis are both state securities issued by Romania's Ministry of Finance for individuals, at a fixed rate set separately for each emission. What actually separates them is what happens before maturity.

Fidelis reached its ninth 2026 edition in September; Tezaur runs on its own, roughly monthly, calendar. Both are exempt from income tax and from the health contribution — the next section explains why.

Why the tax is zero

For an individual who is a Romanian tax resident, Codul fiscal (Law 227/2015), article 93(1)(a), exempts from tax "income realised from holding and transferring financial instruments that attest the state's public debt" — exactly what Tezaur and Fidelis are. The exemption covers both the coupon and any gain from selling a Fidelis bond before maturity. Other kinds of investment income — bank-deposit interest, gains on shares or corporate bonds — carry their own separate rates and rules; the exemption here is specific to state bonds, not a blanket rule for "investment income."

Article 170 of the same code takes the exemption one step further: income covered by article 93 is also excluded from the calculation base for CASS, the health contribution — regardless of amount. A fiscal consultant quoted by the press put it plainly: "They're not taxable, and CASS isn't owed either. So neither CASS nor tax is paid on state bonds." A non-resident's tax position rests on a separate statutory basis (article 229), not detailed here.

The comparison shows up next to a lei-denominated bank deposit: deposit interest is taxed at 10%, and CASS can apply on top of that depending on the saver's total income — a condition that depends on each person's situation and that this calculator does not model.

The calculator

Uses each program's current emission — September 2026 — and leaves inflation to the reader. For an amount, a program and a tenor, it shows the promised interest, the value at maturity, and what is left of it in today's purchasing power.

The calculator assumes subscription at the emission date, held to maturity at par — not the market price of a Fidelis bond already listed on the exchange. It accepts any amount purely to illustrate the arithmetic; the real subscription has its own minimum for each program (see "Two ways to lend the state money"). It shows the arithmetic; the choice between programs is the reader's.

What the rate doesn't tell you

The rate alone doesn't say what happens if you need the money before maturity, and that is where the two programs diverge the most.

Tezaur allows early redemption, but on harsh terms: a written request 25 business days before the next payment date, the full subscribed amount at once — no partial withdrawal — and the complete forfeiture of any interest already paid. In practice, an early exit returns only the original amount, none of what the bond promised.

Fidelis carries no such penalty, because it doesn't need one: listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, it can be sold on any trading day, at that day's market price. But the market price is not par — if market rates have risen since the emission, an older, lower-coupon bond trades below 100. Liquidity comes with a price risk that Tezaur, which never trades at all, does not carry.

Method

Every rate in the table above is the Ministry of Finance's own published term for that emission, reached through financial press that quotes the ministry's announcement directly; the Treasury's own site (mfinante.gov.ro) refused the connection on every attempt from this working environment, so no figure on this page comes from a direct check on the issuer's site — see SOURCES.md in the project's source for the full ledger and each record's status.

The calculator assumes simple interest, paid out annually rather than reinvested, as both programs' own terms describe. For a principal P, an annual rate r and a tenor of n years: total nominal interest is P·r·n, and the nominal value at maturity is P·(1+r·n) — the coupons paid out over the years plus the principal returned at the end, without assuming the reader sets them aside or reinvests them. "Real value, today's money" deflates each individual payment by the assumed inflation rate π: real = Σ P·r/(1+π)^t + P/(1+π)^n — what each future payment, taken on its own, is worth in today's purchasing power.

"Annualised real yield" is a different, separate figure: a bond bought at par has a yield to maturity equal to its own coupon rate, whatever the tenor, so it can be deflated directly with the standard relation (1+r)/(1+π) − 1, independent of the number of years. At zero inflation, that formula returns exactly the nominal rate, as it should.

Assumed inflation is the reader's choice, not the page's forecast. The default (6.2%) is the latest realized reading, from August 2026; the other two are the central bank's own forecast, revised twice already this year — a sign that even the bank doesn't treat the number as settled over the long run.

The rate table and calculator cover only lei tranches, subscribed at the emission date and held to maturity. Euro tranches and the market price of an already-listed Fidelis bond stay outside the page, for the reasons explained above.

Sources

• Ministry of Finance — terms of every 2026 Tezaur and Fidelis emission, via the Treasury page (unreachable directly from this working environment) and financial press quoting the ministry's announcements.
• Codul fiscal (Law 227/2015), articles 93 and 170, for the income-tax and CASS exemption.
• National Institute of Statistics (INS) — annual inflation, the August and September 2026 releases.
• National Bank of Romania (BNR) — inflation forecast, August 2026 round.

The complete ledger, with each value, edition and access date, is in the project's source registry. Every number in the text is calculated directly from these values; what the source cannot confirm, the page does not claim.