Tezaur or Fidelis

2026 rates against four annual inflation values

Of the 60 standard rates published in 2026, 56 exceed August’s annual inflation rate (6.17%), and 37 exceed September’s (6.61%). Both values are calculated from INS CPI indices.

Against the highest annual inflation rate reported in 2026 (10.42% in June), all 60 standard rates across the 20 emissions are lower (donor variants are excluded; the highest, 7.60% on Fidelis's two-year tenor in April and October, is lower too) — including the highest standard rate, 7.75% on Fidelis's ten-year tenor in October. The result is the same against July's annual rate (8.16%). INS's 11 September release rounded August's annual rate to 6.2%; its table gives CPI index 106.17, which yields 6.17% after subtracting the base of 100. At this calculated value, 56 of the 60 standard rates are higher, four are lower and none is equal. For September, INS's 13 October release rounded the annual rate to 6.6%; its table gives CPI index 106.61, which yields 6.61% after subtracting the base of 100. At this calculated value, 37 of the 60 rates are higher, 23 are lower and none is equal. Asterisks in the chart mark the values calculated from the indices.

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 an already published rate; 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 tenth 2026 edition in October; the offer's seven issues began trading on the BVB on 15 October after raising RON 1.27 billion. 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 the October 2026 emissions — Fidelis, subscribed 2–9 October, and Tezaur, 5 October–6 November — 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. You can enter an amount for the comparison; actual subscription conditions vary by programme and channel (see Tezaur’s minimums and cap). It shows the arithmetic; the choice between programs is the reader's.

For Tezaur, interest accrues from the issue date, inclusive, not from the start of the subscription period. In the October–November 2026 offer, subscriptions opened on 5 October and the issue date is 10 November. If you pay when the offer opens, those 36 days before issue earn no Tezaur interest. The calculator assumes subscription at the issue date and does not include this waiting period.

Amount invested

Program

Tezaur Fidelis

Tenor (October 2026)

Assumed inflation

Annual CPI, Sep. 2026 — 6.61% (index-derived)

Annual CPI, Aug. 2026 — 6.17% from index 106.17

BNR forecast, end 2026 — 6.1%

BNR forecast, end 2027 — 3.4%

other

Nominal interest

—

Nominal cash received

—

Real value, today's money

—

Annualised real yield

—

Tax: 0 lei. CASS: 0 lei (art. 93 and art. 170, Codul fiscal).

Principal is repaid at maturity and coupons are paid annually. This total adds every payment; it is not all paid on the final date.

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 can be redeemed early after the issue’s subscription period closes. The request deadline depends on the channel:

• Treasury: at least 60 working days before an interest or principal payment date, at the unit through which you subscribed.
• Post offices or Ghișeul.ro: at least 25 working days before the first day of the month containing the next scheduled interest or principal payment.

Redemption covers the entire amount under one subscription form or, on Ghișeul.ro, one payment proof. Separate forms are treated separately. All interest already received is deducted from the amount returned.

Repayment has its own timetable: through the Treasury, by the 20th of the month after the request; through post offices or Ghișeul.ro, by the last working day of the month after the request. The 25 or 60 working days are filing deadlines, not a promise that money will arrive after that interval.

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, read from primary sources: the Ministry's orders for the ten Tezaur editions of 2026, on mfinante.gov.ro, and the offer pages of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) for the ten Fidelis editions. The maturities and euro tranches in the “What can I buy now?” section come from the same documents. The September Fidelis listing date (17 September) comes from the BVB press release; BVB confirmed in its 14 October release that the October issues began trading on 15 October. The October Tezaur offer dates and channel-specific deadlines are confirmed by ANAF Brașov's 5 October announcement, which reproduces the Ministry of Finance terms.

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.

Future inflation remains the reader's choice; this page does not forecast it. The default is 6.61%, calculated from the September 2026 CPI index of 106.61; INS rounded the annual rate in its release to 6.6%. August 2026 remains a separate option at 6.17%, calculated from CPI index 106.17; INS rounded the rate to 6.2%, and the other two values are BNR forecasts.

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

• Tezaur rules, checked 18 October 2026: Ministry Order 1,324/30 September 2026, October–November prospect, articles 2–3, 8–9 and 11, PDF hosted on Poșta Română’s official Tezaur page: minimums, cap, payment dates and when interest begins. Order 3,139/2017, consolidated text, articles 27–31 and 38, for Treasury subscriptions; the annex to Order 333/226/2025, articles 19–20, 24–26 and 28, for post offices and Ghișeul.ro.
• Ministry of Finance — the 2026 Tezaur orders on the Treasury's Tezaur page and the official Fidelis X announcement. ANAF Brașov — the 5 October announcement on Tezaur rates and channel-specific deadlines.
• Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) — the October Fidelis offer page and the pages of the other nine 2026 Fidelis offers (rates, maturities, minimums, transaction date); 14 October release confirming the October issues began trading on 15 October; press release on the listing of September's Fidelis bonds, 17 September 2026, after subscriptions of 847 million lei across the lei and euro tranches together.
• Codul fiscal (Law 227/2015), articles 93 and 170, for the income-tax and CASS exemption.
• National Institute of Statistics (INS) — the 11 September release on August inflation (PDF): the annual rate rounded to 6.2% and CPI index 106.17, which implies 6.17% after subtracting the base of 100; the 13 October release on September inflation (PDF): the annual rate rounded to 6.6% and CPI index 106.61, which implies 6.61%; the official archive.
• 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.