Traffic fine and challenge deadline calculator (Romania)

How long do I have to challenge a fine?

Under OG 2/2001, the general law on contraventions, you can file a challenge to the fine (plângere contravențională) against the contravention report (proces-verbal de contravenție) within 15 days of the day it was handed to you or served on you (art. 31 alin. (1) OG 2/2001). The same 15 days apply to paying half of the minimum fine (art. 28 alin. (1) OG 2/2001). You file the challenge, at your choice, at the first-instance court (Judecătoria) for the area where the offence was committed or for the area where you have your domicile or registered office (art. 32 alin. (1) OG 2/2001, as amended by Law no. 107/2022), and filing in time suspends enforcement of the fine (art. 32 alin. (3)).

How is the 15-day time limit counted?

Under art. 47 OG 2/2001, the ordinance is supplemented by Codul de procedură civilă (the Code of Civil Procedure), so the time limit is counted in clear days: neither the day you received the report nor the day the time limit ends is counted (art. 181 alin. (1) pct. 2 Codul de procedură civilă).

A concrete example: you receive the report on Tuesday, 1 September 2026. The day of 1 September is not counted, then the 15 days run, and the day the time limit ends is not counted either. The last day to file the challenge is Thursday, 17 September 2026. If the last day fell on a Saturday, a Sunday or a public holiday, the time limit would move to the next working day (art. 181 alin. (2) Codul de procedură civilă). The calculator above applies both rules automatically, including public holidays with variable dates. For other court time limits, use the court deadline calculator.

A practical tip: do not leave the payment until the last day. For the payment time limit in art. 28, some authorities count the 15 days as calendar days, without the clear-days rule, and a difference of a day or two can cost you exactly the right to pay half.

Do I pay half of the fine or half of the minimum?

The general rule is clear and often misunderstood: you pay half of the minimum fine set by the statute, not half of the amount the officer applied (art. 28 alin. (1) OG 2/2001). If the law punishes the offence with a fine of 600 to 1,200 lei and the officer applied 1,200 lei, within 15 days you can pay 300 lei, that is half of 600, not 600. You find the legal minimum in the statute named in the report as the legal basis of the sanction.

There is a recent exception: from 27 March 2026, in building permits and urban planning you pay half of the fine actually applied, not half of the minimum (art. 28 alin. (1^1) OG 2/2001, inserted by Government Emergency Ordinance (OUG) 7/2026). The benefit does not exist at all when the works were carried out without a building permit or in breach of it: in that case the fine is paid in full. For ordinary fines, including traffic fines, the half-of-the-minimum rule still applies.

Important: paying half of the minimum does not stop you from filing a challenge to the fine within the same 15 days. You can pay so as not to lose the reduction and, in parallel, contest the report. If the court annuls the report, the amount paid is refunded.

What is the difference between fine points and penalty points?

The Road Code, OUG 195/2002, uses two notions that are easy to confuse. Fine points (puncte-amendă) are the unit used to calculate the fine: one fine point is worth 5% of the gross national minimum wage (art. 98 alin. (2) OUG 195/2002), that is 202.50 lei until 30 June 2026, while the minimum wage is 4,050 lei (Government Decision (HG) 1506/2024), and 216.25 lei from 1 July 2026, after HG 146/2026 raised the minimum wage to 4,325 lei. Each road traffic contravention falls into a sanction class: class I means 2 or 3 fine points, class II 4 or 5, class III 6 to 8, and class IV 9 to 20 (art. 98 alin. (4)). The fine is the number of fine points applied multiplied by the value of a point, and within 15 days you can pay half of the class minimum, under art. 28 alin. (1) OG 2/2001.

Penalty points (puncte de penalizare) have nothing to do with money: they are recorded against your driving licence, in addition to the fine, and the law sets them for each offence separately, at 2, 3, 4 or 6 points (art. 108 OUG 195/2002). They cannot be worked out from the sanction class, so the calculator does not show them automatically: you find them in the report. Reaching 15 penalty points suspends your right to drive for 30 days (art. 103 alin. (1) lit. a)), and a new total of at least 15 points within 12 months of the end of the first suspension brings 60 days (art. 103 alin. (1) lit. b)). Points expire 6 months after the date the offence was recorded (art. 103 alin. (4)).

Some offences suspend the licence directly, whatever penalty points you have: exceeding the speed limit by more than 50 km/h is punished with a class IV fine and a 90-day suspension (art. 102 alin. (3) lit. e)), and exceeding it by more than 70 km/h with a 120-day suspension (art. 102 alin. (4) lit. a)). Other contraventions bring a suspension of 30 days (art. 100 alin. (3)) or 60 days (art. 101 alin. (3)).

What happens if I neither challenge nor pay?

Once the 15 days have passed, a report that was not challenged is an enforceable title (titlu executoriu) without any further formality (art. 37 OG 2/2001). This means the full fine can be enforced: garnishment of your salary or bank accounts, enforcement against your assets. The option to pay half of the minimum also ends when the time limit expires.

If you want to check whether the report has defects that can lead to its annulment, from missing mandatory details to problems with the evidence, the page on traffic fines in Romania covers the usual grounds, or you can contact me and I will look at your report.