Cuprins:
Over the past 12 years, the diaspora has become the second-largest direct investor in the country’s economy. Romanians abroad transferred 60 billion euros back home, to their families or into major investment projects, according to Cristian Popa, member of the Board of Directors of the National Bank of Romania (BNR).
The state, in turn, still keeps them running around: they spend around 1.54 billion euros a year and thousands of cumulative hours whenever they need services from various institutions. Nor is the burden distributed equally; Romanians in certain countries face these obstacles disproportionately. The cause, however, is obvious: the absence of a digital infrastructure to build the bridge across the gap between the state and the Romanian abroad.
A click away, the state ought to make up for the distance from home. In far too few cases, however, does it come down to a click that the Romanian beyond the country’s borders can press to have their problem solved. We start from an important contrast: 80% of Romanians abroad see digitalization as a positive process, a notably higher proportion than that of Romanians at home. Such a level of consensus on matters of public policy is a reality and, of course, creates fertile ground for action. Once we move from perceptions to actual experience, the consensus breaks down.
58% of diaspora citizens needed, in the past year, to resolve an administrative problem in relation to an institution in Romania. For 45% of respondents, this meant a trip home, with everything that entails: transport expenses, days off work, possible accommodation expenses and other related costs, instead of the option to fill in, in good time, an intuitive form from the comfort of their own couch. For the other citizens, resolving the problem involved a host of other solutions, some more conventional, others creative: trips to consulates, calling on relatives or friends, or simply putting off a resolution.
Starting from Edge Institute’s most recent study, authored by Melany Pașca and Barbu Mateescu, and from a survey of over 2,000 respondents from the diaspora, we investigate the complexity of the problem and propose a series of solutions.
Complex solutions for simple problems. The diaspora and the "digital state" that never was
As a Romanian in the diaspora, bureaucratic problems do not discriminate on grounds of age, occupation, education or status. They become a reality of everyday life. From the need to obtain civil status documents or to renew them, to access to pensions and other social payments, obtaining a criminal record certificate or securing an apostille, the services a Romanian in the diaspora needs are varied. While the passport and birth, marriage or death certificates dominate the hierarchy of needs, the pyramid is completed, in various relatively close proportions, by a multitude of other documents and specific needs.
Which services should be 100% online, as a priority
What % of respondents would want each service 100% online, as a priority. Browse: arrows, swipe or click.
Figure 15 · Services that should be 100% online, as a priority (total sample, multiple responses; on average 2,4 selections per respondent).
To resolve these problems, Romanians, as we illustrated above, have turned to various solutions. On average, these solutions have cost them around 1,000 euros.
Estimated cost of the administrative journey (EUR)
Figure 3 · Estimated cost of the administrative journey — transport, accommodation, days off work.
The costs, broken down, illustrate a somewhat more complex financial picture. More than a quarter of those who traveled specifically for bureaucratic matters devoted over 2,000 euros to these trips. These sums, added up annually, raise important questions about a potential alternative use they could have served if, in exchange, digital services had made up for the need to travel.
Romanians in the diaspora, "international" couriers for the Romanian state
Of those who had, in the past year, an administrative problem to resolve, nearly two-thirds ended up, in one form or another, traveling in person: 45% specifically for that, another 21% in the context of holidays spent at home or family visits. Only 17% managed to resolve the problem at the consulate in their country of residence, another important dilemma the state must address. Even fewer, only 7%, managed to resolve the administrative problem entirely online, by post or through intermediaries. The alarm bell is sounded, further, by yet another harsh reality: for 1 in 10 respondents, the problem simply remained unresolved.
An informal solution, rarely present in statistics but commonly used by Romanians abroad, is turning to relatives, friends or other citizens located on Romanian territory. Two-thirds of respondents have resolved, on an occasional basis, various problems through acquaintances, problems that a digital state would have allowed them to address in good time on their own. For 8% of respondents, this is a recurring practice. The courier work that either the Romanian abroad or their intermediary at home carries out is a form of informal administrative labor, labor that the state could cover through digital tools without too much hassle.
If, over the past five years, nearly 7 in 10 Romanians, more precisely 69%, have traveled to the country at least once to present themselves at the counter in Romania, the frequency of those who have undertaken two or three such trips is nearly a third of respondents. 16%, even more, have resorted to such measures at least four times within a five-year cycle. These people have, in effect, become familiar with the counter of various institutions and have probably navigated a slalom of routes between different floors and offices for bureaucratic purposes, instead of investing that time in more productive efforts.
Trips to Romania specifically for administrative matters
Figure 4 · Number of trips to Romania specifically for administrative matters, over the past 5 years.
A Romanian from the United Kingdom ends up traveling home for paperwork almost twice as often as one from Italy
The consular network, in its current form, cannot address a wide range of problems. Although it is populated, to a good extent, by professionals, it cannot make up for the need for complex services that the state can deliver in a simple and intuitive format, eminently online.
Concrete problems, of a bureaucratic nature, remain just as valid. Only 18% of Romanians in Spain managed, for example, to resolve an administrative problem entirely at the consulate, and this is the best result among the large communities of diaspora citizens. Also in Spain we find the lowest rate of Romanians forced to make special trips to Romania, at 21%. By comparison, in the United Kingdom, only 6% of Romanians were able to finalize their problem at the consulate, precisely in the community with the highest rate of special trips to the country (32%).
The explanations are complex. Over the past 10 years, the number of Romanians in the United Kingdom has grown exponentially, and by 2023 over 1.5 million applications by Romanians for residency had been processed by the British authorities under the EU Settlement Scheme. Thus, the consular network cannot keep up with the ever-growing proportion of requests for services. Currently, only four consulates general operate in the United Kingdom, one of which in Scotland, in Edinburgh, and three in England, in London, Manchester and Birmingham; at the same time, each year, the Consulate General of Romania in London holds first place for the number of consular services provided, totaling 57,149 services in 2025 alone and, more recently, 18,485 in the second quarter of 2026 alone.
The problem intensifies the more diaspora communities we analyze. For instance, 32% of Romanians in the United Kingdom were forced to travel specially to Romania for an administrative problem, compared to only 19% of those in Italy, the most numerous community of the Romanian diaspora. It is a ratio of almost 1.75 to 1, on statistically solid samples (over 450 and over 500 weighted respondents, respectively), and it is not an isolated case. Romanians in France and Belgium are forced, in percentages almost as high as those of the communities of citizens in the United Kingdom, to make trips to Romania for administrative problems. In the case of Romanians in Germany, they end up resorting to special trips to the extent of 27%, around 1 in 4, and the picture is completed, toward the end, by Romanians in Spain and Italy. The frequencies differ, but the problem persists among Romanians everywhere.
The diaspora invests but sees nothing in return
The real stakes of the discussion are as striking as can be. From 2013 to mid-2025, the diaspora directed toward Romania double the initial value of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR): a sum of 60 billion euros. In 2024 alone, this sum amounted to around 6.7 billion euros, the equivalent of 2% of GDP. The diaspora has thus established itself as a major direct investor in the Romanian economy. The figures, however, illustrate paradox upon paradox.
The economic connection does not stop at remittances. 54% of respondents send money, occasionally or monthly, to family members in Romania. 43% own a property in the country. In total, approximately 70% of the diaspora maintains some kind of active economic connection with Romania, through remittances, property, an active bank account or a conditional willingness to invest.
Romanians in the United Kingdom top this list, but they are also the most striking example of the paradox: although they send home larger sums than more numerous diaspora communities in EU member states, they are also the ones forced to tick off the highest expenses through recurring trips to Romania for administrative reasons. In short, the community that contributes disproportionately much economically is also the one most often made to pay, out of its own pocket, for the digital inefficiency of the Romanian state.
More than 8 in 10 of the diaspora state that they live in countries more digitalized than Romania. As the digital transformation of the state accelerates abroad and stagnates in Romania, this decline may also influence the investment appetite of Romanians in the diaspora. In this sense, the contrast appears, from our figures, paradoxical when you look toward the future, not the present: only 4% have concrete investment plans in the next three years, and 54% categorically rule out any economic investment in Romania in the period ahead. The proportion that firmly states it has no such plans progresses dramatically with age: from 38% among those between 18 and 29 years old, to 67% among those over 59.
Who rules out investing in Romania
Choose an age group to see what % categorically rule out any investment in Romania in the next 3 years.
Figure 18 · The share of those who rule out investing in Romania in the next 3 years, by age group
In effect, the slow pace of digitalization risks stalling the interest of Romanians in the diaspora in launching economic projects beneficial to Romania or in channeling funds toward the country. Each year of unresolved bureaucracy means not only frustration; it means an entire wave of potential investors lost irreversibly, on top of the 60 billion already sent out of obligation and attachment to family, not out of trust in the state and its institutions.
The social contract between the state and Romanians abroad
We have illustrated, previously, the scale of the phenomenon. Romanians in the diaspora are also couriers for the Romanian state, even though they are thousands of kilometers from home. Likewise, they invest recurrently in the national economy by channeling money toward their families and beyond, but their investment, instead of being “rewarded” through coherent support measures, ends up being compounded by additional expenses for administrative reasons.
The investment appetite of Romanians, thus, erodes, just as the trust they show toward national institutions erodes. This fragile social contract between the state and its citizens around the world, an unequal contract, amplifies the vulnerability of the Romanian abroad and ignores the immense potential of this relationship. Digital transformation, however, offers important opportunities for improvement.
We have presented, at length, multiple solutions in our most recent policy paper on this topic. We revisit, briefly, a few on this occasion as well and address other possible digital policy avenues the state can adopt to make the most of a “digital social contract” with the diaspora:
Priority services for the diaspora
Identity documents, passports, civil status certificates and pension files must be obtainable entirely online, and the eConsulat platform must become a complete service-processing platform, from submission to delivery, not just a scheduling platform.
Digital identity and trust infrastructure
Without a trusted digital identity, with the European digital identity wallet (RoEUDIW) and the "once-only" principle as its pillars, which assumes that the state does not repeatedly request a document already submitted by the citizen, any other promise of digitalization remains inaccessible from a distance.
Digital skills and support
The state must launch a digital literacy campaign alongside the launch of RoEUDIW, on Ukraine's model, position consulates as skills-training hubs and create a support scheme for lifelong learning in the digital sphere, on the model of Singapore and France.
Governance, communication and trust
Digitalization does not sustain itself: it needs constant communication to the diaspora about which services already exist and an annual public barometer that honestly measures how much of this promise has truly translated into trips avoided. In addition, launching a public consultation mechanism with Romanians in the diaspora through digital tools, a true digital agora, can revitalize the relationship between institutions and Romanians everywhere.
And, on the matter of investment, the diaspora constitutes a strategic asset for Romania. Moreover, we possess a vast tech diaspora, Romanians placed in major hubs of digital innovation worldwide. From a policy of digital residencies for Romanian entrepreneurs abroad seeking to launch relevant businesses in the field, to an “Erasmus of the tech diaspora,” through which they would come to the country for set periods to contribute to major digital transformation projects, the investment and civic appetite of the diaspora can be revitalized only through coherent digital measures that restore the bond of trust between citizen and institutions.
Ultimately, beyond figures and statistics, the experience of the diaspora citizen is, at present, a succession of bureaucratic obstacles, expenses and unfulfilled aspirations. To transform such an experience into a success story and, at the end of the day, to revitalize the social contract between the state and the Romanian abroad, a new bridge must be built over the gap to which Edge Institute dedicated an entire article in April of this year.