Legal Business Entitities Romania

In order to be able to do business legally, you should have a registered company. The legally registered company gives you the opportunity to obtain financing (especially if it is European funds, for example), to take credit from the bank, to hire people, to conclude business partnerships, to collaborate more simply and more credibly with suppliers and customers.
 
Setting up a company does not guarantee that your business idea will be a success and it does not mean that, once you have set up your company, you have become a true entrepreneur; it is a necessary but not sufficient condition. On the other hand, it is good to know that when you have a company you will have more headaches: documents, accounting, all kinds of authorizations, controls, reporting.
 
In Romania, business bureaucracy can often be exhausting, but without a legally established company you can't do much. In addition, setting up a company also means a series of responsibilities, but we will discuss this later. So, let's see how you go about setting up your business and what you should do.
How to choose the company name. Why the company name is important.
 
If you decide it's time to start a company, the first step is to choose a name. For some entrepreneurs it is as if they were baptizing their first child: the company name is the whole collection of aspirations, emotions, attributes, desires. For others, the name of the company is just the name of a legal entity without the specific burden of what would or should become a brand.
 
There are specialists who say that it is important to choose a name that matches what your business idea would represent, to say, to convey something about your business. On the other hand, the name of the legal entity may not represent anything. About name and brand can be discussed endlessly, branding is an eclectic mixture of science and art, emotions and logic, concrete and abstract.
 
We can add a long list of names that have made or are already making history: from companies such as Amazon, Uber, Microsoft to some that bear or are related to the names of the founders: Ford, Yamaha, Adidas, Boeing or Bombardier.
 

Company name: What you want and what else you can find

If you have already chosen a name for the company, there are two places where you should check if the name is available or not:
 

• at ONRC (National Trade Register Office)
• to ROTLD (Internet Domain Registry) if it is a .ro domain or to other registries or agents for domains

At the Trade Register you register the legal name of the company, (eg S.C. Firma Mea SRL), ie the name under which the company will operate: it will issue invoices, conclude contracts, pay taxes and duties.
 
At ROTLD or another register for the internet domain, you register the name of the web address (eg www.firmamea.ro) where those who are looking for you on the internet will be able to find your company website.
 
Practical note: Theoretically, you can check online at ONRC whether or not a name is available without going to the Trade Register. You need an account in the system and, even if the web interface doesn't seem very friendly to me, with a little perseverance you should be able to figure out how to do it. I wrote theoretically because, at the time of writing this text, I did not manage to do this, successfully, to the end.
 
With the internet domain it is much simpler, everything is solved online, including the payment of the domain.
 
Attention: the reservation of the domain is one and its hosting is different, it is a separate service.
 
Ideally, you should find the name available in one place and another. You may be unlucky enough to see that they are already booked. Tip: here it is worth going back a little to what kind of name you choose. If it is a common or generic one, the chances of someone else being faster are quite high. If you have a unique name (an interesting acronym, a clever combination of letters, syllables or words) you could easily get away with the reservation.
 
It is good to make a list of variants and combinations of the name. I would try to see for the first time if the internet domain is free (especially in the case of a digital business idea). After all, the legal name does not have to be the same; it may have one or two extra words, for example.
 
There are companies that have very different names from the internet domain, or from the product or service they offer and which becomes very well known. If your business grows, the name of the company you started with may be less important than a brand or product brand you created with that entity.
 
Remember that brands have entrepreneurs or firms behind them, but not all entrepreneurs or firms can become brands or brands.