The work in the fields, the kind paid by the day, is moving into the computer. At the session held at the Ungheni District Council on 1 July, representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and of the Farmers’ Federation of Moldova explained to the district’s agricultural producers and mayors how to use e-Zilier — the platform through which, from now on, every seasonal worker must be registered digitally before starting work. The training covered the necessary documents, registering day labourers, their social rights, and how taxes and contributions are calculated.
What e-Zilier is and how it works
e-Zilier (zilieri.gov.md) is the electronic register of day labourers — people hired for occasional, unskilled activities, most often in agriculture. The platform is administered by the Ministry of Labour together with the Ministry of Agriculture, and the data entered flows automatically to the National Social Insurance House, the Tax Service and the State Labour Inspectorate. Since 1 June 2026, keeping records exclusively in electronic form has become mandatory; the old paper register has been retired, and the regime has been extended to forestry work as well.
In practice, the employer logs in with MPass and an electronic signature and enters each day labourer — name, ID document, type of activity, hours and pay — before the person starts work. Whoever fails to enter their people on time, in the morning, risks a fine. The system also calculates on its own the legal limit of 120 days per year for the same person with the same employer. One important detail, to avoid confusion: e-Zilier is only a record-keeping register — payment to the day labourer remains as before, in cash or by transfer.
In exchange for this formality, the day labourer gains something they did not have before: the days worked begin to count towards their insurance record, including for a pension. The legal basis remains Law no. 22/2018 on day labour, amended to move record-keeping fully into digital form.
Many hectares, few workers “on the books”
Why is this a local story, not just a Chișinău one? Because the Ungheni district is exactly the kind of place where e-Zilier changes things.
The district works around 30,000 hectares of farmland — of which nearly 17,000 are cereals and more than 10,000 sunflower. And yet, at the end of 2024, only about 1,200 formal employees were on the books in the district’s agriculture, forestry and fishing (data from the National Bureau of Statistics, which counts only enterprise employees). The gap between the land worked and this small number is precisely seasonal work — day labourers, the self-employed, households — the kind that, until now, largely went undeclared.
This is where the platform’s real stake lies: e-Zilier does not digitise a thick register, it brings into the open work that was, until now, almost invisible. For the small producer from Pârlița, Măgurele or Valea Mare, who takes on a few people for a week of harvesting, that means a new obligation — with a phone, internet and an electronic signature, early in the morning, before work begins.
What the farmers say
The authorities present the platform as a double win — less bureaucracy and real social protection. The Minister of Labour speaks of transparency, while the Minister of Agriculture stresses that days worked will count towards a pension.
Farmers are more reserved. The National Farmers’ Federation, a co-organiser of such training sessions, says the platform is useful but needs improvements — from simplifying the register to compatibility with the Tax Service’s systems. Other voices from agriculture, quoted by the national press, point to the reality on the ground: not all workers have capable phones or internet, and a farmer who takes on dozens or hundreds of people needs someone dedicated to entering the data all day. One producer from the north of the country said digitalisation is welcome, but a transition period was needed, because every extra data field takes time. A reaction from a farmer in the Ungheni district about the platform was not yet public.
Digitalisation today, a possible bill tomorrow
Over this whole transition hangs a second change, far more sensitive — and it is important not to confuse it with the first. The “Tax Policy 2027” draft, currently in public consultation, proposes raising social insurance contributions in agriculture from 18% to 21% and introducing a contribution for day labourers, raised from 0% to 21%.
For now it is only a proposal, not adopted by Parliament. But the overlap in timing is hard to ignore: farmers are being taught now to declare, through a mandatory system, exactly the seasonal work that a tax proposal could, from 2027, tax more heavily. The training in Ungheni falls right in the middle of the wave of discontent in agriculture over recent weeks — from the tractor protest to the blockade at the Sculeni border crossing. The question that remains, for every small producer in the district, is simple: if declaring seasonal work also becomes expensive, how many will still declare it?