From 2029, the Republic of Moldova will require an approval for every car brought into the country and every car part placed on the market. How much approving a car will cost is not yet known even to the government: in its own tariff table, all eight services read «x lei».
At its sitting on 9 July, Parliament passed in first reading the law on the approval and market surveillance of road vehicles, a draft from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development. It is the second motoring law passed that same day — the first automatically suspends the registration of cars with an expired technical inspection — and, unlike that one, it does not apply in six months’ time but only in two and a half years.
What does not exist today
The starting point is acknowledged by the authors of the law themselves. In the explanatory note, the ministry states plainly that «at present, the Republic of Moldova has no functioning system of type approval and individual approval», and that current procedures are «limited to identifying the vehicle during registration», carried out by the Public Services Agency, «without a full check of technical conformity».
In other words: today, when an Ungheni resident brings in a car from the European Union, the state checks whether the car is the one in the papers — not whether it is safe.
On spare parts, the document is blunter still: certification «is absent as a process». Car parts are sold today under the general rules for placing goods on the market, «without their quality being checked». And since March 2022, importing used parts has been permitted — with a single exception left in the Customs Code: braking-system and steering-system components.
Who becomes what
The law splits authority three ways. The Public Services Agency becomes the national approval authority — it issues the certificates. The National Road Transport Agency becomes the market surveillance authority — it checks what is being sold and can pull goods from the shelves. The ministry keeps policy and technical regulation.
A national register of approvals is also created, interoperable with the other state registers, and penalties applied to economic operators and technical services can reach 5% of annual turnover.
«x lei»
Here is the heart of the story. The financial impact analysis, part of the package approved by the government, contains a table of eight approval services and a column headed «Moldova’s proposals (lei)». In all eight rows, in place of a sum, stands the letter «x».
The only real figures in the table are the European benchmarks, put there for comparison: an individual approval costs between 80 and 180 euros in the European Union, averaging 130; a type approval, between 300 and 650 euros. At the National Bank’s official rate for 14 July — 20.08 lei to the euro — the European benchmark for a single car works out at roughly 1,610–3,615 lei.
Moldovan tariffs are to be set by government decision, later. The document explicitly admits that, «in the absence of approved tariffs», the future system’s revenues were modelled on scenarios, and it leaves open «the possibility of examining the option of differentiated tariffs for individuals and economic operators».
How many cars we are talking about
The government’s medium scenario, for an ordinary year: 11,000 new vehicles and 45,000 imported used vehicles, of which 36,400 would need individual approval — four out of every five second-hand cars brought into the country.
The order of magnitude also shows in foreign trade. Imports under chapter 87 of the customs nomenclature — land vehicles, parts and accessories — rose from 435.6 million dollars in 2021 to 871.6 million in 2025. They doubled in four years.
The vehicle fleet is growing just as fast, even as the country empties of people. According to National Bureau of Statistics data supplied by the Public Services Agency, at the end of 2025 Moldova had 1,225,986 registered vehicles, of which 894,618 were passenger cars — 65,936 vehicles more than a year earlier.
In its statement, Parliament cited different figures: 1.16 million units and «over 834,000» passenger cars. These come from the ministry’s note, which invokes the State Register of Transport — 1,168,483 units as of 1 December 2025. They are two separate state records, with different dates and coverage; they do not line up. But whichever the base, the direction is the same. Over ten years, the number of passenger cars in the country grew by 68.9%, while the population shrank by 16%. In Ungheni district, where the population fell by 22.4% over the same decade, the gap is wider still.
Who says, from inside the file, that it will not work
The objections come not from the press but from the summary of opinions — the document in which institutions give their views on the draft and the ministry answers point by point.
The Public Services Agency — precisely the body the law makes the approval authority — challenged the ministry’s budget arithmetic:
We propose that the estimate of revenues and current expenditure be removed from the explanatory note to the draft. Conceptually, taking into account the provision of art. 28 of the draft law concerning budget financing of the market surveillance authority’s activity, the impact of the draft law on the national public budget cannot be positive. Public Services Agency, opinion on the draft law
The ministry answered «partially accepted» and adjusted the financial estimate. The earlier version of the note had promised a positive budget impact of 4.95 million lei in the first year, 22.55 million in the second and 24.11 million in the third. Those figures are no longer in the document.
The American Chamber of Commerce in Moldova asked that the future authority’s power to take samples for testing be removed, arguing that the state has nothing to test them with:
At present, the Republic of Moldova lacks the technical resources and infrastructure needed to carry out conformity testing of road vehicles, systems, components and separate technical units to the level of the standards laid down in European regulations. AmCham Moldova, objection to the draft law
The Chamber’s conclusion was that the provision is, in practice, inapplicable. The ministry answered «partially accepted»: the power to take samples stays, but the norm is to be clarified.
In a separate objection, the Chamber sought a pragmatic solution for importers: that vehicles and parts bearing the CE marking, or lawfully sold in the European Union, be presumed to hold European approval already. Here the ministry refused, explaining that the CE marking «is not used in the road vehicle approval system».
The system is paid for by a tariff that does not exist
Of the whole mechanism, the state budget funds one thing: the two inspectors at the National Road Transport Agency who will police the market — 528,000 lei a year. The rest has to support itself.
The document puts the total need at about 25 specialists, of whom 15 for individual approval alone and the recognition of used vehicles. They sit at the Public Services Agency and are to be paid out of own revenues — that is, out of tariffs that do not yet exist. Technical services, in turn, are private entities: whoever turns up with the car pays them directly.
The result is a system in which the people carrying out approvals are paid from the money approvals bring in. How much money that will be is settled in the government decision that will fill those eight boxes marked «x».
Where it will be done — and why Ungheni has a case
For an Ungheni resident, the practical question is not «what does the law say» but «where do I take my car». The ministry’s note — and, after it, Parliament’s statement — say individual approval will be possible «in designated technical centres» or «in the competent subdivisions of the Public Services Agency».
On both counts Ungheni stands better than one might think — but with no guarantee.
On the Public Services Agency side, the town has a Vehicle Registration and Driver Documentation Section at 164 Ștefan cel Mare Street. Of the 52 subdivisions registering vehicles across the country, only nine are specialised sections of this kind — and Ungheni is one of them, alongside Bălți, Cahul, Căușeni, Comrat, Edineț, Hîncești, Orhei and Soroca. The word used, however, is «competent», not «all»: which subdivisions will carry out approvals is decided later, not in the text as voted.
On the technical-centre side, the municipality has three technical inspection stations — on Lacului, Oleg Ungureanu and Scuterniceni streets, according to the latest list of authorised stations published by ANTA, dated 2023; none is listed in the district’s villages. But a technical inspection station does not automatically become a designated technical centre: the law creates an entirely new authorisation, the «designation of a technical service», issued by the Public Services Agency for five years, requiring accreditation, legal personality, liability insurance and independence from the party being checked. The concrete criteria, says article 64, «are approved by government decision». They have not yet been written, and the government has 24 months from the law’s publication to write them.
The stake is concrete: on 3 July we reported that Ungheni residents had just been spared the trip to Chișinău or Bălți to have cars imported without original papers identified. If, in 2029, individual approval is carried out in only a handful of centres nationwide, the trip comes back.
What does not change
The law does not touch cars already registered. Existing approvals remain valid, and the new rules apply to vehicles and component parts placed on the market after 1 January 2029. Until then, the authorities cannot refuse an approval or a registration by invoking the new law.
The text voted on 9 July is only the first reading. Before the second reading it can still be amended — including in the chapters the Public Services Agency and the business community challenged in writing.