Romanian retail EDIFACT

Romanian retail has used EDIFACT massively since the mid-2000s, mainly driven by subsidiaries of German (Schwarz Group, Rewe), French (Carrefour, Auchan) and Dutch (Ahold Delhaize) chains. In 2026, the logistics flow remains EDIFACT while the fiscal invoice has switched to RO_CIUS e-Factura since 1 January 2025.

Romanian retail panorama

Romania is the 2nd largest retail market in Central and Eastern Europe (after Poland), with average growth > 8% per year between 2018 and 2024. Some players (Statista + RetailZoom 2024 estimate):

• Kaufland Romania. Schwarz Group subsidiary, 184 hypermarkets in 2024 (largest by surface area). Strict EDI EANCOM 2002 S5, mandatory DESADV+SSCC requirements for ~4,500 direct suppliers.
• Lidl România. Also Schwarz, 360 stores. EDI standards aligned with Lidl group — strict EANCOM 2002 S5 + mandatory AS2.
• Carrefour România. 388 stores (Carrefour hypermarkets, Market supermarkets, Express convenience, hard-discount Hyper). Carrefour Group standard EANCOM 2002 S4, integration via DocProcess.
• Auchan România. 33 hypermarkets + ~150 MyAuchan supermarkets. EDI EANCOM 2002 S4 via Comarch EDI gateway, strong articulation with Auchan France.
• Mega Image. Ahold Delhaize subsidiary (Dutch group), 974 stores in 2024 — first by number of points of sale. EDI EANCOM 2002 S4, integration via Edison + Ediel.
• Profi. Convenience network > 1,700 stores (acquired by MidEuropa then Ahold Delhaize in 2024). EDI migration in progress to the Mega Image standard (EANCOM 2002 S4).
• Penny Market. Rewe Group Germany, 365 hard-discount stores. EANCOM 2002 S5 standard.
• Selgros Cash & Carry. Rewe Group cash & carry, 22 B2B stores. Strict EDI EANCOM 2002 S5.
• Cora Romania (until 2024). Exited market in 2023, stores taken over by Carrefour. Historical Cora EDI sunset.

Retailers and EDIFACT standards

Typical flows — ORDERS, DESADV, INVOIC

Standard Romanian retail flow comprises five chained EDIFACT messages:

1. ORDERS. Purchase order issued by retailer to supplier. Product identification via GTIN-13 (prefix 594 for Romania, 30-37 for France, 400-440 for Germany, etc.).
2. ORDRSP. Order acknowledgment — confirmation, adjustment or partial refusal by supplier within 24-48 hours.
3. DESADV. Despatch advice — pallet SSCC detail, quantities, dates, lot traceability. Critical for warehouse reception.
4. RECADV. Reception advice (quantity acknowledgment) — issued by retailer after physical control.
5. INVOIC. Corresponding EDIFACT invoice. Until 31 December 2024 this was the primary fiscal document. Since 1 January 2025: informative duplicate, the fiscal invoice is the RO_CIUS via e-Factura.

GS1 Romania — national 594 GTIN issuer

GS1 Romania (formerly AGCC — Asociația GS1 Centru de Codificare a Mărfurilor) is the Romanian GS1 subsidiary. Established in 1995 in Bucharest, it is the exclusive issuer of GTIN-13 prefixes starting with 594 in Romania — approximately 25,000 member companies in 2024.

• GTIN-13 (Global Trade Item Number). Universal article identifier. Prefix 594 designates Romania. Each product (SKU, packaging, lot) receives its own GTIN.
• GLN (Global Location Number). Location identifier — warehouses, stores, head offices. Essential for ORDERS / DESADV flows that must reference the precise location. ~150,000 active GLNs in Romania.
• SSCC (Serial Shipping Container Code). Pallet / transport container identifier. Mandatory in DESADV for Kaufland, Lidl, Penny Market, Selgros.
• EPCIS (Electronic Product Code Information Services). Event-based traceability of objects in the supply chain. Adopted by pharma and fresh retailers.
• GS1 Digital Link. 2026 QR code encoding for consumer product traceability. Progressive rollout on food and pharma sales.

Transition to e-Factura 2025

The arrival of universal e-Factura on 1 January 2025 drastically transforms EDIFACT usage in Romanian retail:

• EDIFACT INVOIC no longer the fiscal document. Only the RO_CIUS invoice cleared by ANAF has legal value. EDIFACT INVOIC can continue as an informative duplicate (logistics-accounting reconciliation on retailer side) but is not sufficient alone.
• ORDERS, DESADV, RECADV unchanged. The entire upstream logistics flow remains EDIFACT — e-Factura covers only the invoice, not the order nor the delivery.
• INVOIC ↔ RO_CIUS articulation. Suppliers now emit in parallel the EDIFACT INVOIC to their retailer AND the RO_CIUS to ANAF. Reconciliation rests on the EDIFACT order number RFF+ON, present as a reference in the RO_CIUS via cac:OrderReference/cbc:ID.
• Supplier ERP load. For ~15,000 direct retailer suppliers, it's a dual issuance until retailers integrate e-Factura pull. Several retailers (Kaufland, Mega Image, Lidl) have announced integrating e-Factura pull from 2026 to stop requiring EDIFACT INVOIC.

Common pitfalls

• French vs Romanian encoding. Romanian diacritic characters (ă, â, î, ș, ț) must be in UTF-8 or Latin-2 (ISO 8859-2) per retailer convention. Latin-1 default does not support ș nor ț.
• Multiple GLNs. A chain like Mega Image can have over 1,000 distinct GLNs (one per store). DESADV must target the precise destination store GLN, not an aggregated GLN.
• GTIN prefix. The 594 prefix is Romanian, but doesn't indicate product origin (a Chinese manufacturer can have 594 GTINs by subscription). Don't infer origin from prefix.
• EDIFACT INVOIC and e-Factura — dual issuance. Many retail ERPs emit the EDIFACT INVOIC after the retailer INVOIC and before the ANAF RO_CIUS. The sequencing is critical: the fiscal issuance date is the ANAF signing date, not the EDIFACT INVOIC date.
• Non-RO foreign supplier. For foreign suppliers emitting to Romania, EDIFACT INVOIC remains valid for the logistics flow but the fiscal invoice must follow the recipient's jurisdiction — if the Romanian buyer is subject to e-Factura (universal since January 2025), RO_CIUS is required (autoinvoicing).

Cross-links

• Romania hub — full e-Factura ANAF
• e-Factura — pure RO_CIUS clearance
• Romanian EDIFACT — automotive
• RO_CIUS — UBL 2.1 customization
• Romanian VAT regimes
• EDIFACT — international standard
• GS1 Romania — EDI standards
• DocProcess — Romanian EDI gateway