establishing oneself as an expat in Romania

Hi Mike,

You can basically get a visa for a number of reason (work, study, family reintegration, religious missions, etc) but I guess the best one for a non-EU citizen is work as you'll need to support yourself anyway, unless you're stinking rich.

First you have to find someone willing to employ you and get them to apply for an application notice from Immigration. This will cost them a few hundred Euros. Once you have this notice that they intend to employ you, and you've shaken hands over terms and conditions and got a contract, you can then go with this back to Immigration and apply for a residence permit. This permit is, as I understand it, only issued on condition that you work for that company - you can't change jobs without going through the process again. In order to employ a non-Romanian/non-EU citizen, they employer has to prove that there is nobody in Europe willing and able to do the job, so a lot depends on them being willing to jump through a few hoops to employ you because you have skills that they can't easily find elsewhere. Remember, they can employ an EU citizen with almost no paperwork, extra fees, permits or other malarkey.

Mike,

Maykal's comments about the work visa are on target.  I think the chances are quite slim however that a company will go through the trouble of getting you a work visa, when they can easily employ a Romanian fluent in Romanian language or other EU citizen. 

Entering Romania on a tourist visa, as I understand it, cannot be extended.  So you have 90 days in 6 month period.  To address your question though, even if you could extend....speaking Romanian to the authorities would have little or no bearing.  Immigration officials, from my experience, typically can speak English anyway...and, you either meet the laws/requirements to stay in Romania, or you don't.  It's not such a discretionary matter.

Romaniac

Thank you Maykal and Romaniac.