The phenomenon of fictitious residences is hitting Moldovans with dual citizenship hard. More and more people are being stopped when entering Romania or the Schengen Area, where border police confiscate their Romanian ID cards after digital systems indicate that the residence listed in their documents has been annulled.
The official data is alarming: in 2025 alone, 70,860 residence annulments were issued, bringing the total to 143,831 by mid-November. And the effect is felt directly at the border — over 2,000 Romanian identity cards were confiscated between 2024 and 2025 due to alerts for annulled residence, lost documents, or stolen documents, according to ziarulevenimentul.ro.
How did this happen?
For years, Romanian legislation allowed dozens or even hundreds of people to register their residence at the same address without any real verification. Officials could not refuse applications and had no authority to investigate whether people truly lived there.
This vulnerability was widely exploited, including in Suceava and Botoșani counties, where recent investigations targeted networks helping citizens from Moldova, Ukraine, or Russia obtain Romanian documents. The Ministry of Internal Affairs confirms that nearly 300 searches were carried out over the past two years, and over 8,700 non-compliant documents were seized.
The new law from 2023 changed the rules
Only in June 2023 did a law enter into force limiting the number of people who can have their residence at the same address to a maximum of 10 (except for extended families). Since then, authorities have launched wide-scale checks: police conduct field visits, individuals are summoned for clarifications, and if they do not live at the declared address, their residence is annulled in the National Register.
Once annulled, the SINS and SIS systems automatically issue alerts, leading to ID cards being confiscated at the border.
For thousands of dual citizens, the situation is harsh: the Romanian ID becomes invalid, and obtaining a new document can take months. In the meantime, people cannot travel, cannot access public services, and remain administratively “blocked.”
Authorities describe this as a “necessary cleanup” of the database — the largest of the past decade. But the phenomenon raises several questions:
- how many of those affected are collateral victims who declared their residence correctly?
- how many documents were issued due to negligence by officials?
- how many are tied to criminal schemes that operated for years?
The Ministry of Internal Affairs says the checks will continue and that the system must be “cleaned,” but thousands of people are already feeling the consequences.