Bucharest, February 17, 2026 – RBJ – In its meeting of February 17, 2026, the Board of the National Bank of Romania decided the following: >>> to keep the monetary policy rate at 6.50 percent per annum; >>> to leave unchanged the lending (Lombard) facility rate at 7.50 percent per annum and the deposit facility rate at 5.50 percent per annum; >>> to maintain the existing levels of minimum reserve requirement ratios on both leu- and foreign currency-denominated liabilities of credit institutions.
This is the second monetary policy meeting of 2026. The monetary policy interest rate has not been modified since August 7, 2024, when the level was lowered from 6.75% per annum to 6.50%, the current level. In 2024, the BNR lowered the key interest rate twice, in July, from 7% per year to 6.75% per year, and in August to 6.5% per year. The key interest rate was unchanged from January 2023.
According to preliminary data, economic activity contracted by 1.9 percent in 2025 Q4, after shedding 0.1 percent in Q3 (quarterly changes), whereas its annual dynamics fell to 0.1 percent in 2025 Q4, after stepping up to 1.7 percent in the previous quarter. In 2025 overall, economic growth therefore slowed down to 0.6 percent from 0.9 percent in 2024.
In annual terms, developments were relatively mixed across the aggregate demand components and major sectors over the last three months of 2025, as suggested by high-frequency indicators. Specifically, in 2025 Q4, retail sales witnessed a stronger fall compared to the same year-earlier period and industrial output showed a minor contraction after recovering somewhat in the previous three months. The annual dynamics of the volume of construction works remained well in positive territory October through November 2025, but declined markedly versus Q3, whereas the annual change in the exports of goods and services widened its positive gap against that of imports October through December 2025, reporting a relatively more modest decrease from 2025 Q3. Against this background, the trade deficit saw an even stronger contraction in annual terms in 2025 Q4, while the current account deficit posted only a mild re-widening versus the same year-earlier period, the pronounced worsening of income balances notwithstanding. Thus, in 2025 overall, the trade deficit narrowed slightly, whereas the current account deficit posted a considerably slower advance.
The number of employees economy-wide saw a milder decline in October-December 2025 than in the prior months, yet contracted moderately versus the same year-earlier period, while the ILO unemployment rate inched down in 2025 Q4 overall, after rising to an average of 6.1 percent in Q3. The annual growth rate of nominal gross wages continued to decrease in October-December 2025, but at a much slower pace than in the first three quarters of the year, whereas that of the unit labor cost in industry posted a renewed pick-up in 2025 Q4 overall. However, January 2026 surveys indicate that employment intentions over the very short horizon weakened visibly, after a soft recovery in 2025 Q4, and that the labor shortage reported by companies posted a steeper contraction.
The main interbank money market rates continued to decrease in the first month of the current year, reverting to the April 2025 levels. Moreover, medium- and long-term yields on government securities steepened their downtrend, hitting 18-month lows, inter alia amid the improvement in investor risk perception vis-à-vis the local economy and financial market, following the favorable results of the budget execution for 2025. The EUR/RON exchange rate witnessed a marked decline in the early days of January 2026, but then returned gradually to the higher levels seen at end-December 2025. In relation to the US dollar, the leu weakened further in the first half of the month, yet strengthened relatively abruptly afterwards, given the former’s significant depreciation in the international financial markets.
The annual growth rate of credit to the private sector continued to decelerate in December 2025, reaching 6.2 percent from 6.8 percent in November, as the rate of change of the leu-denominated component posted a slightly faster decline, on the back of loans to non-financial corporations, while that of foreign currency credit rose much more slowly. The share of the domestic currency component in credit to the private sector thus narrowed to 68.2 percent in December 2025 from 68.7 percent in November.
