From the US to the Single Market

American companies rarely set out to “enter Romania.” They set out to reach Europe — and Romania is one of the cleaner doors into it. The catch is that the contracts and assumptions a US business carries across the Atlantic do not all survive the crossing.

The pull is the single market: roughly 450 million consumers under one body of rules. Romania offers a practical way in — EU membership, a competitive cost base, and a large, English-fluent technical workforce a few time zones closer to the rest of the Union. For a US founder or investor, a Bucharest entity is a serviceable bridgehead into Europe.

What an American business has to re-paper

Three things specific to the US crossing tend to go unmanaged because they were never an issue at home.

Data transfers. Moving personal data from the EU back to the US is not automatically fine. It runs through the EU–US Data Privacy Framework (an EU adequacy decision since 2023) or standard contractual clauses — and the framework has conditions and a live risk of future challenge. “We’ll just host it in the US” is a compliance decision, not a default.

Sanctions & export controls. US regimes (OFAC, the export rules) and EU regimes both apply and do not perfectly overlap. A screening posture built for one will leave gaps on the other side of the Atlantic.

Contracts & enforcement. US deals often run on New York or English law. Those choices can stay — but a judgment under them has to be enforceable where the counterparty and the assets actually sit, inside the EU, and recognition there runs on national rules, not on the automatic routes a US company may assume (see The Post-Brexit Enforcement Gap).

Where US and English law still fit

You don’t have to abandon your New York or English-law templates. The work is making them land: choosing an enforcement forum that actually exists in the EU, and aligning the European layers — data, employment, tax — that switch on the moment you incorporate (see Entering the EU Through Romania).

General information about EU market entry, not legal advice, and no lawyer–client relationship is created. Data-transfer, sanctions and enforcement rules carry conditions and change over time; any specific entry needs advice on its own facts and on the current state of the law.