The value of meal vouchers increases in 2023 and 2024

Following the publication in the Official Gazette of 27.07.2023 of GEO 69 of 2023 for the amendment of art. 14 of Law no. 165/2018 on the granting of securities, the value of meal vouchers increases. The increase applies in two stages:

-from 30 lei to 35 lei, starting with August 1, 2023
-from 35 lei to 40 lei, starting with January 1, 2024

At the same time, by derogation from art. 33 of the Methodological Norms for the application of Law no. 165/2018 on the granting of securities, the nominal level of the meal ticket, up to 40 lei / label / day, it will also apply in the first two months of the second semester of 2024, respectively August 2024 and September 2024.

For employees, a salary package that includes this type of benefit is more attractive and positively influences the retention rate, and employers are encouraged to grant this type of extra-allarial benefit through a number of tax facilities. Meal vouchers are exempt from paying social security contributions. For the employee, however, income tax ( 10% ) applies, and for the employer the tickets represent deductible expenses. Thus, employees’ incomes increase and implicitly their purchasing power, without influencing the employer’s tax obligations.

Since their introduction in 1998, meal vouchers have become an additional salary benefit offered to Romanian employees and are widespread in almost all European Union countries. Increasing the value of meal vouchers is an initiative designed to provide support in the current context, in which inflation leads to rising prices and also affects the costs of staple foods.

However, the law does not require companies to offer the maximum value of the meal ticket to employees. The decision to increase the value of the meal ticket belongs entirely to the employer depending on the availability of the funds necessary to grant this benefit.

Ensuring food at work for employees, without due to salary taxes, is a benefit introduced in 2023 as an alternative to meal vouchers, according to the Fiscal Code. Any increase in the maximum value of the meal ticket also implies an increase in the non-taxable amount for providing food to employees. Therefore, from the same data increases the maximum daily non-taxable amount that can be allocated to an employee for food provided at work.