Real estate consultancy Colliers took stock of Romania’s development in terms of retail space in an in-depth analysis marking 30 years of activity in the country, highlighting that room to grow still exists in small and medium-sized cities.
“In 1996, when Colliers entered the Romanian market, modern retail was only just emerging. That same year, Metro opened the country’s first cash-and-carry store, at a time when most shopping still took place in markets, department stores and traditional retail formats,” Colliers said in a press release.
Bucharest Mall (1999) and the first Carrefour hypermarket (2001) followed, and within just a few years, modern retail began expanding rapidly from Bucharest into Romania’s major cities, supported by rising incomes, broader access to credit and the country’s approaching accession to the European Union.
“In the early 2000s, Romania’s modern retail stock was estimated at only around 100,000 square meters, compared with more than 5 million square meters today. The difference illustrates just how much both the real estate market and the way Romanians shop and consume have changed within a single generation,” the report mentioned.
Romania’s accession to the European Union gave the market a major boost, as real incomes were rising, access to credit was expanding, and international retailers viewed Romania as one of the markets with the strongest growth potential in the region.
The market did not, however, grow at a constant pace. The boom ahead of the global financial crisis brought some of Romania’s largest retail developments, with around 400,000 – 500,000 square meters of new retail space delivered each year in 2007-2008. The crisis brought that pace of development to an abrupt halt, with many projects postponed, frozen or abandoned. AFI Cotroceni, covering approximately 76,000 square meters, opened in 2009, at the height of the recession, and later became one of the strongest-performing shopping centers in the market.
The 2009-2013 period also highlighted the importance of a shopping center’s position within a city. Strong projects continued to attract tenants even during difficult years, while others lost ground or exited the market. Following the crisis, developers became more cautious, placing greater emphasis on location, purchasing power and the real potential of each catchment area.
Another major shift came with the expansion of retail parks, which brought modern retail to towns with populations of below 50,000 inhabitants. Lower development costs compared with traditional shopping centers made such projects viable in locations that previously had very few modern shopping options.
Retail parks have significantly reshaped Romania’s modern retail landscape precisely because they can operate successfully in smaller towns where a more expensive shopping center development would not be successful. While the 2000s were dominated by large shopping centers and landmark projects, recent years have brought greater geographical expansion and formats better suited to smaller cities.
This shift is also reflected in recent deliveries. Romania passed the 5 million square meter threshold of modern retail space in 2025, when approximately 185,000 square meters were delivered across 13 projects, following a 2020-2024 period in which annual deliveries averaged around 145,000 square meters. For 2026, Colliers estimates approximately 150,000 square meters of new retail space, slightly below last year’s level, with a solid pipeline for 2027.
”Romanian retail has expanded considerably, but in recent years, consumers have moved even faster. Purchasing power in Romania is now much closer to levels seen in Central European markets, yet the country still has a much lower density of modern retail space. The gap is particularly visible in small and medium-sized cities, where we continue to see interest from both developers and retailers and where there is still room for new projects,” explained Liana Dumitru, Director, Retail Agency at Colliers.
Romania has around 270 square meters of modern retail space per 1,000 inhabitants, compared with approximately 400-500 in Hungary, Czechia and Poland. The gap is particularly significant given how much Romanians’ purchasing power has increased over the past three decades. Colliers also noted that while at a national level, the gap between Romania has a retail stock around 1.7x smaller than in Czechia and Poland on a per capita basis, the gap grows to 2.7x in case of cities with a population of below 100,000 inhabitants.
Although consumption growth slowed in 2025-2026, Colliers consultants see this period as one of consolidation following several years of strong expansion, rather than a change in direction. Developer interest in new retail development sites returned towards the end of 2025, indicating that new projects are already being prepared for the period through to 2030.
The market’s growing maturity is also reflected in major investment transactions. In 2026, AFI Europe acquired six MAS retail assets for a gross transaction value of around EUR 297 million, in the largest retail transaction in the history of the local market. Two decades earlier, the sale of Polus Center Cluj for more than EUR 200 million marked the point at which retail began to be viewed as an important institutional real estate investment.
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