What does a volunteering certificate contain and when is it issued?

The minimum elements required by law

Art. 10 para. (4) of Law no. 78/2014 lists eight elements the certificate must contain.

1. The identification data of the host organisation issuing the certificate.
2. The number and date of the certificate.
3. The number and date of the volunteer agreement it refers to.
4. The identification data of the volunteer.
5. The volunteering period and the number of volunteering hours completed.
6. The name of the volunteer coordinator.
7. The name of the legal representative of the organisation.
8. The statement that the volunteer and the issuing organisation are responsible for the accuracy of the data.

The activity report and foreign certificates

• Art. 10 para. (6): the attached activity report covers the activities performed, the duties taken on and the skills acquired.
• Art. 10 para. (5): a certificate issued abroad is recognised if it has the same elements, as a certified copy with a legalised translation.
• Art. 23: in competitions with equal scores, volunteering certificates may bring additional points.
• The 120-hour threshold and the 30-day deadline that circulate in private guides are not legal requirements — they can only exist as internal rules of the organisation.

Practical examples

• A volunteer who logged 240 hours over 8 months receives a certificate stating exactly the period and those 240 hours.
• A student who needs the certificate for a scholarship application can request it after 3 months, without waiting for the agreement to end.
• In a public-administration hiring competition, two candidates on 78 points are separated by the volunteering certificate one of them holds.

Common mistakes

• The certificate is issued without the activity report, although the report is a mandatory annex.
• It says "roughly 200 hours" because nobody logged the volunteering hours.
• The number and date of the volunteer agreement are missing, so the certificate cannot be tied to anything.
• The organisation refuses to issue it because the volunteer did not reach an internally invented hour threshold with no basis in law.

How 4ong helps

• Issues the certificate straight from the platform, with the eight elements of art. 10 para. (4) filled in from existing data.
• Automatically computes the number of hours and the period from the hours logged per activity.
• Numbers the certificates and links each one to the matching volunteer agreement.
• Generates the attached activity report, with the activities performed and the duties taken on.