Before you start

IDNP from the residence permit
Either Moldovan payroll employment or a fixed-sum policy bought from CNAM
Registration with a family doctor (medic de familie) near your address
Private clinic cover, if your employer offers it

Step-by-step

1
If you are employed, check the 9% appears on the first payslip
The mandatory health insurance contribution (AOAM) is withheld by the employer. Enrolment is automatic, but it occasionally lags for a new foreign employee whose IDNP arrived late. Check the line is there rather than assuming it.
Via employerWho: YouFirst payslip
2
If you are not employed here, buy the fixed-sum policy in the first quarter
The 2026 fixed premium is MDL 12,636, but foreign citizens with the right of provisional or permanent residence pay MDL 2,527 — an 80% reduction — if they pay within the first three months of the year. Miss that window and the full MDL 12,636 applies from 1 April, with penalties for each day late.
OnlineWho: YouJanuary to MarchMDL 2,527
3
Pay it through MPay rather than queuing
The fixed premium can be settled through the state MPay electronic payment service, at post offices, at commercial banks, at payment terminals, or at a CNAM territorial office. MPay is the least painful of those by a distance.
OnlineWho: You
4
Register with a family doctor
The medic de familie is the gateway: referrals to specialists, prescriptions, sick notes. You register with a practice near your address. Being insured without a registered family doctor means having cover you cannot use.
In personWho: YouFirst month
5
Understand what private cover actually buys
Chișinău's private clinics handle consultations, imaging and routine care quickly and cheaply by international standards. They do not handle major surgery or intensive care, which runs through the republican and municipal hospitals. Treat private cover as a queue-jumping product, not a replacement.
Via employerWho: You
6
Know that 112 is the only emergency route
112 dispatches ambulance, police and fire, free from any phone and around the clock; Moldova consolidated onto it in 2018 and the service states plainly that intervention is requested through 112 and not through other numbers or websites. Private clinics are not an emergency route; they will send you on.
In personWho: You

Documents you’ll need

IDNP and residence permit
Proof of insurance — the payslip line for employees, or the CNAM policy for everyone else
Family doctor registration form
Private clinic card, where provided

Things most newcomers don’t know

Foreign residents get the same 80% discount as farmers and patent-holders, and hardly anyone tells them.

CNAM's reduced category for the fixed-sum premium explicitly includes cetățenii străini cu drept de ședere provizorie sau permanentă — foreign citizens with provisional or permanent residence. That turns a MDL 12,636 bill into MDL 2,527, but only if it is paid in the first three months of the calendar year. Someone who arrives in February and pays in June has bought the same cover for five times the price. This single fact is worth more than most relocation packages.

Source: CNAM; Monitorul Fiscal

The 9% health contribution and the 12% income tax are separate, and both are yours — the 24% social contribution is not.

Moldova moved the burden of social insurance onto the employer. You pay 9% AOAM and 12% income tax on what remains after the personal exemption; your employer pays 24% CNAS on top of your gross without it touching your payslip. That is why a Moldovan gross-to-net conversion is unusually kind, and why comparing a Moldovan offer to a Romanian one on gross alone understates Moldova badly.

Source: Ministry of Finance; CNAM

Moldova's health system is short of doctors because its doctors left, and that shows up as waiting time rather than as quality.

Emigration has hollowed the clinical workforce, particularly outside Chișinău. The capital holds the republican hospitals, the oncology institute, the mother-and-child institute and the medical university, so the standard of serious and emergency care in the city is far better than the national picture suggests. What is thin is routine outpatient capacity, which is exactly the gap the private clinics fill.

Source: community-reported

Being insured is not the same as being registered, and the second one is a form.

The state system routes essentially everything through the medic de familie: referrals, prescriptions, sick notes. Foreign residents frequently hold a valid policy for a year without registering with a practice, then discover at the point of needing a specialist that there is no route in. Registration is a short form at a practice near your address and belongs in the first month.

Source: CNAM

Common mistakes to avoid

Paying the fixed-sum health premium after 31 March and losing the 80% foreign-resident discount.
Assuming a residence permit brings health cover with it. It brings the right to buy it cheaply.
Holding a policy for months without registering with a family doctor.
Expecting a private clinic subscription to cover surgery or intensive care.
Calling a legacy emergency number. Since 2018 it is 112 or nothing.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.