Starting the first week of September, more than 540,000 preschoolers and students nationwide receive a free hot meal or food package at school every day, through the national "Healthy Meal" (Masă sănătoasă) program. The 2026 budget stands at 1.531 billion lei, almost 40% more than last year. Most of that increase, though, comes from the larger number of students now covered, not from the meal's value itself: the daily amount rose from 15 to 16.50 lei, just 1.5 lei more than in 2025, a rate in effect since January 8, 2026.

The condition is simple: a child gets the meal only on days they actually attend classes. An absence means no food support for that day either — being enrolled at a school on the list matters less than showing up, day by day.

The full list, covering the 1,427 schools included nationwide, was published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 3 bis, on January 5, 2026, as an annex to Government Decision 1171/2025. It's a dense document, organized by county and locality, not something a busy parent can skim quickly. The shortest route is still a direct question to the school's front office: every school knows exactly whether it was included for the 2026-2027 school year, and whether it provides meals cooked on site, catering, or a food package.

In Bucharest, the official list from the annex to Decision 1171/2025 covers 15 schools, with just over 11,000 students in total — a small number, given the size of the city. Here they are, by district:

District 1: Gimnazială School no. 178 (732 students) and Gimnazială School no. 181 (165 students).

District 2: Gimnazială School no. 32 (628 students).

District 3: Gimnazială School no. 78 (280 students).

District 4: Gimnazială School no. 108 (669), Gimnazială School "General Eremia Grigorescu" (820), Gimnazială School "Măriori" (843), Gimnazială School "George Bacovia" (1,156), and Gimnazială School no. 165 (787) — the district with the most schools included in the whole city.

District 5: Gimnazială School no. 124 (710), Gimnazială School no. 125 (681), and Gimnazială School no. 131 (775).

District 6: Gimnazială School no. 161 (254), Gimnazială School no. 309 (651), Gimnazială School "Ion Dumitriu" (835), and Gimnazială School "Sfânta Treime" (872).

The numbers come from a scanned document published in the Official Gazette, so small reading errors are possible — for the exact figure at a specific school, the front office remains the reliable source. The school names, on the other hand, can be trusted.

The national list isn't the whole picture, though. In District 1, beyond no. 178 and no. 181, there's also Gimnazială School no. 162, which doesn't appear anywhere on the government list, while the two schools that were included had, until recently, been getting only the minimum food package — a sandwich and a piece of fruit — not a hot meal. The Local Council voted in June 2026 to allocate 1,918,290 lei from the local budget specifically to cover all three schools, over 600 students in total, with support equal to what students in other districts get.

In District 6, it's the reverse situation: alongside School no. 161 there's an affiliated school, Gimnazială School no. 153, which doesn't appear separately on the national list. District 6's city hall funds its meals out of the local budget, with an additional 684,618 lei for 2026-2027, and the program covers 164 school days there: 69 between September and December 2026, and the remaining 95 in the first half of 2027.

In practice, a parent should look up the exact school name in the list above, but shouldn't stop there if it isn't found: many districts fill the gap separately, with local funds, wherever they decide the national list left someone out. The final step stays the same either way: a confirmation from the school's front office about exactly what kind of support it provides — meals cooked on site, catering, or a food package — and what happens on days of excused absence, since the make-up rules differ from one school to another.