OBJECTIVES: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. Estimates of the cost of AD in Romania come from external sources and are based on extrapolations and assumptions. We tried to replace some of the assumptions with actual data obtained from official sources and based on data obtained from the Bucharest Memory Center. METHODS: This is an empirical investigation of the economic cost of AD in Romania in 2010. Direct and indirect costs are estimated and allocated to the AD by taking in consideration an extrapolation of European data for incidence and prevalence, actual cost for medication provided by National Insurance House for specific medication used in prevention an treatment of AD, actual data provided by Ministry of Labor and Social Security for persons with AD living in nursing home. Cost of care provided by family members were estimated on a telephonic cross-sectional survey, carried out using the database of Bucharest Memory Center. RESULTS: The calculated cost of Alzheimer's disease in Romania is 187.022.387 €, direct medical cost of 62 millions €, 7.5 million € for hospitalization, medication of 34.9 million €,  ambulatory medical services of 0.4 million €, nursing home costs of 4.6 million €, parapharmaceuticals cost of 15 million € and indirect (informal) cost of 124.5 million €. CONCLUSIONS: There is a major discrepancy between the cost obtained by Wimo A. et al in 2010 and ours, which is 10 times smaller. The main difference is due the small number of people hospitalized in specialized centers, only 3%, the small number of people receiving treatment - only 14% of the total number of patients with DA. Romania must strive to remove the inequities concerning informal costs and be prepared for an exponentially increase of costs as the care of patients will normalize.