Every guide quotes the same VAT threshold. For a company owned from abroad it is usually the wrong number — because a different rule catches you first, it has no threshold at all, and it wants the application seven days before you pay, not after you earn. Most founders cross that line in their first week and never notice.
Both are in the same Act. Only one of them is quoted in every article about setting up in Bulgaria, and it is the one least likely to apply to you.
The national threshold on annual turnover generated in Bulgaria. Cross it and you must register within seven days. It is a real rule, and it is the right one — for a business whose customers are Bulgarian.
Art. 96(1) and 96(6)(1) of the VAT Act, as amended with effect from 1 January 2026Receive a taxable service on which the tax is due from you as the recipient, and registration is compulsory — at any amount, from the first euro. Supply a business service to a VAT-registered business in another Member State, and the same applies. The application is due no later than seven days before the tax on that supply becomes chargeable, whether by prepayment or by the chargeable event itself.
Art. 97a(1), 97a(2) and 97a(4) of the VAT ActFour questions will tell you which ground already applies to your company — the turnover one, the cross-border one, the goods one, or none of them — and by when.
Check in two minutesThis is the part that makes the rule survivable, and the part a cheap bookkeeping subscription will not explain to you. A cross-border registration is not the same animal as a full one.
So the arithmetic is lopsided in an unusual way. Complying costs a filing and a monthly return. Not complying leaves an unregistered company that was required to be registered, on transactions that are visible to the authority from the other side of the border through EU recapitulative reporting. Cheap to do, expensive to skip, and almost never discovered by the person it applies to.
Bulgarian compliance for a small company is not continuous. It is four fixed points, and the only frequent one exists solely because of the registration above.
Return and ledgers for the previous month, filed by the 14th inclusive. Only applies once registered — but as established, that is most companies.
Art. 125(5) VAT ActThe annual return and the activity report. A company that carried on no activity at all in the year files neither.
Art. 92(2) and 92(4) CITAA company with no activity declares that instead — once only, for the first such year, published in the Commercial Register.
Art. 38(9)(2) Accounting ActThe annual financial statement, adopted by the members, filed for announcement in the Commercial Register. Public, permanently, and easy for anyone to check.
Art. 38(1)(1) Accounting ActBulgaria is phasing in the Standard Audit File for Tax — a full monthly export of the accounting ledger to the revenue authority. Your company is almost certainly in the last wave, and the wave is already in the statute rather than in a consultation paper.
There is one connection between this section and the first one that is worth making explicitly, because it is the reason both belong on the same page. A micro enterprise is exempt from SAF-T entirely — but only while it is not VAT registered. The cross-border rule at the top of this page is precisely what removes that condition, usually in a company's first month of life. The instinct that says I am too small for any of this is the one that quietly fails twice.
None of this is urgent for you in 2026. It is worth knowing now only because the shape of your bookkeeping today decides how much work that export is later — and because a ledger kept properly from month one costs nothing extra.
Ask how we keep itNot an hourly rate and not a per-document surprise. A fixed monthly figure, quoted after we have seen what a normal month looks like for you.
Bookkeeping from your documents, the monthly return and ledgers filed by the 14th, and — the part that matters most in year one — telling you before you sign up for something that a registration duty is about to arise, rather than explaining afterwards why it already did.
The annual financial statement prepared and adopted, the corporate tax return filed in the March-to-June window, and the statement announced in the Commercial Register before 30 September. If the company was dormant, the single declaration instead — and only for the first such year, not every year.
If you take a management contract or employ anyone, that is a separate monthly cycle with its own contributions and deadlines, and it is the main thing that moves the fee. A holding company with four invoices a year is not the same file as a shop, and we do not pretend otherwise in the quote.
A genuinely dormant company does not need a monthly service, and we will tell you so. It needs one declaration a year and someone paying attention the moment it stops being dormant. Several enquiries a month end that way.
| What | Cost | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly accounting and VAT | From EUR 100 / month | Fixed monthly figure; volume and payroll are what move it |
| VAT registration | No state fee | The registration itself is free; the work is in getting the ground and the date right |
| Announcing the annual statement | EUR 10.23 | 20 leva electronically, under the Registry Agency tariff |
| Corporate income tax | 10% | Plus 5% withholding when a dividend is distributed — 15% combined, as at 2026 |
Euro amounts converted from the statutory leva figures at the fixed rate of 1.95583. Several Bulgarian tariffs and thresholds are still written in leva after euro adoption, which is why both appear here.
Almost certainly yes, and revenue is not what decides it. Buying a single service from a supplier abroad triggers a registration duty that has no turnover threshold at all, and the application is due before the payment rather than after it. Separately, a company with no activity at all still has to say so once, in the Commercial Register.
It is one threshold, for turnover generated in Bulgaria. It is simply not the one that catches most foreign-owned companies, because they cross a different line first — the one for services bought from or sold to businesses abroad, which has no threshold.
The cross-border registration is narrower. It makes you account for tax on the services you receive, but it does not let you deduct input VAT and you may not show VAT on your own invoices. It is cheap to comply with and expensive to miss, which is a rare combination and the reason it gets overlooked.
Not in the year the company is formed, nor in the following year. After that it depends on the size of your sales two years back. Most companies at our end of the market never reach it.
The corporate tax return is filed between 1 March and 30 June. The annual financial statement is published in the Commercial Register by 30 September. If the company genuinely did nothing at all, a declaration to that effect goes in by 30 June instead, and only once.
Not yet, but the date is already written into law rather than being a proposal. The smallest companies come in on 1 January 2030. The exemption a micro company would otherwise rely on disappears once it is VAT registered, which is why the two subjects belong on the same page.
From EUR 100 a month. What moves it is the number of documents and whether there is payroll — a holding company with four invoices a year is not the same file as a shop. We quote a fixed monthly figure after seeing a normal month, not an hourly rate.
What the company does, roughly how many documents a month, whether anyone is on payroll, and whether it already buys anything from abroad. One email back with the registration position and the monthly fee.
Ask for a quote Or run the two-minute registration check first.The turnover threshold. Art. 96(1) of the VAT Act, as amended by SG 115/2025 with effect from 1 January 2026: a taxable person established in the country must register when its annual turnover in the country, determined under Art. 168c, exceeds the national threshold of EUR 51,130. Art. 96(6)(1): the application is filed within seven days of the date the threshold is exceeded.
The cross-border grounds. Art. 97a(1) of the VAT Act: registration is required of any taxable person receiving services with a place of supply in the country which are taxable and on which the tax is due from the recipient under Art. 82(2). Art. 97a(2): registration is required of any taxable person established in the country supplying services under Art. 21(2) with a place of supply in another Member State on which the recipient owes the tax. Art. 97a(3): a person registered on one of those grounds is treated as registered on the other. Art. 97a(4): the application must be filed no later than seven days before the date on which the tax on the supply becomes chargeable, whether by prepayment or by the chargeable event. Art. 97a(6), new with effect from 1 January 2026, disapplies Art. 97a(2) where the person is registered in the country for the EU small enterprise scheme in that other Member State.
What the cross-border registration is not. Art. 70(4) of the VAT Act: a person registered on the ground of Art. 97a has no right to input VAT credit. Art. 113(9): persons registered on the ground of Art. 97a(1) and (2) may not state the tax in the invoices they issue.
Goods acquired from other Member States. Art. 99(1) and (2) of the VAT Act: registration is required for intra-Community acquisitions, save where their total value for the current calendar year does not exceed EUR 10,000. Art. 100 provides for voluntary registration where the compulsory conditions are not met.
Returns. Art. 125(5) of the VAT Act: the returns and the reporting ledgers are filed by the 14th day inclusive of the month following the tax period.
Corporate income tax. Art. 92(2) of the Corporate Income Tax Act: the annual return is filed between 1 March and 30 June of the following year. Art. 92(4): no annual return and no activity report are filed by persons who carried on no activity within the meaning of the Accounting Act during the period. Art. 83(2)(2): no advance instalments are made by newly established persons for the year of their establishment and for the following year, other than those newly established through a transformation under the Commercial Act. Art. 83(2)(1) exempts persons whose net sales revenue for the year before the previous year did not exceed 300,000 leva — a figure the provision still states in leva.
Annual financial statements. Art. 38(1)(1) of the Accounting Act: all merchants within the meaning of the Commercial Act publish the annual financial statement by filing it for announcement in the Commercial Register by 30 September of the following year. Art. 38(9)(2): enterprises that carried on no activity during the reporting period declare that fact once, for the first such reporting period, on a form approved by the Minister of Finance, published by 30 June of the following year.
SAF-T. Art. 71h(1) of the Tax and Social Insurance Procedure Code: the obligation falls on enterprises within the meaning of Art. 2 of the Accounting Act. Art. 71h(2)(1) exempts micro enterprises within the meaning of Art. 19(1) of the Accounting Act that are not registered under the VAT Act. Art. 71k(1): the file is filed monthly, by the end of the month following the month to which the information relates. Paragraph 17(1) of the transitional provisions (SG 26/2025, amended SG 65/2025) sets the phase-in: 1 January 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029 for successively smaller categories, and 1 January 2030 for all remaining obliged enterprises. Paragraph 17(2) replaces the six-month grace in Art. 71k(5) with a twelve-month correction window running from the date the obligation arises.
Rates. Corporate income tax 10%, dividend withholding 5%, 15% combined, as at 2026. Euro amounts on this page are conversions of statutory leva figures at the fixed rate of 1.95583.
This page describes Bulgarian law as at August 2026 and is general information, not advice on your situation. Whether a particular supply falls within Art. 97a depends on the place of supply and on the status of your supplier, and we check both per file rather than assuming. Reviewed by Yordan Cholakov, Managing Partner, Innovires Legal.