Bulgarian law never asks how big your office is or whether you have one. Four separate statutes ask the same narrower question: when someone comes looking for you at the address you gave, is there a person there who will take the envelope. When the answer is no, nothing stops. The proceeding carries on, and the law treats you as though you had been told.
One belongs to a company and settles where the state serves it. The other belongs to a human being and unlocks a personal number and a residence card. People routinely buy the first believing it does the second.
Every Bulgarian company has an address of management, and the Commercial Act treats that address as the company's address, full stop. It is not administrative decoration. It is the single point at which the tax authority, the courts, bailiffs and counterparties are entitled to reach the company — and, crucially, the point at which they are entitled to stop trying.
This one is not about post. A residence application asks you to evidence secured accommodation, and a personal number follows from being lawfully resident somewhere real. If you have no flat here yet — and most people applying have not bought or rented one before they know whether they will be allowed to stay — this is the piece that is missing, and no amount of paperwork elsewhere in the file substitutes for it.
Not sure which one your situation needs — or whether it needs both. Three questions, and the tool tells you which address applies and what is currently exposed without one.
Check in two minutesThese were written decades apart, by different drafters, for different purposes. They converge on the same test, and none of them is interested in whether you have premises.
For a Bulgarian legal person, the address of management is the correspondence address for tax purposes — it applies automatically, without you choosing it, unless a different one has been entered. Every notice, every audit assignment, every assessment goes there first.
Art. 28(1)(2) of the Tax and Social Insurance Procedure CodeIf nobody is found at the correspondence address after at least two visits seven days apart, the authority posts a notice at its office and online. Fourteen days later the document is filed to the case and is deemed duly served. You do not have to have read it. You do not have to know it exists.
Art. 32(1) and 32(6) of the Tax and Social Insurance Procedure CodeThe revenue authority may refuse to register a person, or terminate an existing registration, where the person cannot be found at the correspondence address they gave — or where they moved and did not notify. This is not a penalty for a tax offence. Absence is the offence.
Art. 176(1) and 176(2) of the VAT ActFor a registered company, the place of service is the last address shown in the register. If the company has left it and no new address is entered, all communications are filed to the case and deemed duly served. Where nobody will take the papers, the process server affixes one notice — a second one is not affixed.
Art. 50(1), 50(2) and 50(4) of the Code of Civil ProcedureThis is the tax route. The court route is shorter and ends the same way.
An officer attends the correspondence address looking for you, your representative, or anyone designated to receive documents. Nobody is there. A record is drawn up.
Art. 32(1)–(2) TSIPCAt least seven days later, the same again, and a second record. Two visits are the minimum — and that requirement disappears entirely if there is indisputable evidence the address does not exist.
Art. 32(1) and 32(3) TSIPCA notice is posted at a designated place in the territorial directorate and published online. A letter with return receipt is sent, and an email if you ever gave one.
Art. 32(4)–(5) TSIPCFourteen days after the notice went up, if you have not appeared, the act is filed to the case and is considered duly served. Your time to object starts running from a date you had no way of knowing.
Art. 32(6) TSIPCIf you already have a Bulgarian company and are reading this uneasily, the first thing to check is what address is currently on your file in the register and who is actually at it. Send us the company name and we will look and tell you.
Ask us to checkClients ask this, and the answer is not margin. The two products carry completely different kinds of exposure for whoever provides them.
A company address is a service obligation. Someone has to be present during working hours, take documents from officers and bailiffs, open the envelopes and tell you what is in them before the deadline printed inside expires. That is work, and it is priced as work.
A personal address is something else. Behind it there is a real property and a real person who has to consent to your registration and say so formally — in front of the authority in person or with a notarised signature. Where such declarations are made, the form itself carries a warning that false statements are punishable under the Criminal Code. Nobody signs that for ten euros a month, and anybody offering to should be treated with suspicion, because the value of the address is exactly equal to the willingness of the person behind it to stand by it when someone checks.
That is the whole of the price difference, and it is why we will decline a personal address for someone who tells us they never intend to come to Bulgaria. There is nothing to stand behind.
Nothing about the address is expensive at the counter. Everything about it is expensive when it is wrong.
| What | Cost | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Changing the address in the Commercial Register, electronically | EUR 7.67 | 15 leva under the Registry Agency tariff — the tariff is still written in leva |
| The same filing on paper | EUR 15.34 | 30 leva. There is no reason to do it this way |
| Entering the address at first registration | Included | Part of the company registration fee, not charged separately |
| Our fee — company address | From EUR 300 | Receiving and handling correspondence; the quote states the period |
| Our fee — personal address | From EUR 950 | The quote states the period. The residence card itself is separate, from EUR 350 |
Euro amounts are conversions of the statutory leva figures at the fixed rate of 1.95583, as at August 2026.
The market rate for a name on the register is very low, and it is low because most of it is a name on the register. If the point of the address is that documents reach a person, then a provider who is not there has sold you the exact problem you were trying to buy your way out of.
The personal address rests on a declaration by the property's holder. Where that declaration is untrue, the person who made it carries the consequence, not the client. We are not willing to put a colleague in that position, and we would not advise you to accept it from anyone else.
If your concern is that another country will test where your company is really managed, an address does not answer that question and can make it worse. That is a structuring conversation, and we would rather have it before you buy anything.
If you already rent a flat here, or your accountant genuinely staffs their office and will handle the post, you may not need this at all. Several enquiries a month end that way, and that is a fine outcome.
Legally you can register the company at any address whose holder agrees. The question is what happens on the day a tax officer or a bailiff turns up there. An accountant who has moved on, or a friend who is away for the summer, does not stop the clock — the visits are made, the notice is posted, and the deadline runs. The address is only worth what the person at it will actually do.
They are two different things that happen to share a word. The company address is the address of management entered in the Commercial Register — it belongs to the company and it is where the state serves the company. The personal address belongs to you as a human being and is what a residence application and a personal number are built on. Having one does not give you the other.
No. An address is one required element of a residence application, not the application itself. You still need a ground to reside, evidence of means, health insurance and the rest of the file. What the address does is remove the obstacle that stops most applications before they start — having nowhere in Bulgaria you are entitled to be.
A Bulgarian company must have an address of management in Bulgaria, and that address is where the tax authority and the courts will look. Using a foreign home address does not redirect them. It simply means nobody is at the place they are legally entitled to serve.
Yes, and it is one of the cheapest filings in the register — 15 leva, about EUR 7.67, when filed electronically. The cost of an address is never the filing fee. It is what happens in the weeks before anyone notices it needs changing.
We receive it, we open what is addressed to the company, and we tell you what it is and what the deadline on it is. That is the whole point of the service. An address that only exists on paper reproduces the problem it was bought to solve.
The company registered address starts at EUR 300 and the personal address starts at EUR 950; the quote states the period it covers. The gap between the two is not a margin — the personal address involves a named individual making a declaration about you, and that is priced accordingly.
Whether there is a company yet, whether you intend to live here, and what address is on the file today. One email back with which address you need, what it costs and what it covers.
Ask us to handle it Or run the two-minute check first.The company's address. Art. 12(2) of the Commercial Act: the address of a merchant is the address of the management of its business. Art. 13(1) requires the seat and address of management to be stated in commercial correspondence and on the merchant's website.
The tax correspondence address. Art. 28(1)(2) of the Tax and Social Insurance Procedure Code: for local legal persons the correspondence address is the address of management, unless a different correspondence address is entered in BULSTAT or a different address of management is entered in the Commercial Register. Art. 28(3): once a proceeding has begun of which you have been duly notified, a change of correspondence address must be notified in writing within three days, failing which all acts in that proceeding are filed to the case and deemed duly served.
Service by filing to the case. Art. 32(1) TSIPC: applies where the person, their representative or a designated employee is not found at the correspondence address after at least two visits seven days apart, each recorded in a protocol under Art. 32(2). Art. 32(3): the two-visit requirement does not apply where there is indisputable evidence that the address does not exist. Art. 32(4)–(5): the notice is posted at the territorial directorate and published online, with a letter by return receipt and an email where one was given. Art. 32(6): if the person does not appear within fourteen days of the posting, the act is filed to the case and is deemed duly served.
VAT consequences. Art. 176(1) and (2) of the VAT Act: the competent revenue authority may refuse to register, or terminate the registration of, a person who cannot be found at the correspondence address they have given, or who changes that address without giving the prescribed notice.
Service in civil proceedings. Art. 50(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure: the place of service on a merchant or legal person entered in the relevant register is the last address shown in that register. Art. 50(2): where the person has left that address and no new address is entered, all communications are filed to the case and are deemed duly served. Art. 50(4): where the server finds no access to the office or nobody willing to receive the document, one notice is affixed under Art. 47(1), and a second notice is not affixed.
What an address is. Art. 89(1) of the Civil Registration Act: an address is the unambiguous description of the place where a person lives or where they receive their correspondence. Art. 89(5): the mayor determines which addresses in the municipality may host an address registration.
Registration at an address. Art. 92(2) of the Civil Registration Act requires one of: a document of ownership, documents for use of the property for residential purposes, or other documents proving ownership or use. Art. 92(3): where the applicant is not the owner, written consent of the owner is required by declaration in the prescribed form, submitted in person before the authority or bearing a notarised signature. Art. 95(2) and 96(2): declaration is made in person, and by a proxy only exceptionally, on an express power of attorney with a notarised signature. Art. 99(1): a change of current address must be declared within thirty days. Art. 99(4): registration at a hotel or other place of accommodation is not permitted for more than four months.
Who enters the population register. Art. 3(2)(2)(a) of the Civil Registration Act: foreign nationals are entered where they have been granted long-term or permanent residence. Holders of continuous residence are identified and administered under the foreigners' regime rather than through entry in the population register, which is why the personal number and the address record follow different routes at different stages of a stay.
Accommodation in a residence application. The Rules for the Application of the Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria Act require evidence of secured accommodation among the documents accompanying an application for continuous residence, across essentially all of the grounds. Art. 6(1) of the Rules, applying Art. 18(1) of the Act, requires the address at which a foreign national will stay to be declared in writing on entry by means of a completed address card, which is forwarded to the Migration units of the regional directorates of the Ministry of Interior. Under Art. 35(1) of the Rules, an application for permanent residence on the ground in Art. 25(1)(1) of the Act is accompanied by a notarised declaration from the owner providing an address of residence.
Tax identification without a personal number. Art. 84(2) TSIPC: individuals not entered in the Commercial Register or BULSTAT are identified by their national identity number or their personal number of a foreigner. Art. 84(3): persons falling outside both cases are identified by an official number issued by the revenue authority.
State fees. Art. 16a(4)(2) of the Tariff of state fees collected by the Registry Agency: 15 leva for an application to change registered circumstances other than capital, filed electronically; Art. 16a(3)(2): 30 leva on paper. Euro amounts on this page are conversions at the fixed rate of 1.95583. The tariff continues to state its amounts in leva.
This page describes Bulgarian law as at August 2026 and is general information, not advice on your situation. Practice at Migration directorates varies on what is accepted as evidence of secured accommodation, and we confirm the current position for each file rather than relying on the last one. Reviewed by Yordan Cholakov, Managing Partner, Innovires Legal.