Register a company in Bulgaria: EOOD steps and the 10% tax

• Deadline for the annual corporate tax return and payment: 30/06/2027
• Deadline to publish the annual financial statement: 30/09/2027

With a €1 minimum capital, money is not where foreign founders lose time. The friction is a Bulgarian address, documents in Bulgarian, the manager's notarised signature, and a calendar of tax and accounting deadlines that returns every year.

This guide covers the ЕООД (EOOD, a single-owner limited liability company). The Commerce Act (Търговски закон) lets one or more persons form a limited liability company (ООД); with a single founder it is an EOOD, and its founding document is an учредителен акт (founding act) instead of a partnership contract (чл. 113 and чл. 114, ал. 3). The law sets no nationality requirement for the founder.

Prepare the founder, manager, address and capital

Before an EOOD can be registered, the Commerce Act requires a founding act, an appointed manager and the statutory minimum capital paid in (Търговски закон, чл. 119, ал. 1).

Founder and manager

The sole owner may manage the company personally or appoint another person as manager (управител; чл. 147, ал. 1). In both cases the manager is entered in the register on the basis of a notarised consent with a specimen signature (чл. 141, ал. 3). If you cannot file in person, another person may file the application for the company with an explicit written power of attorney, under the Commercial Register Act (ЗТРРЮЛНЦ, чл. 15, ал. 2, т. 2). An attorney files on an explicit power of attorney drawn up under the Bar Act (чл. 15, ал. 1, т. 4). The power of attorney is attached to the application (чл. 15, ал. 5), and when the application is not filed in person by the applicant, the applicant's signature must be notarised (чл. 15, ал. 6).

Registered seat

The registered seat (седалище) of a Bulgarian company is the settlement where its management is located (Търговски закон, чл. 12), so you need a Bulgarian address to register the company.

Capital

The minimum of €1 must be paid in before registration (чл. 117, ал. 1 and чл. 119, ал. 1, т. 4). If you choose a higher capital, at least 70% of it must be paid in before registration (чл. 119, ал. 1, т. 5); the rest is due within the term that the founding act sets, and no later than 2 years after registration (чл. 115, т. 4). No official source states how long a bank takes to open the capital account for a non-EU founder: it depends on the bank's own anti-money-laundering checks.

Company name

Anyone may reserve a company name before applying for registration (ЗТРРЮЛНЦ чл. 35), and the reservation lasts 6 months (чл. 36, ал. 1). The fee is €10.23 online or €20.45 on paper, under чл. 16в of the Registry Agency fee tariff. Reservation is optional.

How to file application A4, and how fast the decision comes

You apply on the template application A4 for an ООД or ЕООД, which includes a declaration that the information is true (ЗТРРЮЛНЦ чл. 13, ал. 4), and the Registry Agency (Агенция по вписванията) must examine an initial registration by the end of the next working day after filing and decide immediately (чл. 19, ал. 3).

Documents are filed in original or as certified copies, together with a copy in which personal data is redacted (чл. 13, ал. 6). A refusal can be appealed to the district court, according to the official service card.

Online with an electronic signature

Electronic filing goes through portal.registryagency.bg with a user profile and a qualified electronic signature (QES), according to the same service card. The Commercial Register Act also accepts documents signed with an advanced electronic signature, including one based on a qualified certificate, under the EU eIDAS Regulation (ЕС) № 910/2014 (ЗТРРЮЛНЦ чл. 17, ал. 1). One provider estimates that a QES costs about €15–25 a year.

On paper

A paper filing costs €56.24 in state fees, twice the online fee, and in one provider's estimate the notary step (which then also covers the founding act) rises to about €15.

Language of the documents

The application and its attachments are filed in Bulgarian. You may also file documents in any official EU language, but only together with a certified Bulgarian translation, and the Bulgarian text prevails if the two conflict (ЗТРРЮЛНЦ чл. 18, ал. 1–3).

EOOD registration costs in 2026 (Registry Agency tariff)

The state fee for registering an EOOD in Bulgaria in 2026 is €28.12 online or €56.24 on paper, under чл. 16а of the Registry Agency fee tariff. One provider's breakdown puts a do-it-yourself online registration at about €41 in fees, with the €1 minimum capital paid in on top, and a paper filing at about €82.

Only the state fees and the €1 minimum are fixed by law. The notary, bank and signature figures are one provider's estimates (firmify.bg cost summary), not official prices, and a lawyer or accountant who prepares the documents typically adds €100–250. The tariff still states its fees in leva; the euro amounts follow from the fixed rate of 1.95583, with the result rounded to the cent (Закон за въвеждане на еврото, чл. 12–13).

The 10% corporate tax and the 5% dividend tax

A Bulgarian EOOD pays 10% corporate income tax on its annual profit (ЗКПО чл. 20), and when it pays a dividend to an individual owner it withholds a further 5% final tax (окончателен данък; Personal Income Taxes Act, ЗДДФЛ чл. 46, ал. 3). After both taxes, €1,000 of profit leaves €855 for the owner, an effective combined rate of 14.5%.

Under the Corporate Income Tax Act (ЗКПО), the tax period is the calendar year (чл. 21). A company incorporated under Bulgarian law is a local legal entity and is taxed on its worldwide income (чл. 3, ал. 1, т. 1 and ал. 2). The annual return is filed between 1 March and 30 June of the following year (чл. 92, ал. 2), and the tax is paid by 30 June of the following year (чл. 93, ал. 1). A newly founded company makes no advance tax instalments (авансови вноски) in its founding year and the following year, unless it was formed by transforming an existing company under the Commerce Act (чл. 83, ал. 2, т. 2). A company whose net sales revenue for the year before the previous year did not exceed €153,387.56 makes no advance instalments either (т. 1).

The arithmetic for an individual owner, if the whole after-tax profit is distributed:

• Profit: €1,000
• Corporate tax at 10%: €100
• Profit available to distribute: €900
• Dividend tax at 5%: €45
• Amount the owner receives: €855

The two taxes together take €145, which is 14.5% of the original profit.

Dividends to an individual owner

The 5% dividend tax is a final tax on the gross amount (ЗДДФЛ, the Personal Income Taxes Act, чл. 38, ал. 1, т. 2 and ал. 2). It applies in the same way whether the individual owner is a Bulgarian resident or a foreign person, for dividends from a Bulgarian source (чл. 38, ал. 1, т. 2, буква „а“). The company withholds it and pays it by the end of the month after the quarter in which the distribution was decided (чл. 65, ал. 2).

When the owner is a company

Dividends paid to a foreign legal entity owner bear a 5% withholding tax (ЗКПО чл. 194 and чл. 200, ал. 1), but dividends to a legal entity resident for tax purposes in an EU or EEA state are exempt, except in cases of hidden profit distribution (чл. 194, ал. 3, т. 3).

Salary and social security

If the company pays you a salary or management remuneration, personal income tax on it is 10% (ЗДДФЛ чл. 48, ал. 1). Your social insurance depends on how you work for the company. A manager working under a management contract is compulsorily insured (КСО, the Social Security Code, чл. 4, ал. 1, т. 7). An owner who works in their own company is insured as a самоосигуряващо се лице (self-insured person) (чл. 4, ал. 3, т. 2). For self-insured persons, the 2026 state social insurance budget act sets a minimum and a maximum monthly insurable income, and both change on 1 August 2026 (ЗБДОО 2026, чл. 9).

Recurring obligations and deadlines after registration

An EOOD files its corporate tax return and pays the tax by 30 June, and publishes its annual financial statement by 30 September, each in the year after the tax year (ЗКПО чл. 92–93; Закон за счетоводството чл. 38).

VAT registration

VAT registration becomes mandatory when taxable turnover exceeds the national threshold of €51,130 (ЗДДС, the VAT Act, чл. 96, ал. 1, as amended from 1 January 2026). The application goes to the competent territorial directorate of the National Revenue Agency (НАП) within 7 days of the date the threshold is exceeded (чл. 96, ал. 6, т. 1). Failing to apply on time is sanctioned with €255.65–€2,556.46 (чл. 178).

The annual financial statement

Under the Accountancy Act (Закон за счетоводството), traders publish their annual financial statement in the Commercial Register by 30 September of the following year (чл. 38, ал. 1, т. 1). A company with no activity instead publishes a no-activity declaration once, for its first reporting period without activity, by 30 June of the following year (чл. 38, ал. 9, т. 2). Not publishing the statement exposes the responsible person to a fine of €102.26–€1,533.88 and the company to a sanction of 0.1–0.5% of net revenue, at least €102.26, doubled for a repeat breach (чл. 74, ал. 1–2).

Living abroad or seeking residence: what an EOOD does not settle

Owning a Bulgarian EOOD does not by itself give you a right of residence in Bulgaria, and the 10% rate does not decide how the country where you live taxes the company.

Residence

The Foreigners Act (Закон за чужденците в Република България) has a long-term residence ground for foreigners who trade in Bulgaria, but it requires that they have created at least 10 full-time jobs for Bulgarian citizens, maintained for the period of residence and counted for each partner and each manager separately, unless a ratified international treaty provides otherwise (чл. 24, ал. 1, т. 2). Whether another residence route applies to you depends on your citizenship, and that question is outside this guide.

Running the company from another country

Bulgaria treats every company incorporated under Bulgarian law as resident and taxes its worldwide income (ЗКПО чл. 3). As one provider explainer notes, if the company is managed entirely from your home country, that country can claim it as its own tax resident under its domestic rules and the double tax treaty's tie-breaker, which looks at where management actually happens. Profits attributable to a fixed place of business or a dependent agent abroad (a permanent establishment) are taxable there. The Commerce Act already places the seat where management is located (чл. 12), so an EOOD run entirely from abroad sits uneasily with both sets of rules.

This article does not replace professional legal advice.