Today we will take a look at the company registration procedure in Bulgaria. With time more and more people decide to invest in the country and start their own enterprise here. This is due mainly to the combination of low corporate taxes and free access to the European market. If you want to learn more about what makes Bulgaria a great place to start your business you can check our blog post on the top 5 reasons to register a company in Bulgaria.
I will try to answer some of the most common questions regarding the business incorporation in the country like who can register a company, how much does it cost, what time does it take, etc. OK, let’s get started.
Actually, anybody who has reached the age of 18 regardless of citizenship. There are basically no formal requirements or conditions for foreign citizens who want to register a company. It doesn’t even matter if you are a European citizen or not.
The type of company you are looking for is almost certainly an OOD. This refers to the widely known and preferred worldwide limited liability companies — LLC or Ltd. For much larger businesses it may be suitable to register a joint-stock company but these cases are really rare.
Company registration in Bulgaria is fairly cheap compared to most European countries. The state tax is a little under 55 EUR but is reduced in half if the documents are filed online. In order to do this however, one must have an electronic signature with a digital certificate. Usually future company owners authorize a lawyer or another expert who owns an electronic signature to file the company documents on their behalf in the Trade register.
Apart from this, you should add to the total expenses a small notary fee and another small fee for opening a bank account (combined no more than 15 EUR).
Although the procedure is definitely not a complicated, there are a number of documents that have to be presented to the Bulgarian trade register upon registration. They include the company by-laws, some formal declarations signed by the manager and evidence for paid state fee and deposited capital.
Some of the said documents can be drafted by a legal practitioner while for other you must visit a notary and a bank institution. At the bank, you open a company account and deposit the starting capital. Don’t worry too much about this. The minimum company capital is 1 EUR although I highly recommend registering the company with a much larger initial investment. The reason for this is that the starting company capital should be enough to at least cover the initial expenses that your company may have, like office rent, purchase of supplies and other.
Staying in Bulgaria for the registration helps but is not 100% necessary. Instead of visiting a notary you could visit a Bulgarian embassy or consulate abroad and you can authorize a third party to deposit the company capital on behalf of you. You can sign all the needed documents remotely.
Not too really. You can conclude the whole procedure from start to finish in three business days. If you use the services of a professional, the things that you have to do shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours in Bulgaria.
First, you should know that in Bulgaria you can only register a company under a name written in Cyrillic. You are free to add a name in Latin but it should match with the Cyrillic one. This name must also be available, meaning that there must be no company with the same name already registered.
The documents for the company registration must be written in Bulgarian. You can also use bilingual documents but the translation in Bulgarian is a must.
I highly recommend that you hire a professional for the company registration. As I stated above the procedure is not complicated but it is a strictly formal one. This means that any mistake will lead to rejection by the Trade register and you will have to invest more money and time in the process.
This article was originally published on Medium.