Running a Bulgarian EOOD: What It Actually Looks Like

Most articles about Bulgarian companies are written by agencies that sell registrations and have never filed a VAT return of their own. BulgariaHQ is run by people who operate their own Bulgarian EOOD: a software company registered in Veliko Tarnovo that sells worldwide, invoices in euros, and pays the taxes everyone writes about. The numbers below come from real filings, not from a sales page. This is what owning an EOOD involves in practice.

The part everyone gets right: the taxes

The headline numbers are real and they are not a trick. An EOOD pays 10 percent corporate tax on profit. When the owner takes that profit out as dividends, there is a 5 percent withholding tax. Put together, money earned by the company reaches the owner at roughly 14.5 percent total tax. Working as a registered freelancer instead is a different calculation: 25 percent of income counts as deemed expenses and the remaining 75 percent is taxed at 10 percent, which works out to about 7.5 percent effective, plus social contributions. Which setup wins depends on income level and plans. The tax guide has the full numbers and the calculator does the arithmetic for your case.

What surprises most foreigners is not the rates. It is that nothing about this is a special scheme. There is no ruling to negotiate, no minimum-substance contract with a consulting firm, no program to apply for. You register a company, you do business, you pay 10 percent.

The part the sales pages skip: you have to actually be here

A Bulgarian company does not by itself make you a 10 percent taxpayer. If you keep living in Germany and manage your Bulgarian company from your kitchen in Munich, German rules on management and control will treat the profits as German. This is the most important sentence on this page. The 10 percent works when you genuinely move your life, or at least the real management of the business, to Bulgaria. That is why this site covers relocation as seriously as registration, and why the route quiz will tell some readers that Bulgaria is not the right move for them.

What a normal month looks like

Day to day, the owner's involvement in Bulgarian admin is small, because a licensed accountant does the regulated work. The rhythm is simple. At the start of each month, the accountant receives the previous month's documents: sales invoices, expense invoices, bank statements. A VAT-registered company must file its VAT return by the 14th of the month. The accountant files it; the owner's job is delivering documents on time and answering the occasional question about an unusual invoice.

Invoicing follows Bulgarian formalities: sequential numbering and a fixed set of required fields. For EU business customers the reverse-charge mechanism applies, so invoices go out without VAT, carrying the customer's VAT number instead. Standard invoicing software handles the format; the accountant checks the result.

Once a year comes the annual closing and the publication of the annual financial statement. This applies to every company, including ones with zero activity: a dormant EOOD still files a declaration every year, and missing it brings fines that start around EUR 100 and climb. A company you stop using is not free to keep around. The full calendar is on the accounting page.

What it costs to run

For a small VAT-registered company in 2026, monthly accounting runs roughly EUR 125 to 325 depending on document volume and staff. A company without VAT registration sits at the lower end. Beyond that: a registered address if rented, bank fees, and the occasional notarized document. There is no annual state franchise fee of the kind US LLC owners know.

The one-off setup costs are similarly undramatic: the state registration fee is EUR 28.12 when filed electronically, the notarized manager declaration costs a notary visit, and the minimum share capital is now literally 1 euro, though depositing a more practical amount is sensible. The company formation page walks through the whole process, including doing it remotely by power of attorney.

The honest frictions

The bank. Opening the company bank account is consistently the least modern part of the process, and for foreign owners it is usually the hardest step. Banks generally want to meet the owner in person, ask questions, and take their time. Fintechs like Wise or Revolut work well for day-to-day operations once the company exists, but the capital deposit account at formation is a real-bank matter. The banking guide covers this without the gloss, because it is the step where formation websites oversell.

The language. Official Bulgaria runs in Bulgarian: the commercial register, the tax agency portal, bank contracts. A foreign owner needs a bilingual accountant, which is exactly what a good one provides, or translations for anything they sign. It is a planning item, not a surprise, if you know it in advance.

The euro switch. Bulgaria adopted the euro on January 1, 2026, which removed the last currency friction for international business. For existing companies the transition was mostly an accounting exercise of redenominating capital, prices, and contracts from leva. New companies simply start in euros.

Who the EOOD is right for

If your income comes from clients or an employer outside Bulgaria and the goal is low personal tax while living here, the freelancer route or the digital nomad permit may fit better than forming anything. If you want to invoice internationally through your own entity, hire later, or build something that could one day be sold, the EOOD is the right vehicle, and the setup is genuinely fast: days, not months, once documents are in order.

Either way, the deciding factor is not paperwork. It is whether your life or your business's real management actually moves here. If yes, Bulgaria is one of the simplest low-tax homes a one-person business can have in the EU. If no, the 10 percent was never available in the first place, whatever a sales page promised.

For the exact numbers on your situation, tell us your case and you will get a straight answer, including when that answer is that Bulgaria does not fit.

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General information based on rules as of July 2026 and the operating experience behind this site, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; verify current requirements with a licensed professional before acting. Sources: Bulgarian Corporate Income Tax Act and Personal Income Tax Act rates as summarized in PwC Tax Summaries (reviewed January 2026), Bulgarian Registry Agency fee schedule.