How to Run a Bulgarian Company from Abroad: a Guide for Non-Resident Founders

What stays in Bulgaria when you don't

Most guides to company formation in Bulgaria for non-residents stop at the EIK, the company's registration number. That is the easy part. The real question for a founder living in Lisbon, Dubai or Austin is the next five years: how do you run a Bulgarian company from abroad without flying in every quarter?

Bulgarian commercial law does not require the owner or the managing director to live in Bulgaria, and almost every interaction with the state now happens online. But a few things stay anchored to the country: the registered address, the bank account, the people who file for you, and a few moments where the law or the bank wants to see you. This article covers the period after registration. If you have not formed the company yet, start here:

How to start a company in Bulgaria as a foreigner →

Registered address: more than a mailbox

Every Bulgarian company has a seat and management address entered in the Commercial Register. Under Art. 12 of the Commerce Act the seat is the town where the business is managed and the address is the address of that management, and Art. 13 requires both on your business correspondence and website.

Non-resident founders usually use an address service, their accountant's office or a friend's flat. All legal. The risk is practical: this is where the National Revenue Agency (NRA, the Bulgarian tax authority) looks for you. If an officer finds nobody at the correspondence address on at least two visits within 7 days, the document can be served by attaching it to your file (Art. 32 of the Tax and Social Security Procedure Code). It then counts as served even though you never saw it, and appeal deadlines start running. So ask any address service who receives the mail, how fast it is scanned, and what happens if the contract lapses while the address stays registered.

One rule hits remotely managed companies specifically. When a company declares its ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) under Art. 63(4) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (ЗМИП), it must name a contact person who permanently resides in Bulgaria, with a Bulgarian correspondence address, whenever no registered legal representative permanently resides in Bulgaria. The contact person gives notarised consent. If your only director lives abroad, you need one.

Opening a business bank account as a non-resident

Usually the slowest and least predictable part. The law does not forbid accounts for companies run by non-residents. The friction is due diligence: every bank applies the Anti-Money Laundering Act, which implements the EU AML Directive (2015/849), plus its own risk appetite, and policies differ between banks.

Expect to provide:

• company documents: a current Commercial Register extract, the articles of association, address and actual business activity (Art. 54 ЗМИП);
• the ownership and control structure and the UBOs, the individuals who ultimately own or control the company, with ID for them and the director;
• the purpose of the account, expected turnover, main customers and suppliers, and the source of funds.

Can it be done remotely? The law allows it. ЗМИП permits identification without physical presence, including through electronic identification and qualified trust services under the eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014, with the data then verified in at least two ways (Art. 53(8) and Art. 55(2) ЗМИП). Whether a bank offers it is the bank's decision: some want the director in a branch, others accept video identification. Links to a country on the European Commission's high-risk list mean enhanced checks.

Neobanks and electronic money institutions (EMIs) often onboard faster, with two trade-offs:

• Funds held with an EMI are not a deposit (Art. 6(3) of Directive 2009/110/EC). They are safeguarded but not covered by deposit insurance, which for Bulgarian banks protects up to €100,000 per depositor per bank.
• If the company holds accounts abroad, at banks, payment institutions or EMIs, with a combined year-end balance of €25,000 or more, it reports them to the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) on an annual statistical form, under an amendment to BNB Ordinance No. 27 in force from 1 April 2026.

Onboarding is not a one-off. Banks refresh their files periodically, and the new EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 applies from 10 July 2027. Answer KYC (know your customer) requests on time: an account frozen over an ignored letter is a common and entirely avoidable problem.

Power of attorney, notarisation and apostille

A power of attorney lets your accountant, a lawyer or a friend act for you in Bulgaria. Be specific: name the institutions (NRA, Registry Agency, bank) and the actions you authorise.

Important actions usually need a notarised signature. From abroad you have two routes:

• A Bulgarian consulate. Consular officers can perform notarial certifications (Art. 84 of the Notaries and Notarial Activity Act). You bring a document drafted in advance and sign it in front of the officer. The consulate will not draft it for you.
• A local notary plus an apostille. If your country is a party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, a local notary certifies your signature and the document gets an apostille. You then need an official Bulgarian translation. Countries outside the convention require full legalisation instead.

The NRA does not ask for the same thing everywhere. Filing returns and documents works with an ordinary power of attorney, but full access to the VAT registration service needs a notarised one. If you have a qualified e-signature, you can grant your accountant access to NRA e-services entirely online, with no paper involved.

Qualified e-signature (QES) and access to the NRA and Commercial Register

A qualified electronic signature (QES, in Bulgarian КЕП) is what makes remote management work: you use it to file with the Commercial Register, submit returns to the NRA and grant access to others. Under Art. 25(3) of eIDAS, a QES issued in one EU member state is recognised as qualified in all the others.

The catch is practical. The NRA portal identifies you through an identifier in the certificate: a Bulgarian personal number (EGN), a foreigner's number (LNCh) or an NRA-issued number. Foreign certificates often carry none. Then you first file a request for access with a QES without an EGN, printed, signed and submitted at an NRA office.

The NRA's PIN code (ПИК) covers only personal taxes and is collected at an NRA office, so for the company you need a QES. In the Commercial Register, an authorised person or a lawyer can file with their own QES, so you do not have to sign every update yourself.

Who files what, and when

Your company is a Bulgarian tax resident wherever you live, and it runs on a Bulgarian calendar:

• VAT: if the company is VAT-registered, a monthly return and ledgers by the 14th of the following month, every month, including zero months (Art. 125 VAT Act).
• Payroll: with employees, social security declarations (forms 1 and 6) by the 25th of the following month, and every new employment contract notified to the NRA within 3 days of signing (Art. 62(3) Labour Code).
• Annual corporate tax return and payment of the 10% corporate tax by 30 June (Art. 92 Corporate Income Tax Act).
• Annual financial statements, published in the Commercial Register by 30 September (Art. 38 Accountancy Act).
• Changes to registered details, including UBOs, are filed with the Commercial Register within 7 days. Failing to file the Art. 63(4) ЗМИП data on time carries a fine of roughly €2,556 that can be imposed again every month until the filing is made (Art. 118(4) and (5) ЗМИП).

In practice your accountant prepares and submits all of this with their own QES under your power of attorney. The legal responsibility still sits with the company and its managing director. Your job is to get documents in on time: invoices, bank statements, contracts. An accountant who receives a year's worth of paperwork in March cannot file VAT on the 14th of every month.

Bulgaria's tax calendar: every company deadline in one place →

A managing director who lives abroad

A non-resident managing director is common and legal. Three things to check first.

Tax on the director's fee. Remuneration paid to a member of the management body of a Bulgarian company is Bulgarian-source income (Art. 8(6)(3) Personal Income Taxes Act). For a non-resident director it is subject to a 10% final withholding tax, deducted by the company (Art. 37(1)(9) and Art. 46(1) of the same act), unless the double tax treaty with your country of residence provides otherwise. Your home country may also tax it, with the treaty deciding the relief.

Social security. Inside the EU, which country's social security rules apply is decided by Regulation (EC) No 883/2004, not by where the company is registered. If you also work for a company at home, settle it before you start paying yourself.

Where the company is really managed. If every decision is taken in a higher-tax country, that country may argue the company is effectively managed there or has a permanent establishment there. That is a question for your home country's tax law, so check it with a local adviser.

Bulgarian tax residency: the 183-day rule and the 10% flat tax →

When you actually need to be there

No law requires periodic visits. But a few steps may need you in person, in Bulgaria or at a consulate:

• notarised signatures (power of attorney, specimen signature, a contact person's consent), unless done abroad with an apostille;
• opening a bank account, if the bank does not offer remote identification;
• collecting an NRA PIN code, or activating NRA e-services with a foreign QES that has no Bulgarian identifier: both go through an NRA office;
• getting a QES, if the provider only verifies identity in person.

Some can be handled by a representative, so check in advance. Batch the rest into one trip.

Typical pitfalls for non-resident founders

• An address where nobody opens the mail. An NRA letter missed for three weeks can cost you your right to appeal.
• No AML contact person, or UBO data left stale after a shareholder change.
• A frozen account over an unanswered KYC request.
• A vague or expired power of attorney, rejected on deadline day.
• An expired QES the week before the financial statements are due.
• An accountant who sees your documents once a year. The deadlines are monthly.

How FreeMe.bg helps

The address and the bank are your call. Everything else in this article is exactly what FreeMe.bg handles: you upload documents online from wherever you are, we track the deadlines, and certified accountants file your VAT returns, annual tax return and financial statements with their own QES under your power of attorney. All in English, at a fraction of a traditional accountant's price.

See how we set up a Bulgarian company →
Ask an accountant about your own situation →

If your setup is more complex (a director outside the EU, shareholders in several countries, staff in Bulgaria), do not piece it together from forum posts. One conversation with an accountant who has handled these cases is cheaper than a frozen account or a missed deadline.