Electricity account and bills in Bulgaria

Everyday life · Last reviewed: 2026-08-24

There is no single electricity company: know the chain

Bulgaria's electricity sector is legally unbundled, and the unbundling is not an accident: it follows from European energy legislation. The plant that GENERATES power is one company; the operator that TRANSMITS it across the country at high voltage is another; the DISTRIBUTION company that runs the poles, substations and the meter in your building is a third; and the SUPPLIER that issues your invoice and collects the money is a fourth. Your bill usually carries only the last one's name, yet half of the things that actually happen to you are in the hands of the third.

In practice the split means this: when the power goes out, when the meter fails, when you want more connected capacity or a new metering device installed, your counterpart is the DISTRIBUTION company; when the subject is price, tariff, contract terms, an invoice line or a payment plan, your counterpart is the SUPPLIER. Confusing the two does not only cost time, it costs rights: objection deadlines keep running, and a complaint filed at the wrong door does not stop them.

Above this structure sits a regulator: the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission, known by its Bulgarian abbreviation КЕВР. It issues licences, sets regulated prices, approves companies' general terms and rules on consumer complaints. The most reliable way to test whether a requirement imposed on you is valid is to open that company's general terms as approved by the regulator: a clause that never passed approval is contestable even when it appears in a signed contract.

You do not choose the region, you choose the supplier

The question newcomers ask most often is which electricity company to pick. Half the question has no answer, because the DISTRIBUTION company is tied to geography. The country is divided into licensed distribution territories, and which one an address falls into is settled in law; you cannot change the operator of the grid serving your building, just as you cannot pick who maintains the water main under your street. This is not a shortage of competition but the regulated shape of a natural monopoly over network infrastructure.

The other half of the question does have an answer, and it matters: you can choose the company that SELLS you the electricity. Licensed electricity traders make offers to household customers on the free market, and the regulator runs its own official platform for comparing those offers. The platform lists licensed suppliers' household offers on one screen, which is exactly why it is worth looking at the regulator's own page rather than at a comparison site with unclear ownership.

Putting the account in your own name: why it is worth the trouble

An electricity account in Bulgaria attaches not to the property but to a named person. If the account in the flat you move into still stands in the name of the previous occupant or the owner, every invoice you pay legally settles somebody else's debt. That produces three concrete everyday problems: first, the right to dispute a metered quantity belongs to the account holder, not to you; second, any debt left over from an earlier period sticks to the account and the collection notices arrive at the address where you live; third, when it comes to reconnection, meter replacement or a payment plan, the company is under no obligation to deal with you at all.

Transferring the account is usually a simple procedure: a document showing ownership or a right of use, an identity document and, where required, a declaration closing the old account. For tenants a lease is accepted by most companies, though some also ask for the owner's written consent. The critical moment is the METER READING on the day of transfer: unless it is recorded in a handover protocol, consumption from before the transfer can be billed to you, and proving otherwise afterwards is close to impossible.

If you are a tenant: whose name should the account carry

Two different practices exist between tenants and owners, and each has its logic. In the first, the account stays in the owner's name and the tenant pays the bill to the owner or into the owner's account. Owners prefer this because if a tenant leaves without paying, the debt does not build up unseen: the owner is the account holder and can watch the balance. For the tenant the arrangement is fragile: they cannot see the amount directly from the company, cannot object, and cannot verify that their payment actually reached the invoice.

In the second practice the account moves into the tenant's name for the term of the lease and moves back on departure. That gives the tenant transparency: the invoice arrives electronically in their own name, consumption can be tracked and objections can be raised. The owner's worry is unpaid debt, and the standard answer is a lease clause requiring a certificate of no outstanding utility debt on departure, with the deposit released against it. Whichever arrangement you pick, do not leave it oral: this single unwritten detail is the most common cause of arguments on moving day.

A third option appears mostly in furnished short-term lets: bills are included in the rent. That is convenient for the tenant but carries a price. Because you never see the consumption, both your incentive to save and your defence against a claim of excessive use grow weaker. If the contract says bills are included, check whether a cap has been added above which consumption falls back to the tenant. Such caps are usually in small print and start to bite in winter.

Meter, readings and the anatomy of the bill

The meter belongs to the distribution company and is sealed. Touching a seal, moving the device or interfering with measurement in any way is not merely a breach of contract but conduct with serious legal consequences. When a meter fails or you doubt its accuracy, the answer is not intervention but a WRITTEN REQUEST FOR VERIFICATION, filed with the distribution company, which is obliged to arrange metrological verification of the measuring device.

Reading practices vary by company and by device. Remotely readable meters report automatically; classic meters are read by a visiting inspector or self-reported by the customer. The most common self-reporting error is confusing the SEVERAL registers shown on the display: dual-tariff meters keep day and night registers separately, and reporting the wrong one inflates the period's bill. Before reading the display, check the label on the meter to see which register belongs to which tariff.

The most useful habit when reading a bill is to look not at the amount but FIRST AT THE PERIOD AND THE READINGS. Opening and closing readings are printed on the invoice; the difference between them is the billed consumption. When the amount looks high, the first question is whether the price rose or the consumption did, and the answer lies in those two numbers. If the difference really is large, the second question follows: how many days does this period cover? Some periods run longer than a calendar month and the bill grows accordingly. That is not an error but a shifted period.

The third checkpoint is ESTIMATED consumption. When no reading could be taken, the company may issue an invoice based on an estimate from past months, and the next actual reading squares the difference. That is why one very low month followed by a very high one is usually not a mistake but an estimate-and-correction pair. The invoice normally flags this with a separate marker; concluding that you were overcharged before checking for the marker is premature.

The fourth check is which ADDRESS and which meter number the invoice belongs to. In buildings with many metering devices, especially those with cellars, garages and common areas, mixed-up accounts are not rare. Compare the meter number on the invoice against the number on your own meter once: this five-minute check stops a wrong charge that could otherwise run for years. If they do not match, request a written correction and keep the reference number of the request.

The free market, switching supplier and the last-resort trap

Bulgaria's retail electricity market has been opening gradually for years. The structure has three boxes. The first is REGULATED SUPPLY: the price is set by the regulator and supply continues even if the customer does nothing. The second is the FREE MARKET: the customer signs with a licensed trader and the price is contractual. The third is the SUPPLIER OF LAST RESORT, and this is not an option you choose but a situation you fall into.

The function of the supplier of last resort is to keep the power on when a customer is left without a supplier: a licence is withdrawn, a contract ends without a new one being signed, or the customer simply never acts. The Ministry of Energy's own information states plainly that the price under this arrangement is significantly HIGHER and that its function is incidental, that is temporary, supply. Every month spent with the supplier of last resort is therefore an expensive month, and the only way out is signing a contract with a new supplier.

For anyone wanting to switch, the regulator's comparison platform is the right starting point: it lists licensed traders' household offers. When reading offers, do not look at the unit price alone. Contract term, the exit fee for leaving early, whether the price is fixed or indexed, added subscription and service lines, and any mandatory payment method change the total more than the unit price does. Under indexed tariffs the price follows the market, which is an advantage when it falls and a surprise when it rises.

The switch itself is usually driven by the incoming supplier: a mandate is signed, technical records are transferred and the change takes effect from the start of the next billing period. Two things are expected of you: knowing whether your current contract carries an exit fee, and recording the meter reading on the transition date. That reading is the boundary between two suppliers, and a boundary drawn wrongly leads to the same consumption being billed twice.

Payment, arrears and disconnection

Bills can be paid by bank transfer, by direct debit, through the company's online account or at physical payment points. If you will be out of the country for long stretches, direct debit is the safest route, but setting an upper limit is wise, because an erroneously high invoice is also collected automatically. Direct debit does not remove your right to object: a paid invoice can still be disputed, and if you are right, the difference is credited in a later period.

The path followed in case of arrears is written in the company's general terms as approved by the regulator: first a notice, then a set period, then disconnection. Reconnection afterwards is a separate operation with its own charge, and it may not happen the same day. This is why the calculation of paying late and getting reconnected on demand is expensive in Bulgaria: the number of days between disconnection and reconnection depends on the company's work schedule, not on your plans.

If you can see a payment problem coming, requesting a payment plan in writing BEFORE disconnection is a real option and many companies grant it. File the request in writing rather than by telephone; the sentence about having called but received no answer only works when there is a reference number. The same holds for objections: an oral complaint is not a document that stops any deadline, and the call-centre recording is not in your hands.

New connections, capacity increases and empty homes

Connecting a new building or increasing connected capacity is a heavier procedure than transferring an account: an application to the distribution company, issuing of technical conditions, design work, a connection contract and a compliance check on the internal installation. This is measured in weeks rather than days and stretches with the season. If you are planning air conditioning, electric heating or an electric-vehicle charger, ask BEFORE moving in whether the existing capacity is enough; finding out later means both delay and expense.

For a home that will stand empty for a long time the choice is between keeping the account open and closing it. Keeping it open can mean network and service charges accruing even at zero consumption; closing it means a cost and a waiting time to switch back on. Short gaps usually favour keeping it open, long ones favour closing. Before deciding, read the clauses on unoccupied property and on temporary disconnection at the customer's request in the general terms, because practice differs between companies.

Understanding consumption: three things that shrink the bill

In most Bulgarian households the bill is driven by HEATING AND HOT WATER, not by lighting. In flats without central heating, winter consumption runs several times the summer figure once electric heaters or air conditioners are in use, and that does not mean the bill is wrong. The most dependable way to learn your own pattern is to spend the first year measuring it: note the reading on the same date each month and draw your own curve at the end of the year. That curve tells you what to expect in each month more accurately than any national average.

The second thing is knowing when dual-tariff metering actually helps. With a night tariff, running the washing machine and dishwasher overnight and setting the water heater to heat at night noticeably lowers the period's bill. The precondition is that your meter really is dual-tariff and that your contract includes that tariff. If your invoice shows only one consumption line, working at night has no financial effect at all; check the tariff first, then change the habit.

The third thing is that in older buildings insulation matters more than the choice of supplier. In a flat with single glazing and an uninsulated external wall the winter bill will be high whichever trader you signed with, and switching supplier will not close that gap. When viewing a rental, questions about window type, external insulation and the heating system save more money than hours spent comparing offers. Their answers are often visible from the street: retrofitted insulation panels on a facade are easy to spot.

Five common mistakes

• •Moving in without transferring the account: months of paying into somebody else's record and arguing with no right to object.
• •No handover protocol with the meter reading on the day, leaving you without evidence in every later dispute.
• •Transferring the account but never signing a supply contract, then spending expensive months with the supplier of last resort.
• •Self-reporting the wrong register on a dual-tariff meter and inflating your own period.
• •Objecting by telephone: the deadlines run while you hold no written record at all.

How to verify this today

1. 1

   Find your invoice or a photograph of the last one

   It carries the supplier's name, the grid operator's name, the customer number and the meter number. Without those four data points no institution will talk to you.
2. 2

   Confirm whose name the account carries

   Ask customer service or check the online account for the account holder's name. If it is not yours, start the transfer procedure.
3. 3

   Read the general terms on the regulator's site

   Approved general terms are published by the regulator. Payment deadlines, arrears, disconnection and objection clauses are there, and they are not negotiable.
4. 4

   Compare offers on the regulator's platform

   The supplier-switching platform shows licensed traders' household offers on one screen. Note the term, the exit fee and the price type.
5. 5

   Build a meter photo archive

   Once a month, on the same date, photograph all three meters (electricity, water, heat or gas) into the same folder. After a year you hold an undisputable consumption history.

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