When VAT registration becomes compulsory in Bulgaria

Companies and taxes · Last reviewed: 2026-08-23

Trigger one: turnover over the last 12 months

The classic route is the turnover threshold: once taxable turnover over the last 12 consecutive months exceeds the statutory threshold, registration is compulsory. Two official sources give different figures for that threshold, so both appear here. The EU derogation document under Article 395(1) of Directive 2006/112/EC (EUR-Lex, CELEX 52022PC0520) names a threshold of roughly €51,130 for Bulgaria, while the European Commission's small-enterprise VAT page still shows roughly €25,600. That is a genuine conflict, and neither figure can be presented as settled — if your business is approaching the threshold, confirm the current figure with the NRA directly.

The deadline itself is clear. Where the threshold is reached within a period of up to two consecutive months, including the current one, the registration application must be filed within seven days of reaching it (Art. 96(1)(2) of the VAT Act). Turnover is not always only your own: where related parties carry on a homogeneous activity in succession at the same commercial site, the turnover realised there by the earlier operators counts toward the next one's. The rule closes off attempts to split a business on paper and stay under the line.

Trigger two: cross-border services — no threshold at all

This is the one most often missed. Under Article 97a of the VAT Act, every taxable person is subject to compulsory registration if it receives services with a place of supply in Bulgaria from foreign companies, and likewise if it supplies services to taxable persons in other EU member states — turnover is irrelevant. A one-person software business in Sofia invoicing a German company falls inside this rule however small its revenue. So does a small company buying advertising, cloud or consultancy services from abroad.

Trigger three: EU distance sales and the €10,000 threshold

If you sell goods to consumers in other EU countries or supply electronic services, the old separate national thresholds have been abolished and replaced by a single EU-wide threshold of €10,000 (European Commission, One Stop Shop). The threshold counts the sum of cross-border electronically supplied services and intra-EU distance sales together. Below it you keep applying domestic rules; above it VAT is due where the customer is, and instead of registering in every member state you can use the One Stop Shop and file in one place.

Rates, and life after registration

After registration the business files periodic VAT returns, keeps purchase and sales ledgers, submits VIES statements for intra-EU transactions and gains the right to deduct input VAT. Voluntary registration is also available, and most business-to-business companies register before they have to: their customers are themselves registered, so the VAT on the invoice is not a cost to them, while the company recovers VAT on its own inputs. For a business selling to final consumers the arithmetic reverses — there, early registration simply makes the price 20% higher.

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