Getting a tax number in Bulgaria

Companies and taxes · Last reviewed: 2026-10-10

Four identifiers, four different jobs

Individuals: not a new number, a correct record

If your residence is registered, the task is usually not to obtain a number but to make sure the one you already have appears correctly everywhere. Employer, bank and social-security records all key on the same identifier, and a single wrong digit breaks the chain quietly — it usually surfaces at filing time or when someone checks a health-insurance status.

The БУЛСТАТ route for people without a personal number

People with no ЕГН and no ЛНЧ who nevertheless incur a Bulgarian tax or social-security obligation — owners of property here, for example, or people holding a management role in a company — are identified through an entry in the БУЛСТАТ register kept by the Registry Agency. The entry is not automatic and depends on the kind of obligation involved.

Companies: the ЕИК arrives with incorporation

1. 1

   Register in the commercial register

   Incorporation produces the ЕИК; no separate tax-number application is filed. The same code identifies the company to the revenue agency, the social-security institute and banks.
2. 2

   Add the registrations you actually need

   Employing staff and VAT registration are separate filings made with the revenue agency on top of the existing ЕИК.
3. 3

   Set up electronic access

   The revenue agency's online services require either a personal identification code or a qualified electronic signature. Without one, filing stays tied to office visits.

The VAT number is its own procedure

A VAT number looks like the ЕИК with a country prefix, but legally it rests on a separate registration act — triggered by a mandatory threshold or requested voluntarily. Thresholds and deadlines are given below as read on the revenue agency's page on 10 October 2026.

The 2024 change to VAT numbers

According to the revenue agency's announcement, until 1 January 2024 the VAT identification number of individuals who were not entered in the commercial register or in BULSTAT started with “BG” followed by the ЕГН or ЛН/ЛНЧ. From 1 January 2024 НАП changed it automatically to “BG” plus a service number from the register under Art. 94(1) of the VAT Act, generated and provided by НАП. The announcement ties the change to amendments of the VAT Act's implementing regulation published in State Gazette No 55 of 2023, in force from 27.06.2023, and cites the EU regulation of 27 April 2016 on the protection of personal data. People who had declared an e-mail address to НАП received an electronic notice of the new number.

VAT registration: thresholds and deadlines on the НАП page

BULSTAT: who must be entered (Registry Agency page)

According to the Registry Agency page, the register covers legal entities that are not traders or non-profit bodies, branches and trade representations of foreign persons, unincorporated partnerships, employers (insurers) and natural persons in a liberal profession or craft. Foreign legal entities are entered if they carry on business in Bulgaria, are effectively managed here or own real estate. For foreign natural persons the test is: they hold neither an ЕГН nor a ЛНЧ and carry on trade or independent personal services, own real estate in the country or are insurers. Persons from the EU and EEA working here only under the freedom to provide services are not entered.

The application is filed on the prescribed form with a declaration that the facts are true; paper applications go to the Registry Agency's territorial units at the seats of the district courts. The person, a legal representative, a lawyer with an express power or an agent with a notarised power can file. The fee for entering a new subject is in Art. 8(1) of the Agency's state-fee tariff; the amount is not part of this reading.

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