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Bulgaria

Goods

VAT Standard rate

The standard VAT rate in Bulgaria in 2022 is 20%.

VAT Reduced rate

Accommodation in hotels and similar establishments
Delivery of books in physical or electronic media or in both media, excluding publications that are entirely or mainly intended for advertising and publications that entirely or mainly consist of video content or audio-musical content (valid from 01.07.2020 to 31.12.2021)
Restaurant and catering services, including home delivery, excluding delivery of alcoholic beverages (valid from 01.12.2020 to 31.12.2021)
Products for babies and young children, including baby diapers and similar baby hygiene items (valid from 01.07.2020 to 31.12.2021)
Delivery of general travel services, including excursions organized by tour operators and travel agents, with occasional bus transport of passengers (valid from 01.08.2020 to 31.12.2021)
Services for the use of sports facilities (valid from 01.08.2020 to 31.12.2021)

VAT rate for EU countries in some cases can reach 15% and 5%

Threshold

From the 1st July 2021, the distance selling thresholds were withdrawn and replaced by a unified threshold of EUR10,000 for all EU members.

In other words, VAT should be charged at the VAT rate of the customer’s country of residence by companies whose annual taxable cross-border turnover is over EUR 10,000.

When a company’s distance sales hit the threshold, the company must register for the VAT no later than 7 days before the date of occurrence of the tax event.

Deductible VAT

If goods or services were used to make taxable supplies in Bulgaria, VAT in input invoices might be credited. Examples include:

VAT charged on the import of goods
VAT paid to Bulgarian suppliers

Registration procedure

When a company has the obligation to register, the owners will be required to complete and submit a VAT registration form, along with supporting documentation:

Tax and VAT registration from the country of residence
Details of the taxable turnover in Bulgaria
Articles of Association
An extract from the company’s national trade register
Declaration of absence of criminal record

Tax representative

Taxable companies established outside the European Union are obliged to appoint fiscal representatives in order to handle all formalities related to VAT registration and filling.

When a foreign person is established in another Member State of the EU or in a third country with which our country has legal instruments for mutual assistance, the foreign person may appoint an accredited representative, but is not obliged to do so.

VAT returns filing date

The tax period is one month and coincides with the calendar month. If you are newly registered, your first tax period lasts from the date of registration until the last day, including the calendar month in which the registration was made.

Together with the reference-declaration, you also submit the accounting registers that you use to fill out the reference-declaration.

Submit a certificate-declaration and all accompanying documents on a monthly basis by the 14th day of the month following the month (tax period) to which the declaration belongs.

VAT payment date

Any Bulgarian VAT due must be paid by the same date.

Keeping records

All records and supporting documents should be kept for 10 years.

Penalties

For failure to submit an application for registration or an application for termination of registration, the fine is from BGN500 to BGN5,000.

In case of failure to submit a certificate-declaration, accounting registers (sales diary and purchase diary), the fine is from BGN500 to BGN10,000.

For unpaid tax, the penalty is the amount of unpaid tax, but not less than BGN500.

Digital services

VAT Standard rate

The standard VAT rate in Bulgaria in 2022 is 20%.

VAT Reduced rate

Supply of books on physical means of support or supplied electronically or both, other than publications wholly or predominantly devoted to advertising and other than publications wholly or predominantly consisting of video content or audible music

Threshold

Tax threshold is €0 for digital services.

Pieces of evidence

To identify the customer’s location, the merchant has to collect at least two items on non-contradictory evidence. And if two of them are in Bulgaria, the customer may be determined as Bulgarian:

Customer’s permanent address
Billing address (bank or electronic payment operator)
IP address
Telephone number
The location of the customer’s fixed land line through which the service is supplied to him
Other commercially relevant information

E-services list

As defined by EU law, a digital product is any product that’s stored, delivered, and used in an electronic format. These are goods or services that the customer receives via email, by downloading them from the Internet, or through logging into a website, in particular:

E-books, images, movies, and videos, whether buying a copy from Shopify or using a service like Netflix. In tax language, these products are in a category usually called, «Audio, visual, or audio-visual products»
Downloadable and streaming music, whether buying an MP3 or using a service like SoundCloud or Spotify. Of course, these products also fall into the audio category
Cloud-based software and as-a-Service products, such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Websites, site hosting services, and internet service providers
Online ads and affiliate marketing

Registration procedure

The obligation to submit an application for registration arises no later than the 10th day of the month following the date of the tax event of the first delivery.

For non-EU businesses, a registration application form must be submitted to the Territorial Directorate of NRA in Sofia. For EU businesses, the application form must be submitted to the competent Territorial Directorate as per the business’s place of establishment. The application form must be submitted electronically via the web portal of the NRA and at least the following information must be provided:

Name, postal address, electronic addresses, incl. web sites of the taxable person
Tax registration Identification number, if any (for the non-Union scheme) or VAT identification numbers in other MS (for the Union scheme)
Electronic declaration evidencing that the taxable person is not registered for VAT purposes in a Member State (for the non-Union scheme)
Bank account details of the taxable person (Euro bank account for the non- Union scheme)
Identification numbers from previous registrations of the taxable person, if any (for both Union and non-Union schemes)
Evidence of any fixed establishments in other Member States (for the Union scheme)

Keeping records

All records and supporting documents should be kept for 10 years.

Filling VAT returns

The dates for filing the tax return are as follows:

Calendar quarter I by 20 April
Calendar quarter II by 20 July
Calendar quarter III by 20 October
Calendar quarter IV by 20 January

VAT payment date

The dates for VAT payment are as follows:

Calendar quarter I by 20 April
Calendar quarter II by 20 July
Calendar quarter III by 20 October
Calendar quarter IV by 20 January