Provenance
How we verify our information
Anyone starting a company abroad has to believe information they cannot check themselves. So every important statement here says where it comes from - and how far it has been checked.
Editorially reviewed:
Why this is needed
Information about starting a company in Bulgaria goes stale quietly. A rate changes, a threshold is redenominated in euro, an office changes its form - and the article on the web stays exactly as it was.
So writing accurately is not enough. You also have to show what a statement rests on and when it was last checked. That is what the labels below do.
The four labels
- Official requirement
This statement follows from a legal basis or from an authority's own requirements. We name the competent body - not to borrow its credibility, but so you can look it up yourself.
- Practical experience
This is what we saw in the formations this project supported up to 2026. Useful, but not a rule: what happened often can still be different for you.
- Situation-dependent
There is no generally valid answer here. A named body decides it - and that decision sits neither with us nor with any Bulgarian rule.
- About Start in BG
This statement is about Start in BG's own role. Since August 2026 that mainly means: we research and explain, we sell and refer nothing. What third parties charge or decide is labelled separately.
Two kinds of check - and why we keep them apart
These two are routinely conflated. They mean different things, and blurring them is comfortable but misleading:
- Editorially reviewedSource check outstanding
- The statement was read, reconciled with the pages that carry it, and examined for contradictions. That says nothing about whether the law still reads the same way.
- Checked against the sourceChecked against the source
- The statement was compared against the primary source named for it - the statute, the authority's own guidance, the register. Only this is verification.
Current state
These figures come from the same register that produces the labels on the pages:
- labelled statements
- 32
- named sources
- 16
- pages carrying labels
- 30
- checked against the primary source
- 10
- source check outstanding
- 22
Outstanding source checks are not an oversight - they are the honest state. The labels were compiled in an environment from which the official pages could not be requested, and until a statement has actually been checked against its source, this site does not claim that it has.
Review cycle
- Tax and VAT: at least quarterly, and immediately after any legislative change we become aware of.
- Register and formation requirements: every six months.
- Banking: the bank list monthly against the Bulgarian National Bank's register, the conditions quarterly.
- Statements about our own service: whenever the scope of that service changes.
The sources we name
| The sources we name | Responsible for |
|---|---|
| Registry Agency (Commercial Register)Authority | Keeps the Commercial Register. A Bulgarian company comes into existence on entry there, and annual financial statements are filed there. |
| National Revenue Agency (NRA)Authority | Responsible for corporate income tax, personal income tax, VAT registration and social-security contributions. |
| National Statistical Institute (NSI)Authority | Collects the annual business-activity reporting for Bulgarian companies and publishes the relevant reporting windows. |
| Bulgarian National Bank (BNB)Authority | Licenses and supervises credit institutions in Bulgaria and keeps the register of licensed banks. |
| Ministry of Finance of BulgariaAuthority | Owns tax legislation and the official communication on the euro changeover. |
| Migration Directorate, Ministry of the InteriorAuthority | Responsible for residence documents for EU citizens and third-country nationals, and for the address held on them. |
| Municipal administration (population register)Authority | Keeps the population register and performs address registration for permanent-residence holders. |
| National Health Insurance Fund (NZOK)Authority | Runs the statutory health-insurance system: insured status, what is covered, choosing a GP, and recognition of EU forms such as the S1. |
| State Gazette (Darzhaven vestnik)Legal basis | The official gazette. Bulgarian statutes - the Commerce Act, the Corporate Income Tax Act, the Personal Income Tax Act, the VAT Act - apply in the version published there. |
| EU legislation (EUR-Lex)Legal basis | The legal basis for cross-border matters: the VAT Directive, social-security coordination, euro adoption. |
| The individual bank's compliance functionDeciding body | Decides whether an account is opened, when, and against which documents. None of those decisions sits with us or with an authority. |
| Bulgarian notariesDeciding body | Perform notarial certifications and set their own appointments and fees. |
| Sworn translators and legalisation servicesDeciding body | Translation and legalisation of foreign documents. Whether and in what form either is required is decided by the receiving body. |
| The tax authority of your country of residenceDeciding body | Assesses your personal tax liability, the place of effective management and how the double taxation treaty applies. That assessment is not made by Bulgaria. |
| Start in BG operational experienceOur own experience | What we observed in the formations Start in BG accompanied itself, up to August 2026. That service no longer exists; the observations remain citable as first-hand knowledge and are labelled as such. |
| Accounting and legal partnersProfessional partner | Professional assessment from Bulgarian accounting and law firms Start in BG worked with up to August 2026. Such an assessment is not an official ruling and does not replace individual advice. |
What these labels are not
- Not legal or tax advice. We classify information and name sources; assessing your individual case belongs in a consultation.
- Not a guarantee of currency. A change in the law can be more recent than our last check - which is why the date is shown.
- Not completeness. We label the statements that carry decisions, not every sentence on every page.
- Not an official ruling. The named body is always the competent one, and its answer takes precedence over ours.
Editorial policy
How content on startinbg.com is produced, and what it explicitly is not.
- Providers are researched independently
- No provider pays for inclusion in the comparison, for a position, or for points. Providers cannot maintain their own listings. Inclusion is not an endorsement, and a high score is not a statement about the quality of the work — it measures what a provider publishes and how verifiable that is.
- Provider data changes
- Every row shows its check date. Prices, packages and services change more often than we can re-check them. Verify anything you are relying on directly with the provider before you engage them.
- Editorial and advertising are separate
- If paid placements are introduced later, editorial content will still be produced independently of them. Advertisers do not see content before publication and have no say in any assessment.
- How this project makes money
- The book, sold through Amazon, written by the same people who run this site. That is a disclosed self-interest: we recommend our own book. Which is why what the book organises is also freely readable on this site.
- Errors are corrected, not overwritten
- Anyone who finds an error — reader or provider — can report it. A correction request never changes data automatically: it is checked, and what holds up is changed and recorded in the dataset's changelog.
Advertising policy
There is no advertising and no paid placement on this site today. If that changes, these rules apply — written down in advance so they cannot later be adjusted to fit the practice.
What a provider could buy
- A labelled advertising slot outside the ranking, under its own heading.
- A labelled placement in a newsletter or community channel, if one ever exists.
What a provider cannot buy
- Inclusion in the provider comparison.
- A position in the ranking, or any change to a score.
- A change, removal or softening of an editorial assessment.
- Advertising that is made to look like an editorial recommendation.
Paid content always carries an “Advertisement” label and sits visibly apart from the ranking — never as a row inside it.
Report an error
If something here is wrong, tell us what is wrong, what is correct instead, and where that can be checked publicly. Providers are welcome to report data about their own company; it is still checked before anything changes.
Report a correction