- How it works: your company opens a trade representative office in Bulgaria, and that office is the basis for your visa and residence as its representative.
- What your company needs: two years of clean financial and tax compliance, a minimum turnover in each of those years, and a lease for real premises in Bulgaria.
- What you get: a type D visa — a six-month entry window, not a stay — then a residence permit for one year, renewable.
- Family: each family member makes a separate application.
- Tax: the office solves your residence, not your company's tax. Bulgarian tax only becomes relevant once you genuinely live here.
- No guarantees: refusals happen even with a perfect file.
What is the company route, exactly?
It's the route for non-EU citizens — British passport holders included — who already own an established business outside Bulgaria. Your company registers a trade representative office here, entered in the register kept by the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. You become its representative, and that role is what your type D visa and your residence permit are built on.
The appeal is simple: you don't have to wind down what you've built. Your company keeps trading as it does today. What moves is you — your life, and the management you do from here.
If you hold an EU passport, you don't need any of this: you have free movement. And if you're still working out which route is yours, start with our guide on which route actually fits you.
What does your company need to qualify?
Three things, and all three are checked before anything else happens.
Before the office can be registered
- A clean track record
- Two years of clean financial and tax compliance for your company. Filed accounts, no open issues with the tax authorities at home.
- Real turnover
- Since the rules changed in mid-2025, the company must also show a minimum annual turnover in each of the two years before registration. We check your figures against the threshold on the first call.
- Premises in Bulgaria
- A lease for real premises in Bulgaria. Not a virtual office or a mailbox: an actual place the office works from.
- How many people
- A company can have no more than two representatives obtaining residence this way.
Said plainly: if your company is younger than two years, or its turnover isn't there yet, or you can't take on premises, this route isn't open to you today. That's not a no forever — it's a question of timing, or of looking at the remote route and the other paths instead.
Why is the visa only an entry window?
Because that's what it is. The type D visa is valid for six months, and its job is to let you enter Bulgaria and apply for residence. It is not the permission to live here.
This is one of the most common misunderstandings we hear. People get the visa, relax, and treat it like the finish line. The finish line is the residence permit that comes after it — and the visa window is the time you have to get there. The visa itself is applied for in person at a Bulgarian consulate, so it's the one part of the move that you can't do from your sofa.
How long does the residence last, and how is it renewed?
The residence permit is granted for one year, renewable. Unlike the remote route, there's no fixed two-year cap: as long as you keep qualifying, you keep renewing.
Keep qualifying is the key phrase. At renewal, the office has to still be registered and genuinely active, and you show what it has actually done in the year — the representation work, the relationships built here. An office that exists only on paper is exactly what the rules were tightened to stop.
Want us to check whether your company qualifies today? Book a free strategy call.
Can your family come with you?
Yes — but not on your application. Each family member needs a fully separate application, with its own documents. A partner and two children means four files, not one with three names added.
It sounds like a detail, and it's where timelines quietly slip. We plan the family's paperwork together from day one, not as an afterthought once your own permit is through.
Can a perfect file still be refused?
Yes. Visa refusals are fairly common even with a fully compliant file. The decision belongs to the Bulgarian authorities, and no adviser, lawyer or agency controls it.
What a well-prepared file does is give you the best possible chance and leave no avoidable reason to say no. Anyone who guarantees approval is either misinformed or selling you something — and a guarantee is one of the clearest warning signs we know.
What happens to your taxes?
This is where the company route is most often oversold, so here is the plain version.
The representative office solves your residence, not your company's tax. It isn't a separate company and it doesn't trade in its own name: its role is to represent your business here. Your company's profit stays your company's profit, taxed where your company is taxed.
What changes, if you genuinely live in Bulgaria, is where you are tax resident. And if, once you live here, your profit is made through a Bulgarian company with real activity, the regime is 10% corporate tax and 5% on dividends — around 14.5% on profit drawn out personally. How that applies to your structure is a question for a licensed accountant, which is exactly who answers it on our side.
Open a representative office, keep living at home and pay 10%.
A representative office doesn't make you or your company Bulgarian for tax while your life stays elsewhere. Your home country taxes you as long as you live there, and leaving it properly is its own step, under its own rules. Every residence route assumes the move is real — we explain why in our guide for UK citizens moving to Bulgaria.
Two more myths worth clearing up
Once I have the visa, I'm in.
The type D visa is a six-month entry window. The right to live here is the residence permit that follows it.
A virtual office address is enough.
The office needs real premises under a lease, and at renewal it has to show real activity. A letterbox doesn't carry a residence permit.
When we moved, it took us a full year on our own. We queued at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at least ten times. We chased landlords for documents and notarisations they simply didn't want to give us — and on a route built around a lease, the landlord's paperwork is not a detail. At the migration office, the rules were explained to us in Bulgarian, louder each time, until we understood. And some of the people who offered to "help" along the way weren't who they said they were.
That's why, on this route, the premises and the landlord's documents are among the first things we sort out.
What this step looks like with us
- We check whether you qualify. On a free strategy call we look at your company's track record, turnover and plans, and tell you plainly whether the company route is open to you — today, later, or not at all.
- You send us your company's papers. Our partner Bulgarian lawyers prepare the office registration and the residence file. You know what's needed, and why, before anything is submitted.
- We help you secure the premises. The lease, the landlord's documents, the notarisations, the translations — the paperwork that stalled us for months.
- You make the trip; we're next to you. The visa is applied for in person. Once you're in Bulgaria, someone accompanies you to the offices so you're never standing at a counter alone.
- Family, bank and accounting. Separate files for each family member, bank accounts, and licensed accountants who take professional responsibility for their advice.
- Renewal, every year. Same team, in English. We remind you what the renewal needs well before it's due.
Questions we get asked every week
What is the company route to Bulgaria?
Your existing company outside Bulgaria registers a trade representative office here, and you, as its representative, apply for a type D visa and then a residence permit on that basis. You keep your company; you move your life here.
What does my company need?
Two years of clean financial and tax compliance, a minimum annual turnover in each of those two years, and a lease for real premises in Bulgaria. No more than two representatives per company can obtain residence this way.
How long does the residence last?
The type D visa is a six-month entry window, not a stay. The residence permit that follows is granted for one year and is renewable, as long as the office stays registered and genuinely active.
Can my partner and children come with me?
Yes, but each family member needs their own, fully separate application. We plan them together from the start.
Does the office mean my company pays 10% in Bulgaria?
No. The office solves your residence, not your company's tax. The 10% + 5% regime applies to profit genuinely made through a Bulgarian company, once you actually live here and are tax resident.
Is approval guaranteed if my file is complete?
No, and be wary of anyone who says it is. Refusals happen even with complete, compliant files. What we can promise is a properly prepared application and a team that stays with you whatever the answer.
Own a company and thinking about Bulgaria?
Book a free strategy call. We'll look at your passport, your business and your plans, and tell you plainly which route works for you — or if none does. No pressure, no sales script.
Book your free strategy call → Takes 2 minutes to request. In English or Italian.The Bulgaria Move coordinates your relocation end to end. Tax and legal advice on your specific situation is given by licensed Bulgarian lawyers and accountants, who take professional responsibility for it. Figures shown on this site are illustrative and depend on your circumstances — nothing here is tax or legal advice.