If you're moving your life to Bulgaria — buying, already own, or are still deciding where — there's a fixed sequence of things that actually need doing, regardless of which town you end up in. Most of it isn't optional and most of it has a deadline.
We work across Bulgaria. The examples on this page are drawn from Bansko and the surrounding region because that's where we have the deepest first-hand experience — the steps themselves are the same wherever you settle.
One thing sets our position apart, and it belongs here, not at the bottom of the page: we're a concierge office and a construction/renovation company under one roof. Most people sort out their papers with one company and their property with another, and the two never talk to each other. Here, the person who registered your address and the person who inspects your roof work from the same file.
If you're arriving from the United Kingdom: since Brexit, UK nationals are third-country nationals in Bulgaria. For any stay beyond 90 days you need a Type D long-stay visa, applied for at the Bulgarian embassy in London or the consulate in Edinburgh before you travel.
Once you arrive, the clock starts: within 14 days you must present yourself in person at the Migration Directorate to apply for a residence permit, issued for 12 months initially and renewed annually.
The part that catches most people out isn't the paperwork at the office — it's the landlord. To register your address, which the permit requires, a signed lease is not enough. Your landlord has to appear in person before a Bulgarian notary, with their ID and the original title deed, and sign a declaration consenting to your registration at that address. A declaration signed at home does not count.
If this is relevant to you, we can arrange it for you: we contact your landlord, explain what's required, organise the notary appointment, and confirm beforehand that they have their ID, the original title deed and the lease with them. This covers the landlord/notary step specifically — we don't file the residence application itself and we're not your legal adviser. Pricing depends on location and is quoted on request; best to raise it before you sign a lease, not after.
For nationals of other countries, the residency route differs by nationality and purpose (EU/EEA freedom of movement, non-EU long-stay visa categories, investor/property routes). We're glad to point you to the right starting question for your situation, even where we can't advise on it directly.
We don't advise on immigration and we don't file applications. What follows is only what the Bulgarian rules themselves say, with the provision named — so you can take the right question to the person whose job it is, instead of discovering the answer at the counter.
"My main client has no written contract. Does that sink my income proof?"
The rule is written around the money, not around the paperwork. For the visa itself, the Visa Regulation asks the applicant to submit documents on the financial means held for subsistence and lodging (Art. 19, item 2). For the residence permit that follows once you are in Bulgaria, the test is stricter and more specific: means that are stable, regular, predictable and sufficient, without recourse to the social assistance system (Rules implementing the Foreigners Act, Art. 14(1), item 5).
Neither provision names a contract. A contract is one way of showing that income is stable and regular — it is not the thing being asked for. What has to hold up is the pattern, not the presence of a particular document.
"I have several income sources besides the bank account. Is that a problem?"
Not on the face of the rules. The two provisions above set a level and four qualities — stable, regular, predictable, sufficient. Neither restricts you to one source or one account. Several sources have to add up and hold up over time; they do not have to be a single stream.
"Do I have to show accommodation when I apply from outside Bulgaria?"
This is the one most often mixed up, and getting it right changes what you need before you fly.
At the visa stage, the applicant submits documents on the financial means held for subsistence and lodging (Art. 19, item 2). The wording asks about the means — not about a signed address.
The requirement to have accommodation actually secured is a different provision at a different stage: it belongs to the application for a residence permit, made in Bulgaria after you arrive (Rules implementing the Foreigners Act, Art. 14(1), item 3). That is the stage at which a notarised declaration from a landlord becomes the real bottleneck — the point where people are most often held up.
So the sequence is worth reading carefully: the notarised landlord declaration is not something you have to produce before you leave. It belongs to the step after.
"My receipts aren't in English. Do they need a formal translation?"
We don't know, and we'd rather say so than guess. We looked for a rule that settles this for a type D application and did not find one — neither in the Visa Regulation nor in the visa provisions of the Rules implementing the Foreigners Act. There is a translation-and-legalisation rule in those Rules, but it sits in the chapter on statelessness proceedings and does not govern this. In practice this is set by the consulate where you will apply, and it is worth asking them directly. One thing is clear from the rules that do exist: where translation is required in Bulgarian procedure, the target language is Bulgarian, not English.
If you're bringing a car from outside the EU, there's a fixed path: customs clearance, an individual type-approval (ИО), then registration — in that order, and not interchangeable.
The individual type-approval costs €51.13 and is issued within 10 days of a complete application. The certificate itself does not expire. First registration itself is €17.90. On top of that comes an environmental levy (ПУДООС) of roughly €196.85.
The bigger number is customs: duty of 10% plus 20% VAT, together around 32% of the customs value — unless your move qualifies as a change-of-residence exemption under EU Regulation 1186/2009, which removes it. Whether you qualify is the single biggest cost variable in this process, and it's worth establishing before you ship the car, not after.
Three taxes that do not apply, worth knowing because people often budget for them anyway: no excise duty (abolished 2010), no registration tax, and no acquisition tax under the Local Taxes Act for a first-registration import.
Because the cost genuinely splits into two different outcomes — roughly €500 with the exemption, roughly €1,890 without — we don't quote a flat price for this.
Whether you're buying or renting, the practical risk is the same: you're assessing a property you can't easily revisit before deciding, in a market with less standardised disclosure than you may be used to. Our Property Risk Check exists for exactly that gap, and buyers who come to us independently — not through an agency — get an unfiltered second opinion before they commit.
Before you buy — or before you finish moving in — the condition of the building matters more than the finish. A pre-purchase inspection isn't an opinion; it's a checked list, each item answered, so the one thing that matters isn't the one nobody thought to look at. This is where the construction side of our work starts, and it's the same team that will be doing the work if the inspection finds something.
Mould, damp, and waterproofing are where we have the deepest, most referenced track record — these are the failures that actually show up in Bulgarian mountain housing stock, and they're what we're asked to fix most often. Soundproofing and thermal insulation come up too, and we can advise on both, though our reference base there is thinner — we'll say so plainly rather than oversell it.
Once you're settled — or once the property is yours but you're not always in the country — the questions don't stop. Someone needs to notice the small things before they become expensive ones, whether or not you're able to check yourself. That's what our ongoing owner-care work covers: regular oversight of a property you can't always be standing in.
We're not an immigration or legal adviser, and we don't file applications on your behalf. What we offer throughout this page is local knowledge of where each of these steps actually stalls — not a substitute for the professionals whose job the paperwork is.
If you're not sure which of these applies to you yet, the fixed-fee vehicle assessment is the one part of this page with a set scope and a set answer — a reasonable first step if a vehicle import is part of your move. The fee is quoted on request. For everything else, tell us where you are in the sequence above and we'll tell you honestly what we can and can't help with.
Ask about the fixed-fee vehicle assessmentWe'll tell you honestly what we can and can't help with, and connect you to the right people for the rest.
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