The re-registration deadline Bulgarian owners were told to rush for expired on 31 December 2011. The rescue procedure that followed it closed on 31 December 2022. So if that's the process you came here for, there's nothing left to file and no fee to pay. Nearly everyone searching for it today wants one of five other things. Four of those are routine filings, costing under EUR 16 and running on a seven-day clock.
Jump to: How we checked | The five filings | The 2011 procedure | Seat and address | Manager | Owners and shares | Company name | Euro capital | A neglected company | Match your situation | FAQ
Reading the statute, not the summaries
Almost everything written in English about Bulgarian company re-registration dates from 2009 to 2012. Nobody went back to correct it. So this page works from the laws instead. The deadlines in the first section come from the transitional provisions of the Commercial Register and Register of Non-Profit Legal Entities Act (ZTRRYULNTS). Paragraphs 4, 5, 5a and 5d carry them. Fees come from the Registry Agency's own euro version of its state fee tariff. The procedures come from the Commerce Act: Article 12 for the seat, Article 129 for share transfers, Article 141 for managers.
We discarded three kinds of source along the way. The first still puts the Commercial Register fine at BGN 500 to 1,000, a figure that stopped being law in October 2023. The second quotes a state fee of EUR 20.46 to register a share transfer. That's the fee for announcing a document, not for entering a change.
Three limits are worth stating. We don't publish a price list for our own work, because scope decides it more than anything else. We haven't seen your company file, so each document list below is the standard one rather than yours. And notary charges for certifying a share transfer move with the price the parties agree, so they're left out instead of guessed.
Five different filings get called re-registration
The word does a lot of work in Bulgaria. It points at very different things depending on who's using it. Here's what people usually mean:
- The 2008 to 2011 transfer: moving a company's file from a district court register into the national Commercial Register. Closed. Nothing to do.
- Re-registering at a new address: changing the registered seat, the registered management address, or both.
- Re-registering in someone else's name: transferring shares so a new owner appears on the file.
- Re-registering the management: replacing the manager whose name and specimen signature sit on the register.
- Re-registering the capital in euro: the one-off filing that followed the currency changeover on 1 January 2026.
A sixth case sits slightly apart. A company that exists but has stopped filing isn't deregistered, and it doesn't need re-registering. It needs its missing annual statements published, which is covered further down.
The 2008 to 2011 procedure, and why you can't do it now
Start with the closed door, because that's what most visitors arrive looking for. Bulgaria opened its national Commercial Register on 1 January 2008. Every trader already on a district court register got a window to move across. Paragraph 4(1) of the transitional provisions set the final date at 31 December 2011, and charged no state fee for the move. That was a real concession. Entering a company in the register today costs EUR 28.12 online, or EUR 56.24 at the counter.
What happened to the companies that missed it is harsher than most guides admit. The statute did four things in sequence, and each one closed off a route:
- 1 January 2012: sole traders and branches of foreign traders that hadn't applied were treated as deleted. Companies and cooperatives had their activity terminated by operation of law.
- A terminated company couldn't trade, bring a claim, start enforcement or dispose of its property. It could pay wages and public debts, and nothing else. Any disposal of its property after 31 December 2011 is void, not merely voidable.
- 31 January 2015: the last date for a partner, heir, creditor or state body to apply for liquidation. The only exception was a court or arbitration case already running.
- 31 January 2017: companies with terminated activity that were still not re-registered are considered deleted.
One narrow window stayed open after that, and it's the one nobody mentions. Where property later turned up belonging to a deleted company, paragraph 5d(5) let the same people apply for liquidation. The route was Article 273(2) of the Commerce Act. That window shut on 31 December 2022. Even while it was open, it never restored the company. It only appointed a liquidator to sell what was found and pay out.
Court files were archived rather than destroyed on day one, which sometimes helps. Files for non-re-registered companies and cooperatives couldn't be destroyed before 1 February 2022. For sole traders and branches, the date was 1 January 2017. So a copy of the old articles may still exist at the last registering court. That's useful evidence in a property dispute. It is not a route back to a live company.
Do this if: never, because the procedure no longer exists. Do this instead: if the old entity held land or a flat, take the file to a Bulgarian litigator. Treat it as a property question, not a register question. If you simply want a working Bulgarian entity again, registering a new company costs EUR 28.12 online. It completes by the end of the next working day. Reviving the old one is not something the register offers, at any price.
Moving the registered seat and address
This is the filing most people mean, and it's the cheapest thing the register does. Article 12 of the Commerce Act splits the idea in two. The seat is the town or city the business is managed from. The address is the street address of that management inside it. Moving within Sofia changes only the second. Moving from Sofia to Plovdiv changes both. Either way the articles of association need amending, because Article 115 puts the seat and the address inside them.
What goes in the envelope, or rather the upload:
- Application form A4, signed by the manager or by a lawyer with express written authority.
- A decision of the general meeting, or of the sole owner of the capital, naming the new address.
- An updated copy of the articles of association or founding act.
- Declarations under Article 13(4) and, where a representative files, Article 13(5) of ZTRRYULNTS.
The fee is EUR 7.67 online and EUR 15.34 at the counter. That doubling holds across the whole Commercial Register tariff. A new company is EUR 28.12 online against EUR 56.24 on paper. Announcing a document is EUR 10.23 against EUR 20.45, and reserving a name the same. Filing on paper has never once been the cheaper option (we read down the tariff hoping to find one exception, and there isn't one).
Now the part that catches people. Since October 2023, Article 6(4) of ZTRRYULNTS has added a duty to the address itself. Every trader must keep its formation documents there, plus the paperwork behind every registered change, for as long as it exists. Electronic copies count, but a legal representative has to produce them at once. An address nobody visits and nobody collects post from is a compliance problem now, not just a postal one. That's what a proper registered office in Sofia is for: a real address, staffed, with mail scanned and forwarded.
Do this if: you've moved, your landlord has changed, or your address is a flat you no longer control. Skip it if: only your trading premises moved and the registered address still receives post. The register records the seat of management, not every shop or warehouse. Our view: file it. Seven days is the statutory window under Article 6(2), and a stale address is where the tax authority's letters go to die.
Changing the manager
Here's a rule that surprises departing managers. You don't need the company's cooperation to get your own name off the file. Article 141(5) of the Commerce Act lets a manager give the company written notice. If the company hasn't filed the release within one month, the manager can file it personally. It gets entered whether or not a successor has been chosen. Managers of dormant companies with absent owners use this route regularly.
Appointing someone is the ordinary direction of travel. It needs one document the address change doesn't:
- A general meeting decision, or sole owner decision, removing the old manager and appointing the new one.
- Notarised consent from the incoming manager with a specimen signature, required by Article 141(3).
- A management contract signed on the company's behalf by someone the meeting has authorised.
- Application form A4, with the updated articles where they name the manager.
The register fee is the same EUR 7.67 as an address change. That's a quarter of the EUR 28.12 a whole new company costs. The notary is where the money actually goes, and consent signed abroad adds translation and an apostille on top. That inversion is worth planning around. The state charges less than lunch. Getting a signature certified in another country can take a fortnight.
Check one thing before you appoint anyone. Article 141(8) bars anyone declared bankrupt from serving as manager. It also bars someone who ran a company terminated for insolvency, but only on two conditions. They must have held the post in the two years before the insolvency decision, and creditors must have gone unpaid. The bar then lifts five years after that termination. Your candidate has to declare expressly that it has lifted, and name the circumstances.
Bulgaria now keeps a list of these people. State Gazette No. 87 of 17 October 2025 gave the Registry Agency a Register of Persons Deprived of Management Rights. It covers bankrupts, the managers just described, and anyone a court has banned from trading. One limit matters for buyers: Article 37c says the register isn't public. Courts, prosecutors and the financial regulators can see it. You can't. Only the person listed, or their heirs, can ask what it holds about them. So the practical check is to have your candidate request it and show you the answer.
Do this if: your manager has resigned, died, moved abroad permanently, or simply stopped answering. Skip it if: you only want to change who signs the bank mandate. Banks handle that, and the register doesn't record it. Our view: a manager who has left the country is a live risk. The register treats the recorded manager as the person who receives official service.
Changing the owners: a share transfer
Where an address change asks for a decision and a form, a share transfer asks for a notary and a clean payroll. Article 129(2) of the Commerce Act requires notarial certification of the signatures and of the content. Both have to happen at the same sitting. Certify only the signatures and the contract is void. Not defective. Void.
Selling to an existing partner is free movement under Article 129(1). Selling to an outsider is harder, and one condition trips up real deals. The company must have no unpaid wages, indemnities or mandatory social contributions. That covers employees whose contracts ended up to three years earlier. The manager and the seller each sign a declaration to that effect.
That test gets sharper soon, and the date is fixed. State Gazette No. 69 of 2026 amended Article 129(2) with effect from 2 March 2027. From that date, the registration official checks electronically with the National Revenue Agency. The check looks for enforceable public debts for mandatory social contributions, owed by the company or by the seller. The same check was added to Article 15(2) for transfers of a whole business. Today an unpaid contribution is a declaration you sign. From March 2027 it's a query the register runs against you.
The costs split in an unusual way. The register charges EUR 7.67 online to enter the new partner, the same as moving an address. Announcing the amended articles alongside it costs EUR 10.23. So the state's share of a change of ownership is under EUR 18. The notarial certification is the real expense, and it scales with the agreed price rather than the nominal value of the shares.
One thing a transfer does not do. The company keeps its unified identification code, its history and its liabilities. Buying the shares buys the open tax years too.
Do this if: ownership is genuinely moving, whether by sale, gift or inheritance. Skip it if: you want a clean entity with no history. A new registration at EUR 28.12 beats inheriting someone's unaudited 2021. Our view: if there's any chance of a social contributions arrear, settle it before March 2027. Arguing about it at the register counter afterwards is a worse use of your money.
Changing the company name
EUR 7.67. That's the whole state cost of renaming a Bulgarian company, assuming you file online and nobody objects. The name is a registered circumstance like any other. It goes on form A4 with a general meeting decision and amended articles behind it.
Reserving the new name first is optional and costs EUR 10.23 online, which is more than the change itself. The reservation holds a name for six months. It stops anyone else taking it while your documents are being signed. For a single-owner company signing everything in one afternoon, it's usually money you don't need to spend. For a group waiting on a board resolution from abroad, it buys certainty for about the price of two coffees on Vitosha Boulevard.
Three rules shape what you can call it. First, the agency checks every application against existing rights in the name, and a reservation blocks the name nationwide while it runs. Second, Article 7(5) stops you taking a name identical or similar to a protected trademark, unless the mark is yours. Third, the registered name must be written in Bulgarian, though you can carry a foreign-language version alongside it.
What the change doesn't touch is the unified identification code, so contracts, VAT registration and bank accounts follow the same legal person. You'll still want to notify counterparties. Invoices carrying the old name create avoidable arguments with auditors.
Do this if: you're rebranding, or the current name causes confusion with a competitor. Skip it if: you only trade under a different brand. Bulgaria lets you market under any name while the registered one stays on the invoices. Our view: rename the entity only when the registered name itself is the problem. A trademark usually solves a branding question more cheaply.
The euro capital filing, and the deadline that moved
This is the one filing on the list where the advice you were given last year is now wrong. Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026 at the fixed rate of 1.95583 leva. During January 2026 the Registry Agency redenominated the figures itself. That covered registered capital and nominal share values for every limited liability company, joint-stock company and partnership limited by shares. You didn't have to ask, and no fee was charged. Nor is one charged for the follow-up filing. That puts it in the same EUR 0 bracket as an annual statement, against EUR 7.67 for every other change here.
The original law then gave companies twelve months to bring their own articles into line, so the deadline sat at 31 December 2026. That changed last month. Parliament voted on 2 September 2026 to extend the window from 12 months to 36 months. The amendment was promulgated in State Gazette No. 82 of 8 September 2026, which moves the deadline to the end of 2028. It also removed the duty to file updated articles purely because the capital was redenominated. You file them when something else requires a filing.
Why the change? Because the register jammed. Applications rose by over 70% between 21 May and 19 June 2026, against the same period a year earlier. The Registry Agency then asked companies publicly to send general meeting announcements in earlier than usual. By the end of September 2026, unprocessed applications to publish annual financial statements are expected to reach 900,000 to one million. Those cover 2023, 2024 and 2025. A registration the statute gives one working day has been taking about a week.
One figure changed underneath all this and is still misquoted everywhere. The minimum capital of a Bulgarian OOD or EOOD has been EUR 1 since 1 January 2026. Article 117 of the Commerce Act sets it, and the smallest permitted share is one euro cent. The old BGN 2 is gone. Want the mechanics of the conversion itself, including what to do when the converted figure won't divide cleanly? Our guide to the share capital conversion into euro covers it.
Do this if: you're already filing another change. Fold the euro articles into the same application and pay nothing extra for them. Skip it if: your company is quiet and nothing else is due, because you now have until the end of 2028. Our view: do it with your next filing anyway. A deadline three years out is a deadline everyone forgets.
Bringing a neglected company current
A company that stopped filing isn't deregistered, and this is the single most common misunderstanding we see. It still exists, still owns what it owned, and still has a manager on record. What it has is a gap in the register and a fine accruing behind it.
Two filings close that gap, and both are free:
- Annual financial statements, published by 30 September for the previous year. The state fee was abolished for applications filed after 31 December 2021, so catching up on four missed years costs nothing at the register.
- A no-activity declaration under Article 38(9)(2) of the Accountancy Act, published by 30 June. It replaces the statement rather than supplementing it. Here's the part plenty of bookkeepers get wrong: you file it once, for the first reporting period with no activity, not again every year.
The fine is the part people underestimate. State Gazette No. 84 of 2023 raised the penalty for a late Commercial Register filing. The old range was BGN 500 to 1,000. The new one is BGN 1,000 to 5,000, or EUR 511.29 to EUR 2,556.46. Under Article 40(3), it repeats every month until you file. Set that against the EUR 7.67 an address change costs, and the arithmetic makes itself. The cheapest filing in the register is the one you make on time.
Timing matters this month more than most. Statements for 2025 are due on 30 September 2026, twelve days from this review, into a register carrying close to a million unprocessed applications. Filing in the last week is filing into the worst queue of the year. If the books themselves are the blockage rather than the paperwork, that's what our accountancy team does.
While you're in the file, check two other entries that age badly. A company whose manager lives outside Bulgaria needs an AML contact person named on its record. And beneficial ownership data has to match reality, not the reality of 2019.
Do this if: you've missed a statement, at any point in the past. Skip it if: you've decided the company has no future. Closing it properly ends the monthly fine, where ignoring it does not. Our view: dormant is not the same as closed, and Bulgaria charges you monthly for confusing the two.
Matching your situation to a filing
Find the line that sounds like you rather than reading all six sections.
Inherited company, set up pre-2008. Check the register first, by company name or code. If the company appears with a live file, it survived the 2011 cut. You then need a share transfer, and probably a manager change, at EUR 7.67 each. If it doesn't appear, it was deleted by 31 January 2017, and no filing will bring it back.
Budget under EUR 50, owner abroad. A Bulgarian lawyer can make every filing on this page under a power of attorney. An address change plus a manager change comes to EUR 15.34 in state fees. The cost driver is notarisation abroad, not the register. Get the signatures certified once, for every document you'll need, in a single appointment.
Registered address you no longer hold. Maybe you sold the flat, or the lease simply ran out. Move fast rather than waiting for a convenient moment. The seven-day clock under Article 6(2) started when the lease ended. Article 6(4) now requires your formation documents to sit at the registered address anyway.
Buying a company with employees. Do the payroll check before the notary appointment, not after. Unpaid wages or social contributions for anyone employed in the last three years block the transfer. From 2 March 2027, the register verifies contributions with the tax authority directly.
Three dormant years, and a letter. That's an Article 40 fine, repeating monthly, not a deregistration. File a statement for every year the company actually traded, free of charge. If it traded nothing at all, a single no-activity declaration covers the whole run. Then decide whether to keep the entity alive.
What owners ask before they file
Can I still re-register a Bulgarian company from before 2008?
No. The deadline was 31 December 2011, and companies that missed it were treated as deleted from 31 January 2017. The last salvage route, a liquidation application where property was discovered, closed on 31 December 2022. Nothing in the Commercial Register Act reopens either window, and no fee or lawyer can change that.
How much does it cost to change a company's registered address in Bulgaria?
EUR 7.67 filed online, or EUR 15.34 at the Registry Agency counter. There's no separate charge for updating the articles as part of the same application. Every Commercial Register fee is exactly double on paper. Online filing halves the bill on every line of the tariff.
How long does the Commercial Register take to process a change in 2026?
The statute says a change is decided immediately after three working days. A new company is decided by the end of the next working day. Reality in September 2026 is slower, with a backlog approaching one million applications and new registrations taking around a week. File well before any deadline you care about.
Do I have to travel to Bulgaria to change my company's address or owner?
No. A power of attorney to a Bulgarian lawyer covers every filing on this page. What you can't avoid is notarisation, because a manager's consent and a share transfer contract both need certified signatures. Arrange those at a notary where you live, then add an apostille and a sworn Bulgarian translation.
My Bulgarian company owns property but was never re-registered. What can I do?
Not much through the register, unfortunately. The company is considered deleted, and any disposal of its property after 31 December 2011 is void by statute. The liquidation route for discovered property expired on 31 December 2022. Your remaining options are litigation ones, so take the archived court file to a Bulgarian property litigator.
Does changing the owner of a Bulgarian company change its EIK number?
No. The unified identification code stays with the legal person through every change of owner, manager, name and address. That's also why a share purchase carries the company's history with it, including tax years the revenue authority can still assess. If you want a clean code, register a new company for EUR 28.12 instead.
Do I still have to file amended articles because my capital converted to euro?
Not on its own, and not by the end of 2026. Parliament extended the window from 12 to 36 months on 2 September 2026. The same amendment removed the duty to file solely because of the redenomination. You bring the articles up to date the next time something else requires a filing, or by the end of 2028 at the latest.
Filing it without flying to Sofia
The honest summary is short. One re-registration in Bulgaria is closed and can't be reopened. The other five are cheap, quick and mostly the same form. The expensive part is never the state fee, which tops out at EUR 15.34 for any change on this page. It's the notarisation, the translation, and the month you lose because the address on file stopped receiving post.
We handle these filings for foreign owners under a power of attorney. You sign at a notary where you live, and we do the rest in Sofia. That covers the register application through our legal services team. It also covers translation and legalisation of anything signed abroad, and a registered address that answers when the authorities write. Three facts make the first conversation quick: your company's nine-digit code, what you want changed, and where each signatory lives.
Register changes rarely arrive alone. If the entity has no future, our guide to closing a company in Bulgaria sets out what liquidation costs and how long it takes. If the overdue filing turns out to be a tax one, our tax advisory page covers audits, treaty relief and the 2026 rate changes. And if the payroll condition on a share transfer is the blockage, read our guide to being a foreign employer in Bulgaria. It sets out which contributions fall due and when. You can check any Bulgarian company's current file yourself, free, on the Registry Agency's Commercial Register portal. When you know which filing you need, start from the contact page.