EOR timeline in Bulgaria: from signed offer to first payday

The EOR timeline in Bulgaria has seven stages, and only two of them carry a deadline fixed by law. Article 62(3) gives the employer 3 days from signature to record the contract with the National Revenue Agency, and that has to happen before the person’s first day at work. Contributions and income tax for any given month must reach the NRA by day 25 of the month after it. Everything else is a matter of how quickly the candidate, you and the employer can agree terms and gather documents.

In order, the stages run like this:

• Offer accepted. You and the candidate agree salary, title, start date and whether the role is remote.
• Contract drafted. The employer turns those terms into a Bulgarian labour contract with the content the Labour Code requires.
• Contract signed. Both sides sign; the 3-day register deadline starts here.
• Register entry. The employer records the contract with the NRA and hands the employee a certified copy.
• First working day. Allowed only once the employee holds both documents.
• First payroll. Gross pay for the month is calculated, contributions and tax deducted, and net pay transferred with a payslip.
• First filing. Declarations and payments reach the NRA on or before the 25th, one month on.

Read alongside our overview of the EOR role in Bulgaria, the sections below take each stage in turn and point out where hires usually lose a week.

The offer letter you send is not the employment contract. Bulgarian law requires a written labour contract (трудов договор; Labour Code, Art. 62(1)), and Article 66 lists what it has to say: who the parties are, the workplace, the job title and duties, the start date, how long the contract runs, paid leave, notice, the basic salary and any supplements, how often pay is made, and daily or weekly working hours. From 2026 the pay figure has to be in euro.

Three choices made at this stage shape the rest of the timeline.

• Fixed or open-ended. A fixed term may only be used for work that is temporary, seasonal or short-term, must not exceed 3 years, and turns into an open-ended contract if those rules are broken. Most tech hires sign open-ended contracts.
• Probation. Up to 6 months can be agreed, or up to 1 month where the contract lasts under a year. During probation the side it protects can end the contract without notice.
• Length of service. The klas supplement (клас прослужено време) is mandatory and depends on recognised prior work, including work in other EU states. The employer needs evidence of that experience to set the rate.

The documents usually take longer than the drafting. Ask the candidate early for identity details, bank details for a euro account, and proof of earlier employment for the klas calculation. A candidate born before 1 January 1960 has a different pension split and no universal pension fund contribution, so the date of birth matters to payroll too.

Once both sides have signed, the date of signature starts the register clock, so agree the start date before you sign rather than after.

The employer has 3 days from concluding the contract to enter its data in the employment register (регистър на заетостта) that the National Revenue Agency runs. Article 62(3) has worded it this way since 1 June 2025; before that the same step was called a notification, and many Bulgarian payroll staff still use that term. The same register is updated within 3 days of any change to the contract and within 7 days of its termination.

The more practical rule sits in Article 63. Two documents must reach the employee before they start: their own signed copy of the contract, plus the register entry bearing the NRA’s certification. Without them, the employer may not let the person work. A start date set for the morning after signature therefore leaves no slack if anything goes wrong with the filing.

Breaches of the written-contract, register and admission rules are fined under Article 414 for each breach, with separate fines for the employer and for the manager responsible, and a late entry is possible only once the Labour Inspectorate has issued a binding instruction. In practice, a gap of a few working days between signature and the first day removes the risk.

For a direct check of what the NRA publishes on employer obligations, the agency’s own site is nra.bg; the consolidated Labour Code is published by the Ministry of Justice.

When the candidate is not an EU citizen, the start date depends on the permit rather than the contract. A non-EU national generally needs one of two documents before the first working day, and both are processed by public bodies on their own schedule.

• EU Blue Card (Синя карта на ЕС): a combined residence and work permit for highly qualified staff. The Ministry of Interior’s Migration Directorate decides, after the Employment Agency gives its opinion. There is no labour market test, but the contract must run for at least 6 months and the salary has to clear a threshold tied to the national average wage.
• Single permit (единно разрешение): for other non-EU workers, and it does include a labour market test by the Employment Agency.

The contract can be signed while the application is pending, but the register entry and the first day wait until the permit is issued. Tell us about a non-EU candidate at the offer stage, because the employer has to sponsor the application from the first form.

The first payroll covers the part of the starting month the person actually worked, based on the monthly gross salary in the contract. The employer then applies the 2026 rules in a fixed order:

• Contributions are calculated on gross pay, capped at the monthly insurable ceiling: €2,111.64 up to the end of July 2026, then €2,300.
• The employee’s share, 13.78% for someone born after 1959, is deducted from gross pay.
• Income tax of a flat 10% is charged on what remains, with no personal allowance.
• The employer’s own share, 18.92% with a 0.4% work-accident rate, is added on top and never appears as a deduction on the payslip.

Take a Sofia developer hired at a gross €3,333.33 a month (€40,000 over 12 payments). Because the salary is above the ceiling, contributions are worked out on €2,300 from August 2026. Monthly net pay comes to about €2,714.75, and the month costs the employer about €3,768.49. A month in the first half of 2026, under the lower ceiling, would have paid about €2,738.11 net. The gap between those two figures is the ceiling change alone; nothing else in the calculation moved. The full annual picture is in what a Bulgarian employee costs.

The payslip shows gross pay, each employee contribution, the tax and the net figure, all in euro. If the first month contains a sick day, the 2 employer-paid days of a sick note (each at 70% of average daily gross pay) go through the same payroll run; the NSSI takes over on day 3.

Most delays come from the employer’s side of the table waiting on information, not from the state. The NRA entry itself is a short filing once the data is complete; what holds a start back is a contract that cannot be finalised because a term was never agreed.

The usual culprits, in the order we see them:

• Salary quoted the wrong way. Bulgarian pay is normally stated as a gross monthly figure. An offer quoted as an annual package, or as a net amount, has to be converted and re-confirmed with the candidate before the contract can say anything.
• Klas evidence. If the basic salary and the length-of-service supplement are meant to add up to an agreed total, the employer needs the candidate’s work history before it can split the figure.
• Remote or hybrid terms left vague. Remote work under the Labour Code is agreed in the contract, including the place of work. Naming two or more places has been allowed since 2024, but each one has to be written down.
• Notice at the current job. A candidate on an open-ended contract elsewhere in Bulgaria typically owes 30 days’ notice, and longer if their contract says so, up to 3 months.

None of these needs a lawyer. Each one needs a question asked early, ideally in the same week the offer is accepted.

Paying the employee closes the month for them but not for the employer. Day 25 of the next month is the deadline: the employer files the monthly declarations with the NRA and pays the withheld tax and both shares of contributions in one go. Someone who starts in March generates their first filing on 25 April, and every later month repeats the same rhythm.

Several other dates follow from the start date:

• Paid leave opens up after 4 months of service for someone in their first job; the 20-day annual minimum builds from the start date.
• Probation ends on the date written into the contract, at most 6 months in.
• Any change to pay, title or working time goes through a contract annex and a register update within 3 days.
• January brings one more job: for staff with no other employer at year end, the EOR settles the annual tax reconciliation before the month is out, which normally removes the need for a personal return.

Every step in this sequence is covered by one monthly fee; our pricing starts from €599 per employee per month. If you are comparing providers on how they handle these steps, our list of questions to put to a Bulgarian EOR turns each date above into something you can test. The timeline above is the one Employer of Record Bulgaria works to when the people you choose join our Bulgarian payroll.

Q01How soon after signing must a Bulgarian labour contract reach the NRA?+

A.No more than 3 days after signature, and always before work begins. The employee has to hold a certified copy of the register entry before starting work.

Q02Can a new hire start on the day the contract is signed?+

A.Only if the register entry is made and handed over first. Leaving a few working days between signature and the first day is the safer plan.

Q03When does the employer pay contributions for the first month?+

A.A month later, on the 25th. Contributions and tax for a March start are paid by 25 April, together with the declarations.

Q04Does a non-EU candidate change the timeline?+

A.Yes. A Blue Card or single permit must be issued before the first working day, so the permit, not the contract, sets the start date.

Q05Why did net pay fall slightly in August 2026?+

A.The monthly insurable ceiling went up on 1 August 2026, from €2,111.64 to €2,300, so higher earners pay contributions on a larger base. For a €40,000 salary that cut monthly net pay by €23.36.