Resources Company management Opening a company bank account in Bulgaria

Opening a company bank account in Bulgaria

Opening a company account in Bulgaria is a relatively easy task. This is among the powers of the company manager who is the only person authorized to represent the company, unless the company is still in the process of registration. Since depositing the company capital is a prerequisite for the successful registration the shareholders or the sole owner must open a deposit account at a Bulgarian commercial bank to deposit their respective share of the initial capital. This type of account is a special one however, and should later either be closed or transformed into a standard checking account.

A bank account can also be opened with by a third party with a power of attorney. The document must explicitly state that the attorney can open a bank account on the name of the company at a certain bank. It must also be notarized. Normally this is done at the office of a local notary but most times company managers issue power of attorneys when it is inconvenient for the to visit the country on their own, thus the local notary is also not an option. In this case one could use the services of a Bulgarian embassy or consulate office abroad. A foreign notary is also an option but in that case the notarized document must also bear an apostille and be translated and legalized in Bulgaria.

Opening a bank account in a local Bulgarian bank costs ~BGN 10 or €5. The procedure doesn’t take a long time and everything is normally concluded in less than 2 hours. This applies to the standard bank service for checking accounts. The company may also apply for a debit or credit card where issuing one takes ~5 business days. Banks are reluctant to send debit or cards by post or courier so often the cards needs to be picked by hand. Another useful option to make use of upon opening the company account is setting up online banking for the company. This doesn’t take a lot of time and is incredibly useful for further using the account.

The article was first published at Advokatami.bg