Leaving from Belgium?To the Belgian plan →See the plan for Belgians moving to Bulgaria →This plan is for people leaving the Netherlands.
Bulgaria · No visa required
Emigrating to Bulgaria
For Bulgaria you apply within three months for a residence certificate of 3.58 euros. It gives you the personal number everything hangs on. The tax is unusually simple: the Netherlands taxes your pension and your AOW, and Bulgaria doesn't tax pensions. Since 2025 you drive in without a border check, since 2026 you pay in euros.
€ 199 one-off · 31 steps · no subscription
- Kind of journey
- Administrative: a residence certificate within three months
- The clocks
- 3 months for the residence certificate, 1 month for the car
- Note
- The Netherlands taxes pension and AOW, Bulgaria doesn't tax pensions
Last updated: 14 October 2026
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Five phases, from the residence certificate to the orchard
This journey has few counters and a tax lesson of one sentence: the Netherlands taxes, Bulgaria doesn't. You apply for the residence certificate within three months. You take the S1 form (the proof that the Netherlands pays for your healthcare) to the regional health fund office, and choose a GP on a form. The car must be on plates within a month and pays an environmental fee by age. And since a 2024 ruling by the EU Court of Justice you may also buy the land around your village house.
- Orientation
Three months, a treaty of one sentence, and another alphabet
In this phase you learn how residence, tax and healthcare work, and you explore the region. For three months you may be in Bulgaria freely. After that you need a residence certificate of 3.58 euros. The tax treaty of 2020 lets the Netherlands tax your occupational pension, your annuity and your AOW, without threshold. Bulgaria does nothing with them: Bulgarian law exempts pensions, foreign ones included. Healthcare runs through the CAK to the one Bulgarian health fund. Explore the region in winter. Sofia is a different world from a village behind the Black Sea, and you only read Cyrillic after practice.Read more
- Closing the Netherlands
No wage tax exemption: there is nothing to exempt
In this phase you work through the familiar list, with one reversed lesson. With Spain you apply for the wage tax exemption, so that your pension fund withholds no Dutch tax. Here you don't. The Netherlands may tax, everything, and Bulgaria adds nothing on top. Do have a tax adviser look at work, profit, rent and the annuity. Further, apply for the S1 at the CAK six weeks before departure, and arrange the SVB in time. If you have a house on the coast, the eight-month rule is a real option: whoever is outside the Netherlands for less than eight months a year stays registered there.Read more
- The move
Since 2025 without a border, since 2026 in euros, and a month for the car
In this phase you move your household contents, car and pet, and arrange your first accommodation. The trip goes by road and takes three days, without customs and since 1 January 2025 without a border check. The car comes along without excise duty. It does pay an environmental fee by age on first registration, from roughly 77 to almost 200 euros. Within a month it must be on plates at the traffic police, for 17.90 euros. For your first accommodation, look for a landlord who is willing to go to the notary, because the proof of address for your registration is a notarised declaration. Your pet needs only a chip, a jab and the EU pet passport.Read more
- Registration in Bulgaria
First the certificate with the personal number, then the S1, then the GP
In this phase you register with the Bulgarian authorities, in a fixed order. First you apply within three months for the residence certificate at Migration. You bring proof of address, proof of health cover and proof of means. The residence certificate gives you the personal number. Then you take the S1 to the regional health fund office. Right after that you choose a GP on the registration form, because without a referral you get nowhere. Only then comes the bank, in euros, and the revenue agency if you have taxed income here.Read more
- Arrival
The licence stays, the house is free, and since 2024 the land too
In this phase you settle in, and perhaps buy a house or land. An EU driving licence doesn't need exchanging. As an EU citizen you buy a home without a permit. You pay a municipal transfer tax of up to three percent. A notary enters the deed, and only on that entry are you the owner. At first you could only buy agricultural land after five years of living there. On 18 January 2024 the EU Court of Justice struck out that rule. Do ask beforehand whether your notary is on board yet. After five years you apply for permanent residence.Read more
This is what one step of your plan looks like
This is the real thing: one of the steps of the journey to Bulgaria, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan, with the deadlines, the offices and the sources.
Step 2.3 of your plan
Know where you'll pay tax, and do not apply for an exemption
- Lead time
- one good conversation
- Costs
- advisory hours — depending on your situation
With this step you know for sure that your pension stays taxed in the Netherlands. And you know why, unlike for many other countries, you do not apply for a wage tax exemption here.
The Dutch side. Article 17 of the treaty places pensions, annuities and social security payments with the state they come from. So your occupational pension, your annuity and your AOW stay taxed in the Netherlands. That holds without threshold and without condition. If you apply for a wage tax exemption here, you're rejected: there is nothing to exempt.
The Bulgarian side. Nothing happens there with those pensions. Bulgarian law exempts this income:
- Pensions from compulsory insurance, in Bulgaria and abroad.
- Payments from supplementary pension insurance.
You don't have to file a return for them. The treaty provides for a credit just in case, so that you don't pay twice. But there is nothing to credit.
What Bulgaria does tax. For the Bulgarian flat tax of ten percent, one rate for any income, what remains is work, profit and rent from a Bulgarian property. That's the conversation with your tax adviser.
A government pension also stays Dutch, unless you're a resident and a national (citizen) of Bulgaria.
And this is the dashboard that step lives in. The example shows the plan for Spain; your dashboard shows the plan for Bulgaria.
This is step 2.3 of 33. The other 32 are ready for you, each with the same sources, the same offices and a schedule that keeps track of your dates.
See all 33 steps for BulgariaWhat you get for € 199
All 33 steps to Bulgaria, for your situation
In order, with the office and the official source at every step. Steps that don't apply to you don't appear.
Your deadlines in one place
For each step you see the latest date to start, and you get a heads-up before something is due or expires. Your documents sit in the vault, with their dates.
A plan that stays right
Twice a month we check the sources. If something changes, it's in your plan and you get a message.
The step-by-step plan for Bulgaria
€ 199
one-off · 33 steps
- Pay once, no subscription
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Every step on one list, free
Not ready to start yet? Then you get the departure checklist for Bulgaria: every step in order, to print and tick off. With it, five mails in a week and a half about the pitfalls and the real costs. If the rules for Bulgaria change, you'll hear about it. After that we ask once where your plans stand, send one offer, and now and then one thing that fits your moment. No newsletter, and you can switch it off at any time.
That was the move. And once you live there?
Which country may tax your pension once you live in Bulgaria? Is there a favourable regime, a scheme that lowers your tax? And how do you get insured? That depends on where your income comes from. Tick it and you'll see which rules apply to you, with the source.
See the financial conditionsClosing down the Netherlands: all your letters in one go
Moving to Bulgaria starts with leaving the Netherlands properly. That's why the plan includes the letter tool: you enter your details once and every cancellation and notification letter is ready.
Just the letters, without the plan? That works too, for € 49
- Health insurance, rent, energy, subscriptions, GP, school, bank and pension fund: 16 kinds of letters. You enter your details only once.
- A sending list that counts back from your departure date and your notice period, even when that's three months.
- Also what you need to ask for as an emigrant: your no-claims years in English, your medical file and the school report (the report on your child for the new school).
Auke, maker of Vertrekklaar
On 2 January we're leaving ourselves, on a trip around the world with our family. What I put here, I'm arranging for my own family too.
On 20 September 2026 a customer wrote that the CAK rule for early retirement was missing from his plan. He was right. That evening the step was in thirteen plans, with the source attached.
The knowledge base on Bulgaria
Per phase, the articles that are already there. They're written from the same journey and go deeper than what fits above.
- AOW, pension and tax in Bulgaria: the Netherlands taxes, Bulgaria doesn'tThe treaty with Bulgaria from 2020 is a source-state treaty without threshold: the Netherlands may tax your occupational pension, your annuity and your AOW. And Bulgaria doesn't tax pensions — not its own, and expressly not those from compulsory insurance abroad either. So your Dutch rates are your rates, without wage tax exemption and without credit. What Bulgaria does tax, it taxes at a flat rate of ten percent.
- Working in Bulgaria: no permit, ten percent tax, and what the contributions costAs an EU citizen you work in Bulgaria without a work permit. Income tax is a single rate of 10 percent. An employee also pays social and health contributions; a self-employed person pays them themselves, on at least 620.20 euro a month from August 2026, and must report their start to the tax authority within seven days.
- Healthcare in Bulgaria: from the CAK's S1 to the GP who opens everythingBulgaria is a treaty country. With a Dutch statutory pension you apply for an S1 form at the CAK, have it registered at the regional office of the national health fund, and choose a GP on a form. That GP is the key to everything: without a referral no specialist. Per visit you pay a small user fee, and the public system is cheap, unevenly spread and often Bulgarian-speaking.
- Car and driving licence in Bulgaria: on plates within a month, with an environmental fee by ageAnyone moving to Bulgaria with their own car registers it with the traffic police within a month. For that you pay an environmental fee to the environment fund in advance, which rises with the car's age, and 17.90 euro in fees. After that comes an annual municipal car tax. The driving licence is the easy part: an EU licence doesn't need exchanging.
- Renting in Bulgaria: one month's notice, the small repairs for you, and the contract as proof of addressFinding a rented home in Bulgaria isn't hard, and tenancy law is short: an open-ended contract ends with a month's notice, small repairs from wear and tear are yours to pay, and the law assumes you received the home in good condition. So record what's wrong when you get the keys, and make sure your contract can serve as proof of address.
- Taking your pet to Bulgaria: the EU rules, the puppy rule that fails en route, and the dog taxYour dog or cat travels to Bulgaria with a microchip, a valid rabies vaccination and the EU pet passport. Bulgaria also admits, under conditions, a puppy without full rabies protection, but the countries you drive through don't. Once there you register your dog with the municipality within three months and pay a municipal charge every year before 31 March.
All 13 articles about Bulgaria
- Your household goods to Bulgaria: no customs within the EU, but watch the route through a country outside it
- Banking in Bulgaria: the euro since 2026, the basic account and why your Dutch account simply works
- The personal number in Bulgaria: what the LNCh opens, and which codes you need with it
- Your first weeks in Bulgaria: the car within a month, yourself within three
- Residence in Bulgaria: three months, a certificate of 3.58 euros and a personal number
- Buying a house in Bulgaria: free for EU citizens, and since 2024 the land too
- School in Bulgaria: compulsory kindergarten from four, and why newcomers queue last for first grade
Also applies to your move
Ready to begin?
The step-by-step plan for Bulgaria: 33 steps, with your documents and your costs in one place. For each step you see the latest date to start. You pay once and it's yours.