Bulgaria · administrative route
Emigrating to Bulgaria
As an EU citizen you may be in Bulgaria for three months without conditions, and after that you apply for 3.58 euros for a residence certificate that gives you the personal number everything hangs on. The tax here is unusually simple: the treaty from 2020 lets the Netherlands tax your pension and your AOW, and Bulgaria doesn't tax pensions — so your Dutch rates are your rates, without exemption and without credit. Since 2025 you drive in without a border check, since 2026 you pay in euros. This page shows how it really works.
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- Kind of journey
- Administrative — residence certificate within three months
- The clocks
- 3 months for the certificate, 1 month for the car
- Note
- The Netherlands taxes pension and AOW; Bulgaria doesn't tax pensions
Last updated: September 2026
The journey
Five phases, from the residence certificate to the orchard
A route with few counters and a tax lesson of one sentence: the Netherlands taxes, Bulgaria doesn't. The residence certificate within three months, the S1 to the regional health fund office and a GP on a form, the car on plates within a month with an environmental fee by age — and the 2024 judgment that freed up the land around your village house.
- 1
Orientation
Three months, a treaty of one sentence, and another alphabet
Three months free, then a residence certificate of 3.58 euros. In this phase you learn what the treaty of 2020 does — the Netherlands taxes your occupational pension, your annuity and your AOW, without threshold — and what Bulgaria does with them: nothing, because Bulgarian law exempts pensions, foreign ones included. Healthcare runs through the CAK to the one health fund. And you explore the region in winter: Sofia is a different world from a village behind the Black Sea, and you only read Cyrillic after practice.
- 2
Closing the Netherlands
No wage tax exemption — there is nothing to exempt
The familiar list with a reversed lesson: where with Spain you apply for the wage tax exemption, here you don't. The Netherlands may tax, everything, and Bulgaria adds nothing on top. What the tax adviser does have to look at is work, profit, rent and the annuity. Further: the S1 at the CAK six weeks before departure, the SVB in time, and the eight-month rule as a real option for whoever has a house on the coast.
- 3
The move
Since 2025 without a border, since 2026 in euros, and a month for the car
By road, three days, without customs and since 1 January 2025 without a border check. The car comes along without excise duty, but pays an environmental fee by age on first registration — from roughly 77 to almost 200 euros — and must be on plates at the traffic police within a month, for 17.90 euros. The first accommodation calls for a landlord who is willing to go to the notary, because the proof of address for the registration is a notarised declaration. The pet needs only chip, jab and the EU pet passport.
- 4
Registration in Bulgaria
First the certificate with the personal number, then the S1, then the GP
The order is fixed. First the residence certificate at Migration, within three months, with proof of address, cover and means — that gives you the personal number. Then the S1 to the regional health fund office, and right after that choose a GP on the registration form, because without a referral you get nowhere. Only then the bank, in euros, and the revenue agency if you have taxed income here.
- 5
Arrival
The licence stays, the house is free — and the land since 2024 too
An EU driving licence doesn't need exchanging. A home you buy as an EU citizen without a permit, with a municipal transfer tax of up to three percent and a notary who enters the deed — you're the owner on entry. Agricultural land you could only buy after five years of living there, until the Court of Justice struck out that rule on 18 January 2024; do ask beforehand whether your notary is on board yet. After five years you apply for permanent residence.
Look inside
This is what one step of your plan looks like
Not a brochure but the real thing: this is one of the steps of the Bulgaria journey, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan — with the deadlines, the counters 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
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, without threshold and without condition. Whoever applies for a wage tax exemption here is rejected — there is nothing to exempt.
On the Bulgarian side nothing happens with those pensions. Bulgarian law exempts pensions from compulsory insurance in Bulgaria and abroad, and payments from supplementary pension insurance too; you don't have to file a return for them. The treaty provides for a credit just in case, but there is nothing to credit.
What remains for the Bulgarian flat tax of ten percent is work, profit and rent from a Bulgarian property — and that's the conversation with your tax adviser. The government pension also stays Dutch, unless you're a resident and a national of Bulgaria.
This is step 2.3 of 28. The other 27 are ready for you — each with the same sources, the same counters and a planning that watches your dates.
See all 28 steps for BulgariaWhat it costs
A rough indication for your situation
A few short questions, and you get a range instead of an amount. That's deliberate: an exact figure would suggest a precision nobody has.
Count on a total of
€ 1.300 – € 3.900
Where does that difference come from?
- The first months€ 1.200 – € 3.200
Below you'll find per item where the upper and the lower limit come from.
- Aanvraag en papieren
- € 35 – € 200
- De verhuizing
- € 60 – € 300
- De eerste maanden
- € 1.200 – € 3.400
Every item, one by onePer item the amount, the source and whether it's a rate or an estimate
Aanvraag en papieren
- Residence certificate with personal number€ 5 – € 25
- Certificates, model forms and the sworn translator(estimate)€ 30 – € 200
De verhuizing
- The journey(estimate)€ 60 – € 300
De eerste maanden
- The first months(estimate)€ 1.200 – € 3.200
Deposit and first rent, furnishing what didn't come along, and the months in which you're still running double. Sofia rents at the level of a mid-sized Dutch city; the coast out of season and the countryside sit far below that. Count the winter in: heating an old village house inland is a real item.
- Bank, phone and the first counters(estimate)€ 50 – € 200
And if you buy a house?
This calculation assumes renting: the first months include deposit and rent in advance.
If you buy, count on 4 to 7% of the purchase price on top of this amount. On a home of € 250,000 that's € 10.000 to € 17.500.
On purchase the municipality charges a transfer tax it sets itself, between a tenth and three percent of the purchase price or the tax value if that is higher; Sofia is at three percent and the coastal cities just below it. On top come the notary, the entry in the land registry of a tenth of a percent and possibly the estate agent. As an EU citizen you need no permit for a home.
Note: buying isn't simply allowed here
Agricultural land you could only buy until 2024 after five years of living in Bulgaria. The Court of Justice struck out that rule on 18 January 2024, but not every notary applies that yet — ask beforehand, and have the zoning of the plot checked in the land registry before you sign. You're the owner on entry, not on signing.
An order of magnitude based on averages, not a quote. The real amounts depend on your occupation, your route, the season and dozens of choices you still have to make.
Rates checked on 11 September 2026.
Your complete, personal cost picture — with your route, your documents and your deadlines — you get in Vertrekklaar.
That was the move. And once you live there?
Who may tax your pension once you live in Bulgaria, is there a favourable regime, and how do you become insured? That depends on where your income comes from. Tick it and you see which rules apply to you — with the source.
See the financial conditionsThe departure guide
Five mails, and you see your whole journey
Not ready to start yet? Then we'll send you the departure guide for Bulgaria: five mails in a week and a half, with the order, the pitfalls and the real costs. After that one question about where your plans stand, and beyond that only a short update when something in Bulgaria really changes — at most one a month, no newsletter, and you can switch it off at any time.
Read on
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.
Orientation
- 3 min
AOW, pension and tax in Bulgaria: the Netherlands taxes, Bulgaria doesn't
The 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.
Updated 11 September 2026
- 3 min
Healthcare in Bulgaria: from the CAK's S1 to the GP who opens everything
Bulgaria 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.
Updated 11 September 2026
Leaving the Netherlands — for every destination
- 2 min
Keeping a bank account and DigiD: the two lines you never cut
After your deregistration you still need the Netherlands for years — for the M return, refunds and your pension. Within the EU your bank account is a right, towards Australia a favour from the bank. And your DigiD you arrange before departure, not after.
Updated 11 August 2026
- 3 min
The protective assessment: the bill that travels with you, and that never expires for one item
On emigration the Netherlands imposes an assessment on your pension, your annuity and your substantial shareholding that you don't have to pay — as long as you do nothing that makes it collectable. For pension and annuity it usually lapses after ten years. For a substantial shareholding it doesn't: that one remains valid indefinitely.
Updated 27 August 2026
- 2 min
Emigrating with children after a divorce: the consent that comes before everything
With joint custody you can't just go abroad with the children — you need the consent of the other parent, or substitute consent from the court. What the court weighs, and why leaving without consent is legally child abduction.
Updated 11 August 2026
- 3 min
Emigrating on early retirement: the CAK route is expected to close as of 1 November 2026
Whoever moves to the EU or Switzerland with a Dutch pension arranges their healthcare via the CAK. That door is closing to a crack: as expected, from 1 November only new applicants with AOW, Anw, WAO, WIA or Wajong will be admitted. Early retirement and RVU fall outside it — whoever is already a customer keeps their rights.
Updated 16 August 2026
- 2 min
The M form: the tax return for the year in which you emigrated
For the year of your departure you lived partly inside and partly outside the Netherlands, and a separate return goes with that. Nowadays it can be done online — but you have to think of it yourself, because an invitation rarely comes by itself.
Updated 9 August 2026
- 2 min
Your AOW accrual stops on departure — and you have one year to repair that
Every year outside the Netherlands costs you 2% AOW (the Dutch state pension), for life. The SVB has a voluntary continuation that closes that gap — but signing up is only possible in the first year after departure, and almost everyone misses that deadline.
Updated 11 August 2026
- 3 min
Your Dutch pension abroad: what comes along, and who levies
The AOW (the Dutch state pension) travels fully to the EU and to Australia — the latter thanks to a treaty from 2001. Your company pension too, but *where* you pay on it depends on the tax treaty, and the exemption you arrange yourself.
Updated 11 August 2026
- 3 min
Cancelling your health insurance without a gap
Your Dutch basic insurance is tied to living or working in the Netherlands and stops being a given on emigration. The art is to have the end date match your new cover — and to know which route belongs to your situation.
Updated 28 August 2026
- 2 min
Taking medicines across the border: certificates, supply and the 90-day ceiling
For medicines under the Opium Act you need a certificate — and the Dutch system only carries you for three months. What you arrange with the CAK, what Australia wants to see at the border, and why finding a local doctor simply belongs to your first weeks.
Updated 11 August 2026
- 10 min
Partner comes along without a job of their own: deregistering, healthcare, AOW and the house
Your partner has a job, a visa or a right of residence there; you come along without a job of your own. Administratively you're then no passenger: the deregistration, the end of your health insurance and your AOW accrual apply to you separately. What you get back if you arrange it well, what it costs if you let it slide — and when "just staying registered" is allowed after all.
Updated 9 September 2026
- 2 min
Stopping allowances on emigration: do it yourself, and in time
Housing allowance, healthcare allowance, childcare allowance and child budget don't stop by themselves on the day you leave. Whoever lets them run gets a reclaim months later — this is what you arrange per allowance.
Updated 9 August 2026
- 3 min
Deregistering with the municipality: when exactly, and what stops then
Deregistering from the BRP is only possible from five days before departure, and is compulsory as soon as you're away for more than eight months a year. What stops at that moment, what stays, and which piece of paper you have to ask for right away.
Updated 9 August 2026
- 6 min
When does your pension stay taxed in the Netherlands? The three pots and the three conditions
"Your pension is taxed in your new country of residence" is right by approximation and not in the details. Your AOW, your company pension and your government pension each follow a rule of their own, and with the company pension the Netherlands can still levy if three conditions apply at once. This article explains which three, and which four questions you have to answer for your own situation.
Updated 27 August 2026
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