Your Partner in Bulgaria.

Online gambling license regime in Bulgaria

When we talked about Internet gambling license will soon be available in Bulgaria, we thought the Parliament will pass the bill really quickly because of the big interest, the real gambling companies have in Bulgaria. Now, as some of the comments pointed right, companies holding non-EU gambling license don’t care about getting an EU one, because they can operate on-line virtually anywhere.

We can see some “non-gambling” websites which offer free poker games, but they also offer paid membership where you can actually gamble. It appears the Gambling Commission is unable to sanction them, or at least nobody urged them to.

The fact is that the bill is still pending for discussion in the Financial Parliament Commission since 2009. Apparently it will be there for another couple of years.

 

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MHLegal is opening branch office in Varna

We are pleased to announce that as of June 2010, MHlegal will have an office in Varna, Bulgaria. This will ensure easier access to our legal services for the clients residing in Varna and the area around Varna. The contacts will be announced at the day of the official opening.

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Internet Gambling License

  • 07.03.2010
    • , by 
  • by Milen Hristov
  •   3 Comments

The Bulgarian legislation currently does not allow issuing of Internet gambling licenses. However, an amendment to the Gambling Act is submitted to the Bulgaria Parliament. The new clauses of the Gambling Act will allow Bulgarian and foreign companies to obtain Internet gambling license. Some of the new license requirements will be:

  • all servers and electronic equipment has to be located physically in Bulgaria
  • at least one of the servers which receives the traffic  data over the Internet, has to possess domain in .bg area.
  • the gambling software needs to collect records of the users, as well as to have the ability to provide data to the Gambling Commission upon request
  • each game, included in the Internet gambling license, has to match the requirements for the regular gambling, as described in details in the Gambling Act.

The status of the bill can be reviewed in the website of the Bulgarian Parliament

The process of obtaining a regular Gambling license consists of providing the necessary documents and applying with the Gambling Commission. Foreigners can also apply for gambling license. You can apply as a company, registered in EU or as a Bulgarian company (subsidiary of your original company). If your company is  registered neither in EU member country nor in Bulgaria, you need to match certain investment requirements before you obtain the gambling license. Depending on what games you want to develop, there are different options for gambling license: casino games, lotto games, bingo and keno, lottery, sport betting etc.

The tax on the gambling profit is flat 15%. The gambling tax excludes paying the corporate tax i.e. the gambling companies pay ONLY 15% gambling tax. Additionally you may want to get the dividend from the company profit, which will add 5% tax to the money you get from your gambling company.

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Happy New Year!

Happy new year to all readers of this blog. I will do my best to inform you of the latest trends and legal changes in the Bulgarian legislation. As a lawyer, I will try to give you best advice for your particular case.

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Finally the State Gazette is onilne

As from 1 July 2008 the Bulgarian State Gazette is uploaded online. Before that date it could be found only on a hard copy and with subscription. Finally we can read Bulgarian laws without paying for it and more environment friendly.

In the official website you can find the full content of the State Gazette starting from issue 30 (19 March 2008)  till now.

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Online company registration in Bulgaria

The Commercial Register offers a service called “online submission of applications and documents”. The feature of their website is available from the very beginning, but was not working properly for a couple of months. Fortunately, now we can use it to submit all kind of company documentation including:

  • documents for (re-) registration of a company
  • documents for changes in a company
  • annual financial statements
  • winding-up and liquidation etc.

In order to use the online feature, you need a digital signature (DS) issued to you by an official certified DS provider in Bulgaria. The price is usually around EUR 50. The Digital Document and Digital Signature Act stipulates that the state authorities of Bulgaria have to accept DSs issued only by a certified Bulgarian DS authority.
Using the DS with the Commercial Register is fairly easy: you must fill out a web form, attach scanned copies of the necessary documents (regarding the registration or to the changes you want to make in your company) and then the Java applet takes care of the digital undersigning of the application and the attachments.

Unfortunately, the feature “online payment of state fees” is not working, so you have to do it the old-fashioned way: through a bank deposit and then scan the receipt and attach it to the online form.

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Freelancing in Bulgaria

  • 20.02.2008
    • , by 
  • by Milen Hristov
  •   3 Comments

If you are a freelancer (writer, programmer etc.) Bulgaria is an attractive place to do your job. Pursuant to the Employment Encouragement Act, being a “freelancer” means that you both:

  1. don’t work for an employer and
  2. you are working in your capacity of a person (not through your company).

Then what type of agreement you are obliged to have signed? Easy, the type of agreement which is required you to have signed is the assignment agreement. The Bulgarian legislation sets a distinction between the employment contract and the assignment agreement. Sure, both of them entitles you to receive certain amount of money for the work, but if you have an employment contract : (inexhaustible)

  • the employer is obliged to register the contract within the National Social Security Institute
  • the employer is obliged to pay part of your social security installments
  • there are certain restrictions and conditions in case of firing an employee
  • there is a mandatory annual full-pay leave etc.

In summary, the Labour Code sets a whole different set of contract conditions in the employer-employee relations. The freelancer is freed of this restrictions, but the work is regulated by the common civil legislation: The Obligations and Agreements Act.

Sufficient funds: Pursuant to the Regulations for the appliance of the Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria Act, a foreigner to be able to stay in Bulgaria if he/she possesses the minimum required 50 Euro per day of stay. This means that if you are a freelancer, you should prove that you have (or will have) at least 1,500 Euro per month.

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