Bulgarian solicitors, based in Varna

Did you know that you can benefit of lower administration costs for your Road Haulage business? You can do this by outsourcing your EU international road transport operator’s license (Community authorisation) to another EU member state, where the state fees, insurances, accountancy and driver salaries will cost less than what you are paying in the UK. The biggest benefit is the corporation flat rate tax of 10%.

We are offering full one-stop-shop service for outsourcing you EU haulage business to Bulgaria (an EU member state).

We offer the following services:

• registration of Bulgarian subsidiary limited company
• obtaining EU road transport operator license (Community authorisation haulage permit) from Bulgaria
• dedicated haulage accountancy
• Bulgarian transport manager with CPC
• registration of trucks with Bulgarian plates and vehicle certificates
• vehicle insurances with competitive rates
• full legal services to your company

I. Costs for moving your business under EU international road transport operator’s license issued in Bulgaria

The costs for flagging out to Bulgaria depends on various circumstances. Call us or email us so we can provide you an estimate of the total costs for flagging out to Eastern Europe, Bulgaria

II. Obtaining EU international road transport licence from Bulgaria

Bulgarian limited company

As a start first you need to register a Bulgarian limited company. EU international road transport license from Bulgaria is issued only to Bulgarian companies, so this step is needed. We register the company for you.

Financial stability requirement

The company needs to prove that it is financially stable. The easiest way to do this is to obtain an insurance policy from a Bulgarian insurance company.  We provide assistance in buying such policies.

Transport manager – Certificate for professional competence

As a preliminary requirement, each haulage company needs to employ a person possessing Certificate for professional competence. Our law office can provide such persons – Bulgarian citizens who have obtained valid certificates from the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport and Communication. The person will be employed at 4h employment contract in your company for a monthly salary of 250 euro.

Alternatively if you have already employed such person in your UK company, you can use his Certificate for professional competence issued by a valid UK Transport Manager CPC Awarding Organisation . The EU Council Directive 96/26/EC of 29 April 1996 allows complete recognition of such certificates after legalisation by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

State fees for the EU international road transport license

The state fee for obtaining the Operator’s licence is 1022.58 euros (BGN 2000). Depending on how many trucks your company possess a copy of the license needs to be held in each truck. Each copy costs 5.11 euros (BGN 10).

Accountancy / Bookkeeping

Your company will be VAT registered in the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency. You will receive a Bulgarian EU VAT number. Depending on the workload of your company, the accountancy fee can vary. Call us or email us for a quote for road transport accounting services.

III. Registration of trucks and trailers in Bulgaria

You will have several options in order to get your truck registered under the Bulgarian community licence:

• Transfer some of your existing UK registered trucks to your Bulgarian company
• Buy new trucks and register them in Bulgaria
• Buy second hand trucks from a Bulgarian company
• Get new leased trucks from a Bulgarian leasing company

Transfer some of your existing UK registered trucks to your Bulgarian company

The trucks need to have a Bulgarian registration plate in order to operate under the EU international road transport license issued from Bulgaria. Therefore the easiest way is to “sell” your UK trucks to the Bulgarian company. This will enable you to get Bulgarian plates from the Bulgarian authorities.

Тachographs

If your trucks already have tachographs, their registration in Bulgaria will cost about 150 euros per tachograph. Buying new digital tachograph along with installation fee is usually it is about 500-800 euros.

Annual Vehicle Tax

In Bulgaria, trucks are subject to annual council tax.

The annual vehicle council tax depends on the municipality where the trucks are registered. We work in Varna municipality. The thresholds depend on how many axis the truck has (2 or 3 axis) and the total revenue weight of the truck and the trailer. Below are the full specifications for year 2012 of Varna municipality vehicle tax.

Varna Annual Vehicle tax 2012 (trucks and composition of truck and trailer)
1 BGN = 0.511296409 EUR
Number of axles of the truck unit	The maximum allowed total weight of the truck (or composition of truck and trailer) listed in the registration certificate (in tons)		Vehicle annual tax (in BGN)
	equal or more than	less than	with pneumatic suspension or similar to pneumatic suspension	other axles types of suspension systems
a. Two axles	-	18	20	70
	18	20	70	160
	20	22	160	367
	22	25	475	855
	25	26	855	1500
	26	28	855	1500
	28	29	827	997
	29	31	997	1637
	31	33	1637	2272
	33	38	2272	3452
	38	-	2517	3422
b. Three or more axles	36	38	1600	2220
	38	40	2220	3070
	40	-	3070	4542

If the trucks are “Euro 2″, “Euro 3″, “Euro 4″ и “Euro 5″, the vehicle tax is reduced to 50% of the above figures.

The tax shall be paid in two instalments in the year which is due for:

1. due between 1st March and 30th June and
2. due between 30th June and 30th October

If the vehicle tax is prepaid in full between 30th March and 30th April a further 5% reduction will be made.

Road Tax

Road tax in Bulgaria is paid by buying a vignette. The vignettes are stickers that are valid for a year, month, week and a day. Each haulier can decide what type of vignette to buy for his trucks. Normally if your trucks will be working across Europe and hardly coming back to Bulgaria, drivers can buy short term vignettes (weekly or monthly vignette). For example only for the purpose of MOTs done in Bulgaria. The prices of the vignettes for 2012 are as follows:

Vignette taxes 2012 - K1 vehicle category (Euro III, IV,V, EEV and higher) in Euros
Daily	Weekly	Monthly	Annual
6.65	29.65	84.36	511.29

IV. Compulsory Truck Insurances

The average annual insurance for a truck costs about 1800 euro. The insurer offers also payment in 2, 3 or 4 instalments, but for the sake of simplicity I’ve just provided the total annual premium if paid in single installment. If paid in few installments the truck insurance amount raises.

V. Driver salaries, Bulgarian National Insurance (NI) contributions and health insurance

If you want to benefit of the low minimum thresholds for driver salaries and NI, you can re-employ your drivers in the Bulgarian company. EU nationals can work without work permits and have equal rights with the Bulgarians on the labour market. For 2012 the figures are as follows:

• minimum driver monthly salary of 208 EUR per month.
• minimum monthly NI and health insurance contributions of 104 EUR per month per driver.

Transport market in Western Europe is getting harder every week. If you want to be competitive and increase your profit margin, call us now and we’ll get your EU operator’s licence within a couple of weeks.

 

Read more solicitor advice here:

• Flagging out to Bulgaria: The successful business model
• New changes to the transportation license regime is in force
• Misinterpretation of the new changes to transport licensing in Bulgaria
• ADR: transportation of dangerous goods by road in EU