Before opening in Bulgaria: check the permissions your activity needs

Company registration does not answer every question about whether a business can start operating. In Bulgaria, the relevant licence, registration, approval or notification depends on what you will actually do. A useful review therefore starts with the business model, before preparing an application form.

Describe the activity in practical terms

Write down what you will sell, who your customers are, where the service is delivered and how payments move. Include any storage, transport, subcontracting or services provided for other businesses. A broad activity description in company documents is not enough to identify every applicable requirement.

For a food business, for example, the activity determines whether the relevant procedure is registration or approval. The proposed premises and their use documents also matter. A movable sales unit raises different questions about placement and local municipal requirements.

Check the site before committing to it

Before agreeing to premises or equipment, ask which documents are available and whether the planned use needs further assessment. Separate permission relating to the site from the procedure for the operator and its activity. One completed registration should not be assumed to cover a new address or an expanded service.

Keep specialist regimes separate

A financial or technology business needs a precise description of the services it provides. Accepting a payment in cryptoassets is not automatically the same as providing cryptoasset services under MiCA. Custody, exchange or other services for customers require their own assessment. An old NRA crypto registration is not a current general authorisation.

Assess anti-money laundering requirements against the actual activity, customers and business structure. Do not assume that every company needs the same procedures. An optional annual AML review is a support service, not a universal duty to commission an annual audit.

Turn the review into a launch plan

• List the procedures identified and the authority responsible for each.
• Separate missing documents from premises, staffing or organisational work.
• Record which steps must be completed before the relevant activity starts.
• Assign responsibility for later reporting and changes.

ARG can help organise this initial review and the agreed preparation. The plan should identify matters requiring further specialist research; the relevant authority decides applications.