RECEIVING RESIDENCE PERMIT FOR BULGARIA THROUGH REGISTRATION OF REPRESENTATIVE OFFICE OF FOREIGN COMPANY
January 25, 2018
The registration of trade representative office of a foreign company in Bulgaria is one of the options for a foreign citizen to acquire а residence permit in Bulgaria. The procedure can be described as one of the cheapest and relatively faster options for obtaining a residence permit for Bulgaria. The following article has the purpose of informing all interested in acquiring Bulgarian residence permit with the process and the main requirements of the local legislation.
If you own a company in your own country and if you are wondering about the options how to advertise the activities and the business of this company in Bulgaria, as well as if you are wondering how you can stay and reside in Bulgaria, then one of the options to do it is opening a trade representative office of your company in Bulgaria.
The representative office is not a new legal entity, so you can’t use it for performing business in Bulgaria directly. The idea of the office is to serve for the promotion of the business activities of the mother company, which you have registered in your own country, as well as to create new business links with local legal entities in Bulgaria. Although not a new legal entity, the trade representative office should be registered before the local Bulstat registry too. The Bulstat number you receive serves for individualization of the trade representative office before third parties, as well as before the local Bulgarian banks, where you can also open a bank account on the name of the office.
As mentioned above, the trade representative office is not a legal entity and can’t perform any business activities. This means that the office can’t sell goods or services. The representative office receives the funds for its existence from the mother company. The representative office may employ its own staff if needed.
The process of registration of the trade representative office is performed before the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry /BCCI/. The trade representative office is considered established from the date of registration there. The process of registration should be performed by a person, who is legally representing the foreign company, or by a person, expressly authorized by a notarized power of attorney. The documents that you will need for the registration of trade representative office are clearly following the law, but namely:
-An official document for the registration of your foreign company, issued by your competent authority under your national legislation;
-An official document, issued by the competent authorities of your home country, which states the names of the person/persons, managing and representing the foreign entity/company;
-An official decision of the board of directors of your foreign company for opening a trade representative office in the Republic of Bulgaria, as well as decision about the people who will be entered as representatives of the trade representative office in Bulgaria;
-A special notary-certified power of attorney, issued by the legal representatives of the foreign company towards the person, who will open and manage the representation in the Republic of Bulgaria;
-Original of the specimen of the signature of the person, who will be representing the trade representative office in Bulgaria;
-Filled-out information card in accordance with the form published by the BCCI;
-Proof of payment of the registration fees under the Tariff prices of services provided by the BCCI;
You should be aware that all the documents, listed above, should be issued by the competent authorities of your country, holding stamps of these authorities and also an Apostille stamp of your Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Once the documents arrive in Bulgaria, these should be officially translated and legalized here by the Bulgarian Consular Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In addition to the above-listed documents, you should also have an address in Bulgaria, which will serve as an official address of registration of the trade representative office. The BCCI will require seeing a notary certified rental contract or a document, which proves that you have a property in Bulgaria, which to be used for the purposes of the trade representative office. You also have to prepare and sign before a notary a short Business Program of your representative office, in which to determine briefly what the main goals of the trade representative office are within the next 1 or 2 years.
After all the above documents are prepared and collected, you will have to submit them before the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The documents are reviewed within a short period of three days. At the end, if all the documents are meeting the local requirements, the person who is registered as trade representative should receive a special certificate for the registration. An additional registration at the local Bulstat registry should be performed before the certificate can be issued.
Once you receive the certificate for registration of the trade representative office, you can initiate the procedure of getting permission for a prolonged stay in Bulgaria. According to the local legislation, establishing a trade representation office entitles non-residents to acquire the right of residence in Bulgaria. The first step of this process is related to obtaining Visa D, where the application for the issuance of this type of Visa should be submitted before the Bulgarian Embassy in your country, or if there is no such embassy, then the application is to be submitted at the Bulgarian Embassy, which covers your country. There is a set of documents that you will have to present before the local Bulgarian ambassador, including the certificate for the registration of the trade representative office and criminal record certificate, issued by your country and legalized officially with an Apostille.
Once Visa D is issued, you can come to Bulgaria using the Visa and submit your residence permit application. Please note that you will be asked to attach to the residence permit application nearly all the documents you have submitted for the Visa D, as well as a new certificate for established representative office /normally this certificate is valid for only 1 month and you should get a new one for each step of the process/.
Our law office can advise and represent you during all the steps of the above process, namely: registration of trade representative office; acquiring Visa D for Bulgaria; acquiring residence permit for Bulgaria. We can also assist you with the renewal of the received residence permit. For more details, please contact us.
You may be interested also in the following articles:
D type visa and Bulgarian residency permit through registration of a representative office of a foreign legal entity
Frequently asked questions: Registration of trade representative office in Bulgaria – visa D and residence permit
Bulgarian citizenship by investment:
Acquiring Bulgarian citizenship by foreigners:
Benefits and advantages by obtaining residency permit in Bulgaria:
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