°µÍø½ûÇø

Hello,

Congratulations to the brave decision to move to Bulgaria. Having and growing your business will lead you to many new opportunities.

Here are answers to your questions, from my point of view and experience as a business and immigration lawyer:

- The way to PR is long - it needs to have 5 years long term residence ( annually renewable) and to live a certain time ( no avoid losing it) in the country. Unless you invest a lot of money. Becasue there are still many opportunities to obtain PR directrly, but they are connected with huge investments.

- Time is not a factor. First you need to have a ground to use for your residency. Having just a company is not a valid ground for non-EU citizen to obtain residence permit. One of my favourite ootiosnis using a foreign working company, but you mentioned that you closed your own in UK, and this is sad. But you can use another comoany of a friend or colleague/employer, to apply.

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@DiKei

Welcome to the °µÍø½ûÇø.com forum!

Unfortunately, as @Vasilev (an immigration expert) has confirmed, an inactive Bulgarian OOD will not help you. If you make it active, win a bunch of IT contracts, and employ 10 Bulgarian programmers to do the work, then this would have potential. But probably not easy to do in the next month or two. :-)

Your UK company is a different story. But it depends how "closed" it is. If you merely didn't pay some annual dues, you might be able to re-activate it. The reason this would be more useful is that Bulgaria has the Trade Representative Office (TRO) of your foreign company (e.g. UK), and your entity must have at least 2 years of history. TROs are a very popular option for Bulgarian residence, I am sure that @Vasilev has done a ton of them!

PR is a good objective in the EU, but it takes 5 years of residence. So your goal is to relocate with an appropriate "temporary" residence (usually 1 or 2 years initially for a non-EU citizen). In general, whatever circumstances qualify you for this first permit will enable you to renew the permit until you've been here 5 years.

If you can re-activate your UK company, then a Bulgarian TRO could be an option. (Or, if it's completely gone, start again with a new limited company outside Bulgaria, and use it for your freelance work for 2 years.

If you're a remote IT consultant on $2k a month for a part-time gig, that's a good situation. Two options may then come into play:

* If you're a highly-qualified IT guy (have a good degree and/or higher degree and good salary potential) and you're looking for a full-time job, then there's the EU "Blue Card" for highly-skilled professionals. This can be in ANY EU country, but you have to get your job offer (with full-time contract of one year minimum) in place first. The salary has to be "high", but it varies by EU country. Bulgaria is the poorest EU country, so Blue Card required salary here is about 12k euros. Germany is the other extreme, you'd need a 60k euros contract! Blue Card is a more advantageous form of residence permit with some mobility to other EU countries.

* Being a remote worker for a USA corporation puts you in the category of "digital nomad". There are several EU countries now offering digital nomad visas/residence. For this you have to show a work contract with a non-EU company, and, often, show proof of the salary being paid into your account over the last x (6 maybe) months. 2K USD is a bit low, unfortunately. I think Hungary is the lowest with 2k euros required. Others might be 2.5k or 3k euros (and some even higher). So this depends on whether you can up your rate with Company A, or add a second part-time contract with Company B, to get you to the appropriate minimum.

Separately, if you have very good savings, there is a residence-by-investment option in Bulgaria (300k euros in property). And there's also the No Lucrativa Visa (NLV) in Spain, for those of "independent means". This means a good, unearned income (pension, annuity, rent), or 30k euros in savings. The NLV is a non-working visa, but the remote worker/digital nomad issue is a bit of a grey area, so I'd go for it if I could.

Turkey is non-EU, but EU-adjacent (and Bulgaria-adjacent), so it's a more convenient place to be based while you search the EU. Turkey is lovely, and is a very cheap place to live (which is great on $2k of remote income). It has a very easy (and inexpensive) residence permit for "extended tourism" of a year or so (renewable, I think). This requires only $500 USD in income (with remote contract OK).

@Vasilev Thank you for the reply!

Yes I'm totally aware of the most EU PR timeframes as they're expected to be longer making sure all the rules are followed. I'm trying to get info on the safest route without getting into trouble of multiple visits and/or longer stays at home country for visa renewals and other formalities.

I see your favourite option(TRO) and in-fact I've been doing some research on this after going thru  few other posts. I have closed my UK company on good grounds and there is a high chance that I can reopen the company spending couple hundred pounds. Now my question is If we are to open a TRO what would be the costs ?

If possible we start the TRO registration process next week then could you please give me overall rough time frame to have TRO registered and obtain a D-Visa ?

@gwynj

Honestly didn't expect Thank you very much for this detailed reply!

Yes agree, years ago somewhere I read it and had the feeling that having Bulgarian OOD wouldn't help with visa. I didn't know it was 10 people that I had to give employment as I was in the impression of 2, but thats good to know.

Re TRO you are spot on because it was my next question to Vasilev and you read my mind Not so sure but I read online that reopening the UK company will normally doesn't affect the continuity status and will show up online as being in trade since the incorporation.  Now maybe I'm thinking silly, my current two companies have different name and will having the same company name benefit the process time/cost?

So good you also shared other options that I may have, in that Blue Card is my list where I will be parallely trying and I like the turkey option which I will keep it as last option. I also like the nomad visas but honestly I don't like the way they're structured and some requirements are insane. TBH I want to live in a country that has lot of untouched nature where the quality of life and cost of living is reasonable and affordable.  And more importantly contribute to the economy and as well except the contributions to be spent well back into communities. Haha seems like I'm asking too much, but nvm I know how bureaucracy and capitalism works and will be very mindful do my best to live better!

Idk for some reasons I see balkan nations have right balance of nature to thrive!

@DiKei

Bulgaria is a very good option for living. Nice country/people, good food, low income tax, low living costs, (relatively) low property costs. Bulgaria has a very small population for its size, so there is definitely plenty of wide open space here. Our village house is just outside a beautiful National Park, and it always feels like I have the mountains to myself!

If you can simply pay your corporate dues in UK, and re-activate your UK company, then I think this could be a great option. TRO is very popular. If you have year-end accounts for the UK company for a couple of years... plus appropriate documents to show that it is now in "good standing" with no tax obligations... you should be good to go.

TRO is a right faff to do yourself, I think an attorney would be the way to go. My non-lawyer guesstimate (I didn't go through this myself): 1k euros to register the TRO... 500 to help with your D visa application (submit to your local Bulgarian Embassy)... 1k to get your residence permit (submit in Bulgaria). Expect it to take 2-3 months, if you're very organized. Apart from the TRO registration, you need an official address in Bulgaria (rental contract), Bulgarian health insurance (100 euros), and some proof of funds to meet living expenses.

I would do TRO rather than nomad. Your income is a bit too small, and the nomad visas tend to be not so good for staying 5 years to PR.

Blue Card is a good option if you want a full-time job, and can get a suitable job offer/contract. But doing remote work for 2 or 3 USA companies as a freelancer would be good too, especially as it's very cheap to live here.

@gwynj Sure, I would love to experience different places in Bulgaria and very keen to learn the language and culture! TBH I prefer countryside and I would rather live as a cave man surrounded by nature than in a concrete jungle! Glad to know you live very close to nature just under the mountains, long live!

Thank you for the rough estimates and I presume they include the government fees! For insurance, the 100Euros is per month or year and will it be from Bulgarian insurance company or some European ? For proof of funds, I currently use online banks like Wise/Monzo/Revolut and occasionally withdraw to my local bank to use it for personal expenses. Will the embassy accept statements from online banks or does it have to be local only? And lastly as per the latest rules how much funds I should be show ?

Yes as you said nomad visa will not be a good option and think I made my decision. I would go with TRO and parallely try for Blue Card, since I have no permanent home in any country I'm thinking it's better to plan to get a permanent house in BG. If in case I get a blue card opportunity in some fairly reasonable country then I will think and decide which way to go so that I can enjoy my retirement. By any chance I prefer to live in multiple nations then I guess there is a dual citizenship which I can opt for.

Feel like I'm asking too much to you, I better reach some legal expert and start the process ASAP!

@Vasilev I just started working on restoring my old UK company and thinking to start the TRO process. I would like to discuss with you and get a quote. Whats is the best way to contact you please?

@DiKei

Good news, it seems you can restore your Brit Co!

Our colleague @Vasilev is a frequent poster as a Bulgarian immigration expert. He's based in Plovdiv (former European Capital of Culture and Bulgaria's 2nd city). Click on his profile, I believe his firm is listed in his profile, so he's easy to track down. :-)

My cost estimates were ballpark only, I never did this. Direct discussion with an attorney will clarify.

For D visa there are always some general requirements, which are proof of address, proof of funds, and proof of health insurance. And there is the specific proof (e.g. your TRO registration certificate) that demonstrates how you qualify for the D visa.

- Proof of address is a title deed (if you buy somewhere) or a long-term rental contract. Maybe your attorney can arrange a rental contract for immigration purposes.

- Proof of funds is usually quite flexible. For context, Bulgarian minimum wage is about 360 euros per month, so it's good to show more than this. So maybe your USA contract (if it confirms $2k per month) and maybe a bit of savings somewhere. I'd guess they'd be fine with a statement from your online account.

- Proof of health insurance is a standard policy for foreigners which is accepted by immigration. It's not expensive, so the 100 euros is for the year.

@gwynj Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put to answer my questions. I will now focus on the process and requirements and share the experience later. Again pleasure meeting you, take care!

gwynj is really amazing person and his willingness and dedication to help to complete strangers is absolutely stunning....

@DiKei Hello, send me your email and I will tell you the approximate timing. We have the experience doding all remote, so your first visit must be yhe time when you apply for residence permit and ID card.

gwynj is really amazing person and his willingness and dedication to help to complete strangers is absolutely stunning....
-@bestlikefromme

100% can't agree more! In fact one of the reasons I joined this forum after carefully reading many posts and see him reply in various topics. I seriously thought, ok this is not another dead forum, and there is activity happening recently and at-least somebody is looking and giving response!

@DiKei Hello, send me your email and I will tell you the approximate timing. We have the experience doding all remote, so your first visit must be yhe time when you apply for residence permit and ID card.
-@Vasilev

Done, check your PM. Thank you!

Many thanks for your kind words! It's always nice to be appreciated. :-)

@gwynj

You deserve it !!!