Below you can find information about Bulgarian mortgages and the initial and ongoing costs of buying and owning a property in Bulgaria. This information might not be complete so we always recommend that you seek proper advice from specialists.

Mortgage Possibilities and Conditions
Traditionally the Bulgarian financial system has not been very advanced and getting a mortgage from a bank to buy property has not been a commonly used method.

Today this has started to change as more and more Bulgarian banks are offering mortgages both to Bulgarian citizens, as well as foreign citizens.

Although the financial system has improved a lot it is still normally cheaper to get a mortgage abroad (securing it against your property at home) as the financial conditions are not very favourable. A Bulgarian bank would normally not cover more than 60-70% of the property value with a payback time of 10-20 years and the interest would typically be between 6-8%.

The cost of getting a mortgage is about 1-2% of the total mortgage plus about 300Eur for the valuation of the property.

To get a mortgage from a Bulgarian bank you will need a clean credit record and the monthly mortgage payment cannot exceed 20% of your monthly income. Take into consideration that getting a mortgage in Bulgaria can take up to 3 months, so apply in advance.

Some promoters are starting to offer pre-arranged mortgages which make the process a bit easier, but it can still be highly recommended to compare the conditions of the mortgage with what you could get in your home country or with another Bulgarian bank.

Initial Costs of Buying Property in Bulgaria
The total cost of buying a property in Bulgaria will be around 6-8% of the purchase price.

First of all, you will have to pay 2% in municipal taxes upon the signing of the official title deed and about 1% in notary fees depending on the cost of the property. Apart from this you will have to pay 0.1% in stamp duty for registering the title deed.

Note! The above fees are based in the higher range of the declared price and the price estimated by the tax authorities (which is normally not very high). Many private sellers and promoters give you the offer to under declare so that you will initially be paying less in taxes and duties but this is illegal and when you sell the property again you might have to pay more in property gain tax.

If you are buying a property with land you must, as explained in further details in the section Legal Matters of Buying property in Bulgaria, first set up a Bulgarian company which will cost approx. 1000Eur including legal fees. Apart from this you will have to deposit between 1750Eur and 2500Eur which will be freed up when the company has been established.

When buying through a real estate agent you will typically have to pay 3% of the purchase price in fees but this is usually already included in the shown price.

Annual Costs of Owning a Property in Bulgaria
Apart from the initial cost of purchasing a property in Bulgaria you will also have to take into consideration the annual cost of having and maintaining the property.
The annual costs depend on the type of property and can vary from 0.2-2% of the property price.

If you decide to rent out your property then you will, as a non resident, be charged a fixed rate of 15% of the rental income in taxes.

If you have to set up a company to buy property with land in Bulgaria you will have to declare the company accounts yearly and to arrange this you will most likely need a local accountant who will charge about 50-200€ (you do not pay taxes as the company status will be non-trading).