Putting on paper the struggles of so many internationals and the opportunities the ecosystem offers, nonetheless
Before coming to Bulgaria almost six years ago, I lived in Italy and Belgium for three years each. As a Ukrainian, a non-EU citizen, moving around hasn’t been straightforward, as it wasn’t for finding a job, even an entry-level one, despite speaking the necessary languages and having qualifications. I became a freelancer out of necessity because few companies would hire me. I had to learn through mistakes and missteps about taxation, social contributions, and accounting deadlines.
I know many other foreigners who start a business because they can’t easily access the job market, becoming so-called “reluctant entrepreneurs”. It’s a common dynamic across countries, nationalities, and industries: a 2024 OECD report mentions that entrepreneurship helps migrants bypass difficulties in finding wage employment.
For many foreigners, starting a business can also be a legal way to stay in or move to a new country. They figure out the complicated methods of founding a company and employing themselves, and how they can then apply for a visa, followed by a residence permit that in Europe will often have an expiration date influenced by where you’re from.
But the challenges don’t end there. As Giacomo Solano of Migration Policy Group suggests in the research “A level playing field for migrant entrepreneurs? The legal and policy landscape across EU and OECD countries”, “migrant-led businesses perform worse than native enterprises on a number of indicators, pointing to disadvantages and untapped potential. Foreign-born migrants are much more likely to be microbusiness owners, concentrated in low-profitable sectors (e.g., petty trade) and are less likely to survive 5 years compared to native businesses.”
“Luckily”, when it comes to Bulgaria, as Plamen Stefanov, an attorney-at-law that we’ve interviewed for this project, shares, “the legal and administrative obstacles or difficulties for foreigners are basically the same whether you are an EU national or not. They are mainly linked to a slow and often incompetent administration that does not know its obligations, nor can it properly advise either its own citizens or foreign nationals. The clash with the administration, by the way, is also a problem for Bulgarian citizens.”
The “Manifesto of Foreign Entrepreneurs in Bulgaria” project came to be thanks to my participation in the Mentorship and Ambassador Program (MAP) by New Women Connectors as one of five ambassadors. The focus of this program is on empowering the new and established leaders in the migrant communities to advocate for the causes they care about in the realms of policy and decision-making. My host NGO was Multi Kulti Collective, with its Chairperson, Bistra Ivanova, one of Bulgaria’s leading non-profit organizations. Multi Kulti Collective works on migrant and refugee integration, countering discrimination, racism, and hate speech, and promoting human rights. My mentor was Silsila Mahboub, an activist and a migrant and refugee integration expert. I’ve been collaborating with both for years in my work with Open Bulgaria on many initiatives and events for Bulgaria’s international community.
The project topic was carte blanche, and we turned to a struggle of many foreigners - the procedures of opening, running, and maintaining a business in Bulgaria.
Our research was driven by two simple questions: What if the path to entrepreneurship, often taken out of necessity, could be transformed into a journey of opportunity? What if we could help foreign entrepreneurs not just survive but thrive in Bulgaria's business ecosystem?
The heart of the research
The “Manifesto of Foreign Entrepreneurs in Bulgaria” had to include the opinions of real migrant business owners. To make sure we had a diverse perspective and different experiences, we created a focus group with participants from different regions (Europe, Asia, North America, and the Middle East). They all came from various industry sectors, and different stages in their entrepreneurial journeys - from recently launched startups to businesses operating for over five years. The semi-structured format allowed for organic conversation on key topics: motivations for starting a business, challenges they’ve faced, successful strategies, resource suggestions for their fellow entrepreneurs, and recommendations for changes for policy-makers. The focus group revealed that despite diverse backgrounds and industries, these entrepreneurs faced similar challenges and had developed comparable strategies to overcome them.
To complement the entrepreneurs' lived experiences, we ran in-depth interviews with key players who view the business ecosystem from different angles:
- BESCO (Bulgarian Entrepreneurial Association) provided insights from its seven years advocating for startups and innovative businesses. Their perspective was particularly valuable in understanding policy initiatives, startup ecosystem development, and support structures available to foreign entrepreneurs. Invested in Bulgaria’s entrepreneurial future, BESCO has been actively working on introducing various reforms like the Digital Nomad Visa and mechanisms for stimulating angel investors and introducing amendments to the Foreign Direct Investment Act to attract strategic investors in high-value-added industries in less developed regions in Bulgaria.
- BCCI (Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and its Director of International Cooperation and International Organizations, Gabriela Dimitrova, contributed a broader economic perspective, sharing data on foreign investments, sector distribution, and the economic impact of foreign-owned businesses. Their insights highlighted both Bulgaria's competitive advantages and the challenges foreign business owners face when engaging with local partners and navigating the economic environment.
- Legal expertise came from our interview with Plamen Stefanov, an attorney-at-law with significant experience in cross-border cases involving foreign nationals. His insights into the paperwork and its complexities, challenges with the government, and practical tips helped us provide a rounded perspective to both the foreign entrepreneurs reading our findings and the decision-makers in the administration. Particularly illuminating were his observations about how seemingly neutral systems - from banking procedures to residence permit processes - can disproportionately impact non-EU entrepreneurs.
Crafting the manifesto and the resource guide
The manifesto wasn't meant to be a list of complaints. The contributors shared solutions, workarounds, and visions of what could be - real challenges and opportunities. The document needed to include both what foreign entrepreneurs require from Bulgaria's ecosystem and what they bring to it. The manifesto should highlight the reciprocal relationship between the internationals and the local ecosystem, often overlooked in discussions about migration.
We also knew the community would appreciate a resource guide - a list of advice, tips, and suggestions that most of us never had, a collective know-how learned through mistakes. We structured the guide to follow an entrepreneur's journey from starting a business to supporting resources, contacts, and key stats directly from our participants' experiences and the expertise of BCCI, BESCO, and professionals working with foreigners.
Some of the most interesting highlights were about the opportunities Bulgaria offers - and the opportunities foreign entrepreneurs create here. BESCO shared that “over the past decade, Bulgaria has witnessed an increased interest of foreign entrepreneurs as an attractive business destination, particularly in the tech sector.” Gabriela Dimitrova, Director of International Cooperation and International Organizations at BCCI, shared that “statistics show that the value of foreign direct investments in industry is the largest for last year - 13,527 million EUR. The main sectors are: construction, agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. Next comes the service sector - trade, car and motorcycle repair, transport, warehousing and post office, hotel and restaurant industry - 7,793 million EUR. Over the last years, foreign-owned businesses in Bulgaria have provided more than 300,000 jobs. Main jobs are provided by companies from Italy, Germany, Austria, USA.” On top of that, Gabriela adds, Bulgaria's economic freedom score is higher than the world and the European region’s averages, according to the Index of Economic Freedom in 2024.
The expert insights helped contextualize the personal experiences shared in our focus group and connect the individual challenges to systemic issues and potential policy solutions. The attorney Plamen Stefanov shared both a positive development and the problem coming with it: “One positive to highlight is bringing the administration online and obliging it to work with electronic documents and provide electronic services. This is a facilitation for every citizen and business, achieved very quickly after the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. However, as a downside to this, these systems are not particularly friendly to foreigners. It is unlikely that the administration would accept a request for a specific document if you sent it in English.”
When it comes to recommendations to the decision-makers, the experts have some. To leverage the country’s unique upsides, like low corporate tax and EU membership, BESCO suggests positioning Bulgaria as a regional startup hub, strengthening public-private partnerships to accelerate innovation-friendly policies, improving the cooperation between businesses, universities, and institutions, and implementing a deep educational reform. BCCI adds that the best practices Bulgaria could implement should be aimed at improving political stability in the country to provide predictability and sustainability of the companies, adopting measures against corruption and crime, and reducing bureaucratic obstacles.
The “Manifesto of Foreign Entrepreneurs in Bulgaria” and the Resource Guide connect all of these points in a comprehensive structure.
Additional learnings, brought by life
Right in the middle of this project, I needed to address some urgent health issues, which meant learning about the Bulgarian national health system. As an employee, which you still are in your own company, you have to pay certain contributions to the government every month - pension, personal income tax, social security, and health insurance. Unless there’s a law stating that you don’t have to.
Non-EU citizens get the initial “Prolonged” residence permit for the first five years, compared to the “Long-term” one for EU nationals. And, according to Art. 33 p.1, item 3 from the Health Insurance Act, a resident with a Prolonged permit is not obliged to pay the health contributions until they are a permanent resident. They do not have the right to free medical care in Bulgaria and have to pay for all medical services. My accountant helped me claim the already paid contributions, and for five years, I had private health insurance. Importantly, both “Prolonged” and “Long-term” residents have a LNCh, a special personal number for foreigners.
Just before my health challenges appeared, I received a permanent residence, and with it, switched from LNCh to a national EGN number. I started paying those health contributions. But as I learned almost too late, there’s another funny issue that may or may not happen to you: the LNCh doesn’t automatically link to EGN as you switch from a temporary to permanent residence. In the system, I was two different people. With my lawyer’s help, I filed an official request to connect them. Fortunately, they approved it on time for me to benefit from the health system during my hospital stays, and I was exempt from paying five years of health contributions they thought I owed. But this didn’t happen to a friend from Iran, whose files were connected with no issues. The beauty of the Bulgarian administration!
What’s next
The Manifesto, Resource Guide, and this article are just the beginning. The real work starts now - getting these resources to those who need them and initiating conversations with those who can implement changes.
We plan to distribute the materials through community platforms like Bulgaria’s biggest international community, “Foreigners in Sofia and Friends” Facebook group, Multi Kulti’s website, Open Bulgaria’s network, media, business networks, and partner organizations. We will update this article with links to the platforms sharing our findings and connecting to the cause.
These documents and articles are not the end goal nor aspiration. The positive experiences of foreigners building their businesses and lives in Bulgaria are. If someone arriving here in the next few years finds their path slightly smoother because of our work, that's worth celebrating!
This manifesto and the resource guide represent the collective voice of foreign entrepreneurs in Bulgaria, based on experiences shared through focus groups and interviews conducted with the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, BESCO, and attorney-at-law Plamen Stefanov by Anastasiia Dehtiarova. In partnership with Multi Kulti Collective, as part of the Mentorship and Ambassador Program by New Women Connectors.