Bulgaria digital nomad visa now live with €31,000 income threshold
Bulgaria’s digital nomad visa, formally launched on 20 December 2025, is now live and accepting applications. The income threshold requires applicants to demonstrate annual income of at least 50 times the Bulgarian monthly minimum wage, which works out to approximately €31,000 per year at current rates. That places Bulgaria as the EU’s lowest income-threshold DNV currently available, well below Spain’s €34,188 annual equivalent, Greece’s €42,000, and Croatia’s €43,470.
The visa is initially valid for one year, renewable, with a residence permit applied for within 14 days of arrival in Bulgaria. The launch was timed to coincide with Bulgaria’s Schengen accession and euro adoption, both completed in early 2026, which makes the package particularly compelling: a Bulgarian DNV holder now gets Schengen mobility from day one and a stable euro-denominated cost base.
Why this matters for remote workers and digital nomads: For remote workers whose incomes sit below the Spanish or Portuguese thresholds, Bulgaria is now genuinely competitive on entry requirements. The cost of living in Sofia or Plovdiv is substantially lower than Madrid, Lisbon, Athens or Zagreb, and the new euro-denominated framework removes the currency-conversion friction that the lev added previously. Bulgaria’s flat 10% personal income tax rate (the lowest in the EU) is preserved for residents who qualify under its tax regime, which makes the visa attractive not just to budget-conscious applicants but to higher-income remote workers who want the lowest tax-rate option among the bloc’s stable Schengen states.
The trade-offs are well known but worth flagging. English-language local services are thinner than in Spain or Portugal, especially outside Sofia. Healthcare quality varies sharply by city. The DNV explicitly excludes work for Bulgarian employers or Bulgarian-domiciled clients, which is the standard pattern across European DNVs.
Context: Bulgaria’s DNV launch fills the southern-eastern European bottom-end of the bloc’s income-threshold map. Compared to Croatia’s €3,622.50/month (also updated in 2026), Bulgaria’s €31,000 annual equivalent is around 30% lower. For the cohort of remote workers earning €25,000 to €35,000 a year, that gap is often the difference between qualifying for an EU residence permit and not. For a full European DNV comparison, see Remote Work Europe’s country guides.
What to watch: First-cohort processing times (Bulgarian consular speed varies); whether the income-threshold formula gets revised as the lev-to-euro transition completes; and any moves by Romania (the obvious neighbouring market) to match the threshold.
Verify the current minimum-wage multiplier and exact threshold against the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs or a qualified Bulgarian immigration adviser before applying; the figure tracks the minimum wage and may move with it.