The second instalment of property tax and of the household waste fee for 2026 is due by 31 October. It is a good moment to look calmly at what an owner actually pays every year, what it is charged on, which reliefs are most often missed, and what is about to change.
What follows is based on Bulgaria's Local Taxes and Fees Act and the National Revenue Agency's guidance, verified as of September 2026. The actual rates are set by each municipal council in its own ordinance — the numbers for your municipality have to be checked there.
The owner of the property is liable. Where a right of use has been established over the property, the tax is owed by the holder of that right rather than by the owner (Art. 11). The owner of a building erected on state or municipal land is also liable for the land, or for the relevant part of it.
Two points surprise people most often:
The tax covers land plots, buildings and self-contained units within buildings inside the construction boundaries of settlements, as well as land plots outside them. Agricultural land and forests are not taxed, except for the area actually built on and the land serving it (Art. 10(3)).
The base is the tax valuation of the property as at 1 January of the relevant year, communicated to liable persons by 1 March (Arts. 19–20).
For homes owned by individuals, the tax valuation is derived from the norms in Annex 2 to the Act — by type of property, location, area, construction and depreciation. It has no direct relationship to market price and is as a rule considerably lower.
The rate is set by the municipal council in an ordinance and by law must fall between 0.1 and 4.5 per mille of the tax valuation (Art. 22). The two ends of that range differ by a factor of 45, which is why comparisons of "property tax" between municipalities mean nothing unless the rate is stated.
It is this tax valuation that is due to be recalculated. What is known about the reform so far is set out in a separate article.
For a property that is your main residence, the tax is due with a 50% reduction (Art. 25(1)). Where the main residence belongs to a person with 50–100% reduced working capacity, the reduction is 75% (Art. 25(2)).
A main residence is the property that meets the housing needs of the individual and their family for the greater part of the year (§ 1(2) of the Supplementary Provisions). "Family" here means spouses and their unmarried minor children (§ 1(3)).
The trap sits in paragraph 3: if more than one main residence is found to have been declared, the relief is not applied at all and full tax is due on each of the properties for the period during which both were declared as main.
In practice this happens in two situations: when a new home is bought and the old one remains declared as the main residence; and in families where the spouses each kept separate declarations from before the marriage. If you are buying a home that will become your main residence, check what is on file for your previous property before submitting the new declaration.
The fee is due for three services:
The amount is set annually for each settlement by decision of the municipal council, on the basis of an approved cost plan for each of those activities (Art. 66(1)). If the council has not set an amount for the current year by the end of the previous one, the fee is collected at the rate in force on 31 December of that previous year.
When no fee is due. No fee is owed for a service the municipality does not in fact provide (Art. 71). Nor is the collection-and-transport component owed if the property will not be used for the whole year and all of its owners or users have filed the prescribed declaration by the end of the previous year with the municipality where the property is located.
This matters for holiday homes, inherited houses and flats standing empty. The declaration is filed in advance, never retroactively — a missed deadline means paying for the whole of the following year.
The Act provides for the fee to be set according to the quantity of household waste, and where that quantity cannot be established, per user or proportionally on a basis determined by the municipal council. This is the "polluter pays" principle.
Its application, however, has been postponed repeatedly. On 17 December 2025 Parliament adopted transitional and final provisions to the Act (through the so-called extension law for 2026) expressly allowing the fee to be set during 2026 as well on the previous basis — tax valuation, book value and other objective indicators. Municipal ordinances and decisions adopted under the old regime keep their legal force through 2026.
There is a further provision: a municipality that is ready to apply the new regime but fails to adopt the cost plan by 31 January 2026 may collect the fee at the rate in force on 31 December 2025.
When the reform will apply on a mandatory basis has not been settled unambiguously, and different dates circulate publicly. So treat headlines with caution: what governs your property is your own municipality's ordinance for the year in question.
Property tax is paid to the municipality where the property is located in two equal instalments — by 30 June and by 31 October of the year for which it is due (Art. 28(1)).
A 5% discount is available to those who pay the full annual amount by 30 April (Art. 28(2)). For 2026 that date has passed; the next opportunity is in spring 2027.
Tax not paid on time is collected together with interest under the Act on Interest on Taxes, Fees and Other Similar State Receivables (Art. 4(2)).
If the property was acquired during the current year, the tax is paid within the same deadlines. Where the acquisition falls after they have expired, the tax is paid within two months of the acquisition date.
Deadlines for the waste fee are set by the municipal council (Art. 69). In most municipalities they coincide with the tax deadlines, but the law does not require that — check your municipality's own notice.
This is where most misunderstandings arise around the notary.
That is why the property's municipal tax file is checked early in a transaction. Outstanding liabilities on it are settled before the notary, not after. What else is checked in the documents is set out in our guide on legal checks before buying a property.
For the tax side of the sale itself — when it is exempt and when it is not — see Tax when selling property. If the property is let out, our guide to rental income tax applies as well.
Exempt from the tax are buildings commissioned before 1 January 1990, respectively before 1 January 2005, which have been certified for energy consumption class "B", "C" or "D" under the Energy Efficiency Act — for a period of three to ten years, counted from the year following the year the certificate was issued (Art. 24(1)(18) and (19) and Art. 24(6)). The exemption does not apply where the certification results from measures financed with public funds.
In other words: if the condominium renovated at its own expense and the building has been certified, the exemption is real — but it has to be claimed by declaration at the municipality, since it is not applied automatically. The subject will become more tangible if the energy class becomes mandatory in property listings, as proposed in the draft amendments to the Energy Efficiency Act.
A declaration under Art. 14 is filed within two months of acquiring the property, of a conversion or change of use, of any circumstance relevant to determining the tax, and when claiming an exemption or a relief. For inherited property the deadline is six months from the opening of the succession.
No declaration is required where:
A declaration is required, however, in order to claim a main residence, an exemption or a relief. That is the step most often skipped — and the one that costs money.
For a declaration filed late, or for incorrect data leading to a lower tax, the Act provides for fines on individuals and financial penalties on legal entities (Art. 123).
On every transaction we check the property's municipal tax file and the state of any liabilities towards the municipality before a preliminary contract is signed, alongside the rest of the document review. With inherited property we establish whether a tax file has been opened and whether the declarations were filed. And for a buyer who is changing homes, we flag the main-residence declaration: it is the step most often missed after a purchase, and one of the few that shows up directly on the bill every year.
Property tax is charged on the tax valuation as at 1 January, at a rate between 0.1 and 4.5 per mille set by the municipal council. A main residence attracts a 50% reduction — but only one property can be it. The second instalment for 2026 is due by 31 October, and the 5% discount applies only to payment of the full annual amount by 30 April. The waste fee is set through the municipality's cost plan, and for 2026 municipalities are entitled to determine it on the previous basis.
If you are buying, selling or inheriting a property and want to know exactly what you will owe and which reliefs you qualify for, call us or come by the office. We will look at your particular case together.
Information current as of September 2026, based on the Local Taxes and Fees Act and the National Revenue Agency's guidance. Specific rates, waste-fee deadlines and declaration forms are set by the relevant municipality.
