If you live in Italy, you will very often have seen cars driving around the streets of your cities, especially SUVs or large-engined vehicles, with Bulgarian license plates, recognizable by the typical wording "BG" printed together with the other alphanumeric characters.

The presence of cars with Bulgarian license plates is a growing phenomenon in our country, as are, in contrast, the news that speak of measures taken by the police against Italian citizens accused of fraud against the state precisely because, through illegal use of Bulgarian license plates, they illegally circumvented Italian tax laws.

At this point the doubt is legitimate: is there a way to register a car in Bulgaria without running any risk with the tax authorities and more generally (fraud is a criminal crime) with the Italian justice system? The answer is yes, it is absolutely possible to do it and indeed, to be honest, we at VR and Partners often deal with this type of need.

But let's proceed in order and do so by answering what, in our experience, are the questions of those who find themselves for the first time in the need or in any case in the desire to register their own or company car in Bulgaria.

Can a car registered in Bulgaria circulate in Italy?

The answer to this first question is yes, a car with a Bulgarian license plate can circulate freely in Italy because, as we have said several times on this blog, Bulgaria has been an EU state in all respects for almost 15 years now and therefore it benefits from the free movement of people and goods within the borders of the EU itself. The only condition for a car with a Bulgarian license plate to be able to circulate in Italy is that it has RCA insurance recognized in our country.

Who can register cars in Bulgaria?

Here we get a little closer to the essence of the discussion because we begin to talk more about bureaucracy from within. Well according to the current decisions a car can be registered in Bulgaria by citizens with Bulgarian residence or by companies with registered office in Bulgaria. These are two "obstacles" that can be easily circumvented and we at VR and Partners have the ability to support you for both types of operations, that is, both for the request for Bulgarian citizenship both for the creation or migration of your business to this country.

Are there any limits to the circulation in Italy of cars with Bulgarian license plates belonging to Italian citizens?

Here it is good to be clear. If you are an Italian citizen, you can use a car registered in Bulgaria on Italian territory for a maximum of 12 months, after which you are forced to request Italian registration. If you are resident in Bulgaria but born in Italy, there are no limits to your stay in the Bel Paese with a Bulgarian registered car, except for compliance with the requirements for maintaining Bulgarian citizenship which we told you about in this post.

Even if the car was rented from a Bulgarian company, it is possible to travel freely in Italy but, in the event of checks, you may be asked for documentation certifying the reasons for your stay in Italy. In other words, it is not possible to rent a car in Bulgaria and use it in Italy if you still have your residence in Italy. You would incur the crime of foreign investment which leads to the immediate seizure of the vehicle as well as heavy fines.

What are the advantages of a car in Bulgaria?

The advantages of the Bulgarian license plate are all economic. The cost of the road tax in Bulgaria is less than a third, with the same power of the vehicle, of what you would pay in Italy, on average it does not exceed 100 euros per year. For insurance it's even better because here the costs are even a quarter of those you would have to pay in Italy for the same car. It is worth highlighting an important concept here which links us to the next point: be careful because not all Bulgarian insurance companies are recognized in Italy!

Finally there is the controversial aspect of fines. What happens if a fine is imposed on a car with Bulgarian license plates circulating in Italy and registered to a citizen residing in Bulgaria? We know that it is practically impossible for the Italian State, except through long and expensive procedures, to collect a fine from a citizen with Bulgarian residence (regardless of whether he was actually born in Bulgaria or elsewhere) or from a Bulgarian company. This means that cars with Bulgarian license plates are subject to substantial immunity when circulating in Italy. The topic is controversial, we recognize it, but at the moment, according to the international agreements, the situation is essentially this.

Who to contact to register a car in Bulgaria

Our advice, if you intend to register a car in Bulgaria, is to absolutely avoid doing it yourself because this approach, in our experience, takes you straight to the legal/tax problems we talked about in the previous paragraphs of this post

Better to rely on the experience and seriousness of an agency present in Bulgaria such as VR and Partners for:

  • Having native Bulgarian speaking staff who can quickly handle all the procedures for registering the vehicle at the local offices without having to take on the need for an ad hoc trip to Sofia just for this purpose
  • Have legal advice to ensure that the entire registration procedure is carried out in full compliance with Bulgarian and Italian tax and criminal laws
  • Get advice when choosing car insurance
  • Obtain advice regarding the possible need to move your residence or the registered office of your company to Bulgaria