Unfortunately it is not easy anymore. I have same issue for my sofware company. It is very hard to open real bank account in EU for offshore. If your clients are in EU, you can open EU company in Bulgaria etc. and put your offshore company as full shareholder. You will be tax free but the opening bank account will not be easy. I did it for my business and it works. But I put EU citizen director to show them as reliable company.
Can you please stop this bulls**t about Bulgaria "offshore/bank account" paradise. I have seen 3-4 posts here from people who claimed to be living in Bulgaria and have companies in Bulgaria.
Well if you were in Bulgaria for at least 1 month you would know 10% over your corporate income must be paid to National Revenue Agency (bank account).
"Corporate Income Tax rate
The corporation tax rate is 10% (чл. 20 от ЗКПО)".
"Withholding Tax rate
The tax rate of the income tax under чл. 194 от ЗКПО of the CITA (dividends and liquidation shares) is 5%.
The tax rate of the tax on the remaining income under чл. 195 от ЗКПО is 10%.
"
And VAT - 20%!
And huge health insurance for every empoyee!
And Bulgarian accountant company because of language and weird laws. They are often unskilled and lack of knowledge. Under some laws and regulations, if the bulgarian accountant company makes a mistake, gov (national agency) can take 50% of your funds and you are responsible for all mistakes as a company owner. In some countries like Serbia, your accountant shares the responsability with you, however, in Bulgaria the company owner takes the "hit" and your accountant can go away or even work a deal with revenue agency inspectors and share % of the "blackmail". The law is Bulgaria is full of holes, so the national agency could come anytime and find mistakes/suspicious deals. I have found an article today and one of the top financial managers and ex-financial minister has been sent to court. And there you go citizen law says his deals were legit, but there is another law and that guy is guilty under that second law. So welcome to the "hole", here you need a HUGE umbrella from the gov in order to operate business or they will eat you alive with your company and money like piranhas. I do not want to say "sharks" because I believe sharks have some honor and piranhas will everything on their way including clothes.
The admin will kill me for this second post. But if you want to open a bank account in Bulgaria with your offshore company you need 2 things:
1. Find a bulgarian lawyer/low level bank clerk (preferable nice looking girl)
2. Enough money to bribe them
No EU directors, no hidden tricks, no bulls**t.
With the right connections and enough money, they could even "forget" to write your name/your director name in bank documents.
Basically regular bank clerks in Bulgari are cheap and underpaid. But they have the power to open bank accounts and that process in their control. In most banks they can open you a bank account for 2 minutes (you have to wait 5-7 days for credit/debit plastic card). Lets say you only need a bank account the right bank clerk can fix ur issue and register under any name/company/whatsoever and that bank acc with its IBAN will be fully functional after 2 minutes, so you can load it and such. You need to pay attention that you need something called "active online banking" to control your funds, basically send bank transfers. Different banks have different approaches and security methods to provide this services. I will not go into details I have my personal fav bank, but I will not mention in here.
Anyways in Bulgaria all you need is money to bribe them and the right people to help you/connect you. Everything in that damn country works based on this principle. So do not spend money on stupid things and to make your company/activity look more legit, spend the money to bribe bulgarian middle man and bank clerks instead.
I am giving this information for free and I do not offer any services!
