It doesn’t matter where your HQ is, we can tell you one thing: Bulgaria has different labor laws than your home country (well, unless your home country is Bulgaria, of course). If you don’t do things right, you’ll be putting your company at the risk of fines—and risk losing the talent you brought onboard.
If you want to successfully hire in
Bulgaria
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Bulgaria
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Panther for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Bulgaria
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Bulgaria
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Panther’s locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Panther, then $49 per month to hire your contractors with Panther. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Bulgaria
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and generally puts you at a bigger risk for legal fees. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but even then, misclassification penalties are often minimal and just require you to pay off any compensation that the person would have been owed as an employee.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Bulgaria
, you can pay them with Panther in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Bulgaria than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Bulgaria
PTO is calculated by the:
There are 16 public holidays.
The duration of sick leave entitlement provided to workers is dependent on how long they have been employed by their employer:
410 days, paid at 90% of basic income (average gross wage in the 24 months prior). Maternity leave can begin 45 days before the birth of the child. The first 135 days are mandatory.
New fathers are entitled to 15 days leave paid at 90% basic income rate.
After the baby reaches the age of 6 months, any part of the remaining maternity leave can to transferred to the father.
None.
In the event of their marriage employees are entitled to paid leave for 2 days.
Employees are entitled for two days of leave to attend the funeral of a family member.
An employer must provide the employee with a month’s written notice regarding the termination.
The notice period can be up to 3 months if stated in a contractual agreement.
The notice period in Bulgaria is:
One month minimum, three months maximum, depending on terms of the contract.
The Severance Pay in Bulgaria depends on:
Employees who are cut for reasons of redundancy or if the company is closing or downsizing are entitled to one month’s pay in severance.
Probation period is 6 months.
Full-time employment is considered 40 hours weekly, and 8 hours daily.
Overtime cannot exceed 3 hours per day (2 hours at night) over two consecutive days, 6 hours (4 at night) in a week, 30 hours (20 at night) in a month and 150 hours in one year.
Overtime is paid at a rate of +50% for regular days; +75% for weekends; +100% for national holidays.
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