Reviewed for legal accuracy
Reviewed by Adriana Melnikliyska
This article was reviewed by Adriana Melnikliyska, Attorney-at-law since 2003, Blagoevgrad Bar Association (Bar No. 1900000227). She also has her own practice at lawyerbulgaria.cc and is Bulgarian.LLC’s in-house attorney. Her registration can be checked on the national Bar register and the Blagoevgrad Bar Association register.
On 1 August 2026 Bulgaria stopped treating gambling affiliates as marketing suppliers and started treating them as licensed participants in the gambling market. The rules arrived through the transitional provisions of the State Budget Act for 2026, published in State Gazette issue 69, which rewrote the Gambling Act rather than creating a separate regime.
Two numbers describe the change. A licensed affiliate pays a state fee of €6,000 a year, and a further 10% of every performance-based commission is withheld by the gambling operator and remitted to the National Revenue Agency before the money reaches you.
If you are reading this after the fact, the transitional window has already closed: affiliates with contracts in place on 1 August had until 15 August 2026 to file. That does not close the route. It changes what your first conversation with the regulator sounds like, and it changes what a Bulgarian operator’s compliance team will ask before it pays your next invoice.
What the licence actually covers
The Gambling Act now lists the promotion of gambling by affiliate operators as a regulated activity in its own right (art. 1, item 3). What pulls you into the regime is not the size of your site or where you live. It is how you are paid: remuneration tied to an agreed performance indicator — players referred, accounts registered, deposits made, bets placed, or a share of gambling revenue.
| Inside the regime | Outside it, on current wording |
|---|---|
| CPA per registered or depositing player | Flat-fee brand placement with no performance metric |
| Revenue share on net gaming revenue | Media sold by an operator directly, with no intermediary commission |
| Hybrid deals (CPA plus revenue share) | Traffic that is not directed at Bulgarian players at all |
| Sub-affiliate networks paid on downstream performance | Editorial coverage with no commercial relationship behind it |
The label on your invoice does not decide the question. The contract does, and so does the way the amount is actually calculated. A revenue share renamed as a “monthly retainer” that moves up and down with player deposits is still remuneration linked to performance, and the first person to notice will be the operator’s own compliance officer, who now carries the withholding duty.
The money is two components, not one
Affiliates read the €6,000 and treat it as the price of entry. That is not enough. The real annual cost has three layers: the fixed state fee, the 10% that never reaches your bank account, and the running cost of being a regulated entity that files, reports and answers questions.
| Bulgarian commission per year | 10% withheld | Annual licence fee | Total taken before your costs | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| €60,000 | €6,000 | €6,000 | €12,000 | 20.0% |
| €240,000 | €24,000 | €6,000 | €30,000 | 12.5% |
| €960,000 | €96,000 | €6,000 | €102,000 | 10.6% |
Read the last column before you read anything else in this article. The fixed fee makes the regime regressive: a small affiliate with €60,000 of Bulgarian commission gives up a fifth of it before paying for content, media or staff, while a large one gives up roughly a tenth. The break-even question is not “can I afford €6,000”. It is whether Bulgarian traffic clears the fee at all.
Two more details decide whether the model still works. The 10% is charged on gross commission, not on your margin, so a paid-media arbitrage model with a thin spread can go negative on Bulgarian traffic while looking healthy everywhere else. And the withholding happens monthly at the operator’s end, which changes your cash flow immediately rather than at year end.
On top of that sits ordinary taxation of what remains. A Bulgarian company pays 10% corporate tax and 5% dividend tax on distribution — run your own figures in the Bulgaria tax calculator rather than assuming the withholding is the end of it.
Who can hold the licence
Affiliate activity may be carried out by Bulgarian and foreign legal entities, including sole traders (art. 4, para. 7). You do not have to incorporate in Bulgaria to be licensed, which is the single most common misunderstanding in the market right now.
- Foreign applicants declare a representative in Bulgaria empowered to sign contracts (art. 4, para. 8). The representative is a real obligation with a real address, not a mailbox formality
- You may work only with licensed organisers (art. 4, para. 9, and the prohibitions in art. 9, items 19–20). Promoting an operator that does not hold a Bulgarian licence is prohibited outright, whether or not you yourself are licensed
- Refusal grounds are personal, not corporate (art. 8, para. 6): a licence revoked in the previous 12 months, earlier sanctions, or a revocation in another jurisdiction will follow the people behind the applicant
- Advertising limits apply to your creative (art. 10, para. 9), not only to the operator’s. The restrictions that shaped Bulgarian gambling advertising now shape affiliate pages, video and social posts too
The application, and the clock you are now on
Applications go to the National Revenue Agency, which took over gambling supervision after the State Commission on Gambling was closed. The Act provides an expedited route for affiliate files — a decision window of 7 days against the standard 60 days used for operator licences (art. 23, para. 10) — on the assumption that the file is complete when it arrives. Licences run for five years.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1 August 2026 | Amendments in force. Promotion by an unlicensed affiliate, and promotion of an unlicensed operator, both prohibited |
| 15 August 2026 | Deadline for affiliates already under contract on 1 August to file and stay in the market while the file is reviewed |
| After that date | New entrants apply cold: no transitional protection, and operators are expected to check the register before paying |
In practice the file is corporate documents, the ownership chain up to the beneficial owners, the power of attorney for the Bulgarian representative where the applicant is foreign, the contracts you hold with licensed operators, and a declaration of the channels you use.
That last item is the one affiliates underestimate. You are declaring the full map of your properties — websites, mobile applications, social profiles, video and streaming channels. It is an inventory most portfolios have never written down in one place, and adding a property later is an amendment to a licence rather than a line in a spreadsheet.
What happens to unlicensed traffic
The enforcement tools sit with the director of the revenue agency, who may order the blocking of internet pages, mobile applications, and social and video profiles through which unlicensed affiliates operate (art. 17, para. 1, item 9a). The agency already runs a blacklist of unlicensed gambling sites and has moved it to a daily refresh, which banks and payment providers use to stop transactions.
The realistic risk, though, is commercial rather than dramatic. A licensed Bulgarian operator cannot lawfully pay an unlicensed affiliate, and it now carries the withholding duty on the payments it does make. Long before any blocking order is drafted, the invoice simply stops being paid, and the affiliate manager who used to answer your emails starts routing them to legal.
That is the asymmetry worth planning around: your content keeps ranking, your traffic keeps converting, and the revenue line goes to zero anyway.
Why the rule exists, and why enforcement will not be lazy
This did not arrive through a gambling policy review. It arrived inside a budget. The finance ministry put the untaxed commission flowing through gambling intermediaries at roughly 450–500 million leva a year, around €230–256 million at the fixed conversion rate of 1.95583, and expects the new regime to bring in about €100 million in 2026 and €150 million in 2027.
Numbers of that size, written into a budget that has already been voted, change how a regulator behaves. A revenue line the treasury is counting on gets chased; a policy aspiration does not. The blacklist moving from monthly to daily updates is the visible sign of that, and the banks and payment providers reading it are the reason an unlicensed affiliate feels this as a payments problem rather than a legal one.
It also tells you who the target is. A regime that collects a levy at the operator’s end is aimed at money that leaves Bulgaria — commissions paid by Bulgarian-licensed operators to intermediaries abroad, invisible to the tax system until now. If you are a foreign affiliate with meaningful Bulgarian volume, you are not caught by accident. You are the point.
What changes inside your operator contracts
The licence is the visible half of this. The half that decides your revenue is the contract, because the operator now carries a duty that used to be nobody’s: withholding 10% of your commission and remitting it. Expect four clauses to appear or change.
- Withholding language. Whether the 10% comes off the agreed rate or is added on top is a commercial question the statute does not answer for you. Silence in the contract means it comes out of your side
- Licence warranties and termination. Operators will want the right to suspend payment the moment your licence lapses, is refused or is under review — and their own licence gives them a strong reason to insist
- Channel lists. Because your declared channels are now part of a regulatory file, operators will start asking which properties a campaign runs on, and they will care if the answer changes mid-flight
- Indemnities. If your creative breaches Bulgarian advertising limits, the operator’s exposure is its own licence. Indemnity language that used to be boilerplate becomes something to read properly
There is a rate conversation buried in all of this. A 30% revenue share that now delivers 27% net is not the deal that was signed, and the operators know it. Affiliates who renegotiate early tend to get a partial adjustment; affiliates who raise it after two quarters of reduced payouts tend to be told the market has repriced.
The restructuring options that actually exist
Three routes get proposed in affiliate forums. Two of them work in some cases and one does not work at all.
| Route | Does it hold up |
|---|---|
| Move Bulgarian deals to flat-fee media placements | Sometimes. It removes the performance link, but only if the fee genuinely stops tracking player value — and the advertising restrictions still apply to the creative |
| Keep the traffic, drop the Bulgarian-licensed operators | No. Promoting operators without a Bulgarian licence to Bulgarian players is prohibited in its own right, and that is the conduct the blocking powers were written for |
| Separate the Bulgarian-facing properties into a licensed entity, leave the rest outside | Usually the cleanest. It contains the fixed fee and the reporting inside one company, and it keeps the rest of the portfolio out of a Bulgarian regulatory file |
Sub-affiliate networks need one extra answer: who in the chain is licensed. If you are paid on downstream performance and you pay others on the same basis, the promotion is happening at both levels, and “my partner handles that” is not a status the register recognises.
How this compares with the rest of the EU
Most European markets reach affiliates indirectly. The state licenses the operator, the operator is made responsible for its marketing chain, and the affiliate is bound by contract rather than by a permit. Bulgaria has cut out that middle step and licensed the affiliate directly, with a fee attached to the licence and a levy attached to the commission.
The practical difference is who carries the risk. Under the indirect model, a compliance failure costs you a partner. Under the Bulgarian model it costs you a permit, and the register that operators check before paying is public. It also means the ordinary escape hatch — moving the company somewhere friendlier — does not help here, because the trigger is the traffic and the audience, not your registered address.
What to prepare, in order
- A channel inventory. Every site, application, social profile and streaming channel that touches Bulgarian players, with ownership and access details. This is the document nobody has and everybody needs
- A contract review. Which agreements carry a performance component, in substance rather than in wording, and which counterparties hold a Bulgarian licence
- A representative decision. Bulgarian entity, or a foreign entity with a declared representative who can sign contracts here
- Cash-flow arithmetic. The 10% leaves monthly at the operator’s end, so the first affected month is the first month of the arrangement, not the year end
- An exit test. The volume below which geo-blocking Bulgaria is cheaper than being licensed. Write the number down before the fee is due, not after
When you do not need this licence
Plenty of affiliates are being sold a Bulgarian licence they do not need. Four situations where the honest answer is no.
- Your traffic is not Bulgarian-facing. Language, targeting, currency and the licence footprint of the operators you promote decide this together. A pan-European site that happens to receive Bulgarian visitors is a different case from one that runs Bulgarian-language pages against Bulgarian-licensed brands
- There is no performance component. A genuine flat fee for brand placement sits outside the definition — but the advertising restrictions still apply, and a “flat fee” that tracks deposits invites the obvious question about what it is actually paying for
- You sell media, not players. An operator buying placements directly, with no intermediary taking a commission, is not creating an affiliate relationship
- The arithmetic says stop. If Bulgarian commission is under roughly €60,000 a year, the fixed fee alone takes 10% of it before the withholding starts. Geo-blocking Bulgaria is a legitimate commercial answer, and for part of the market it is the correct one
We would rather say that now than after an engagement. The honest part: this is the point where Bulgaria loses. A regime built on a flat €6,000 plus a levy on gross commission is designed to make small-scale Bulgarian affiliate activity uneconomic, and it will succeed at that. If your portfolio is broad and Bulgaria is one line in it, the market you are being asked to buy into may simply be worth less than the file it now requires.
Does this mean you need a Bulgarian company?
Not as a matter of law. A foreign entity can hold the licence, provided it declares a representative in Bulgaria. The reasons to incorporate anyway are practical rather than legal:
- The representative requirement disappears when the applicant is itself Bulgarian
- Operators’ compliance teams process a domestic counterparty faster, and the withholding mechanics sit in one tax system rather than two
- Corporate tax of 10% and dividend tax of 5% apply to what survives the withholding
- Invoicing, banking and contract law all run in the same jurisdiction as the regulator reviewing your file
And the reasons not to: a second entity costs money to run, substance matters if the tax position is ever tested, and an empty Bulgarian shell with a foreign team is a weaker file than a foreign company that declares a proper representative. If you do decide to incorporate, company formation in Bulgaria and the ongoing bookkeeping obligations are the two costs to price before the licence, not after it.
The affiliate licence is one of a dozen Bulgarian authorisations that work this way — activity-specific, regulator-specific, and cheaper to plan than to repair. The full map is on our business licensing in Bulgaria page, and the operator side of the same market is covered in our gambling licence guide.
FAQ
Is gambling affiliate marketing still legal in Bulgaria?
Yes, with a licence. Since 1 August 2026 promoting gambling for performance-based remuneration requires an affiliate operator licence from the National Revenue Agency, and promoting an operator that is not licensed in Bulgaria is prohibited regardless of your own status.
How much does the Bulgarian affiliate licence cost?
€6,000 a year for the licence itself, plus 10% of every performance commission withheld by the operator before payment. On €60,000 of annual Bulgarian commission that is €12,000, or 20% of the gross, before your own costs and before corporate tax.
I missed the 15 August deadline. What now?
The transitional rule protected affiliates who were already under contract on 1 August and filed by 15 August. If you filed later, treat yourself as unlicensed until the decision arrives, and expect operators to treat you the same way. Applying late is still applying — it just removes the cover you would have had.
Do I need a Bulgarian company to get the licence?
No. Bulgarian and foreign legal entities can both hold it, including sole traders. A foreign applicant has to declare a representative in Bulgaria who can sign contracts, which is why many affiliates incorporate anyway rather than manage that relationship from abroad.
Does this cover social media and streaming?
Yes. The enforcement provisions name internet pages, mobile applications, and social and video profiles, and the application asks you to declare the channels you use. A streamer paid on referred players is in exactly the same position as a comparison site.
What happens if I keep sending Bulgarian traffic without a licence?
Two things, in this order. Licensed operators stop paying you, because they cannot lawfully pay an unlicensed affiliate and they carry the withholding duty. Then the blocking powers become available — pages, apps and profiles — and the daily-updated blacklist reaches banks and payment providers.
Where to start
The first question is classification, not paperwork: whether your deals carry a performance component, whether your traffic is Bulgarian-facing, and whether the volume clears the fixed fee. Those three answers decide whether you file, restructure the contracts, or geo-block and move on.
If you want that decided against your actual contracts rather than in the abstract, book a paid consultation and bring two of them — the largest by revenue and the one you are least sure about. Government fees, translations and notary costs are billed separately.
Daniel Malbašić is a business expert with extensive experience in the field of business consulting, organization and business optimization. His expertise includes market analysis, strategic planning, and implementation of effective business solutions. Daniel is dedicated to helping companies grow and improve their operations, providing them with comprehensive support in making key business decisions.