Bulgarian parliament to introduce patent tax for rental property owners

Bulgaria: Bulgaria’s National Assembly has passed a bill of amendments to the country’s Tax Code, including a provision that will require short-term rental property owners registered under the Tourism Act to pay an annual patent tax.

MPs amended the Tourism Act earlier this month as part of the incoming 2020 Budget Act, to regulate online short-term rental platforms

Under the proposed changes, owners of short-term rental properties would have to be registered with local authorities or go through the same traditional licencing procedure as hotels, known as “categorisation”. Those renting out up to 20 rooms will have to pay a patent tax ranging from 25 leva to 250 leva (between 12 and 128 euros) per year for each room.

The size of the patent tax would be dependent on each individual municipality, according to the head of Parliament’s budget committee Menda Stoyanova.

Stoyanova, along with Valeri Simeonov, co-leader of the junior government coalition partner United Patriots, told news agency Focus that they were aiming to make short-rental activities subject to taxation, “taking them out of the grey economy”.