How do people in Bulgaria pay online?
Fewer Bulgarians shop online than the EU average. Eurostat puts the share of people who bought something online in the previous 12 months at 51.20% in 2025, against an EU average of 73.56%. The World Bank’s Global Findex puts the share of adults with an account at 84.7% in 2024, so about 15% of adults have no account to pay from.
Cards run through national infrastructure. BORICA, which operates the Bulgarian card payment system, provides virtual POS terminals for web shops and apps, and the 3-D Secure services issuers use to confirm online card payments: Visa Secure, Mastercard Identity Check and b-secured for the domestic bcard. On 1 January 2026, more than 35 banks, payment providers and other participants moved Bulgaria’s card infrastructure to the euro, and BORICA reported more than 930,000 card and ATM transactions worth nearly EUR 42 million in the first 48 hours.
Local services add other ways to pay. ePay.bg lets shoppers pay from an ePay micro account or a bank account, or settle in cash at a pay desk. EasyPay runs a network of offices for payments and financial services, where people pay bills and other payments in cash.
What rules shape online payments in Bulgaria?
Prices are in euro. Bulgaria introduced the euro on 1 January 2026 at a fixed rate of EUR 1 = BGN 1.95583. Lev and euro circulated side by side until 31 January 2026, and from 1 February 2026 the lev is no longer legal tender, so checkouts, invoices and refunds are in EUR.
VAT is 20%, with a reduced rate of 9% for listed goods such as baby food, books and periodicals. A seller established in another EU country whose cross-border sales to consumers across the EU pass EUR 10,000 a year charges Bulgarian VAT on sales to Bulgarian customers, and can declare it through the One Stop Shop. For businesses established in Bulgaria, the VAT registration threshold is EUR 51,130 from 1 January 2026.
Shoppers have 14 days to withdraw. As across the EU, a consumer who buys online can cancel within 14 days of delivery without giving a reason. EU Directive 2023/2673 adds a withdrawal button from 19 June 2026: a clearly labelled online withdrawal function, a confirmation step and an acknowledgement on a durable medium.
Payments follow EU rules. Online card payments over EUR 30 generally need strong customer authentication with two separate factors, and traders cannot charge a fee for paying with a consumer debit or credit card issued in the EU.
How would Omno route payments in Bulgaria?
A merchant would connect once and set routing rules per method, currency, amount and customer group. In Bulgaria:
- Card pay-ins would be routed by rules on card type, issuing country and amount, and if a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, the payment would move to the next provider in the rule until one accepts.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay could sit on the hosted checkout next to the card form, following the same card routing rules.
- ePay.bg and cash payment options would go to providers that support them, with the order pending until the provider confirms the payment.
Webhooks would report the final status of every payment, the record a back office should trust before shipping an order, and the routing-decision log would show which provider handled each payment and why.
What should merchants plan for?
Plan for EUR everywhere. Prices, payment currencies, invoices and refunds for Bulgarian customers are in euro, and amounts from older orders taken in leva convert at the fixed rate of BGN 1.95583 to EUR 1.
Plan for cards first, with local options alongside. Cards run through BORICA’s national infrastructure, while ePay.bg and cash payment networks serve shoppers who prefer not to pay by card.
Plan for the withdrawal button and VAT. Every checkout that sells under the 14-day withdrawal right needs a visible online withdrawal function, and EU sellers should check whether their sales pass the EUR 10,000 threshold.