Editorial standards

This site tells people what a visa costs, what tax they will owe and whether a town empties out in winter. Those answers change what people do with their money and their year, so this page sets out how they are produced — and how to hold us to it.

Where the numbers come from

Figures are taken from primary Bulgarian sources wherever one exists: the National Revenue Agency for tax and contributions, the Migration Directorate and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for visas and permits, the Bulgarian National Bank for the euro changeover, the energy regulator KEVR for electricity tariffs, the Communications Regulation Commission for telecoms, and the operators’ and municipalities’ own published price lists.

Every guide ends with a Sources section listing what it was built from. If a figure cannot be confirmed against a real source, it is given as a range with the basis stated, or left out. A precise-looking invented number is worse than an honest range.

What the dates mean

The “Updated” date on a guide moves only when the text actually changes. It is stored separately from the record’s own timestamp precisely so that routine maintenance cannot refresh it. If a guide says it was updated in August, something in it was genuinely rewritten in August.

Corrections

Rules here change often and prices change faster. If something is wrong, tell us: the contact form has a correction option, and a link to the page plus what is wrong is enough. Corrections are read first. When one lands, the guide is fixed and its date moves — we do not quietly patch a page and leave the old date standing.

How the site makes money

• Advertising. Google serves the ads. We do not choose the advertisers, and no advertiser sees a guide before it is published or influences what it says.
• Affiliate links. A few links earn a commission if you use them. Each one carries a disclosure immediately before it, not buried in the footer. Links that earn us nothing carry no disclosure, so the label means something.
• Provider introductions. The directory listings are free and stay free. Where a provider pays for an introduction, that is labelled on the page, and it never changes the order anything is listed in. Listing order is not for sale.

Who writes what

Guides and news briefs are published by Melssa Editorial — the site itself, not a named individual — and the structured data on every page says so rather than attributing them to a person.

In the Q&A, entries marked Melssa Editorial are questions we wrote and answered ourselves, and each one says so on the page. Reader questions are credited to whoever asked and appear only after a human moderation check. We do not invent readers, reviews or testimonials, and we do not publish machine-translated mirrors: the German, Russian, Spanish, Hebrew and Bulgarian editions are translated per guide against a glossary, not run through a translator in bulk.

What this is not

Nothing here is legal, tax, immigration or financial advice. It is research, written carefully and sourced openly, to help you arrive at a professional’s office already knowing the shape of your problem. For anything that turns on your specific circumstances — and residency and tax almost always do — get advice from someone who is accountable for it.

Questions about any of this reach us at hello@melssa.com.