Bulgaria digital nomad permit — how do I prove the €31,000 income with lumpy freelance earnings?

You are in good shape. The income test for the digital nomad permit (available since December 2025) is annual, not monthly: you need to show income of at least 50 times the Bulgarian minimum monthly wage — just over 31,000 euro at the current 620.20 euro minimum wage — for the preceding year. Your 45k total comfortably clears it, and lumpiness within the year is normal for freelancers and not a refusal ground in itself. What matters is that the paper trail is coherent. Build the file from three layers that tell the same story: twelve months of bank statements showing the client payments arriving; the invoices and contracts behind those payments; and your Canadian tax return for the year as the official capstone. Where statements, invoices and the tax return all reconcile, variable timing stops being an issue. A single anchor client is acceptable — the requirement is that your clients or employer are outside Bulgaria, not that you have many of them — though a couple of smaller contracts alongside strengthen the picture that you are a genuine independent professional, which itself carries a minimum one year of freelance experience requirement. Beyond income you will need health insurance covering Bulgaria, a clean criminal record certificate, proof of accommodation, and the usual apostilles and certified translations. The sequence is: D visa at a Bulgarian consulate abroad first, then the residence permit application at the Migration Directorate after you arrive — the initial permit runs one year and is renewable. The full walkthrough, including how the 10 percent flat tax interacts with becoming resident, is at /guides/bulgaria-digital-nomad-guide.