EU citizen working remotely for a Dutch employer — how do I register residence in Bulgaria?

The residence part is the easy half. As an EU citizen staying over three months you register at the Migration Directorate within three months of arrival and receive a residence certificate. Since your employer has no Bulgarian presence, the cleanest route is registering as a self-sufficient person: you show your ID, proof of sufficient resources (bank statements — your salary easily qualifies) and health insurance cover. It is a quick, cheap procedure, and after five years you qualify for permanent residence. See /guides/eu-citizens-moving-to-bulgaria for the checklist. The half people miss is social security and tax. Under EU coordination rules, social insurance is generally due where the work is physically performed. Once you genuinely live and work from Varna, the default is that Bulgarian contributions become payable — which means your Dutch employer either registers in Bulgaria as a foreign employer for contribution purposes, uses an employer-of-record, or you agree an arrangement where you handle the payments locally. Do not just let Dutch contributions keep running silently: ask your employer to get an A1 determination from the Dutch authorities before you move, so everyone knows which system applies from day one. Tax follows a similar logic: once you are Bulgarian tax resident (183 days, or your center of vital interests moving here), your salary is taxable in Bulgaria at the 10 percent flat rate, and the Netherlands should stop withholding under the tax treaty. Two years is well past every threshold, so set this up properly at the start — retroactive fixes across two countries are painful.