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Online payments and Ordinance N-18

This page is for businesses in Bulgaria. It describes what Ordinance N-18 requires when your clients pay online when booking an appointment, and what Tickabell does for you. Each rule comes with the article it is from, and the sources are at the end. Checked on 14.10.2026 against the text of the ordinance as last amended in State Gazette No. 42 of 2025 and the VAT Act as last amended in State Gazette No. 69 of 2026.

This is general information, not legal or accounting advice. What applies to your business exactly, you decide with your accountant. The legal terms here are our translation; the official texts are in Bulgarian.

In short

  • The client books online and pays on site. Nothing new: you issue a till receipt as before (Art. 3(1)).
  • The client pays online by bank transfer. No till receipt is issued: payment by credit transfer is expressly excluded (Art. 3(1)).
  • The client pays online by card (the full amount or a deposit). Your website is an online shop. You may register the sale with a sales document instead of a till receipt (Art. 3(17)). Tickabell issues the documents and the audit file.
  • You do not issue till receipts at all. For example in a liberal profession (Art. 4(8)) or as a craftsperson who works with their own labour, is not VAT-registered and is not a trader (Art. 4(7)). Then this page does not apply to you.

Example: a salon with a 20 € deposit online and 40 € on site

The salon issues till receipts. It wants clients to pay a 20 € deposit by card when booking on the website and the remaining 40 € at the salon.

1. Registering the website with the National Revenue Agency before the first card payment

The website is registered as an online shop in the agency’s e-services portal with a qualified electronic signature, using Annex No. 33, before sales start (Art. 52m(1) and Art. 52t(1)). Besides the general details, you submit the payment methods, the payment service providers, the payment accounts and the virtual POS number (Art. 52r(1)). The agency gives the shop a unique number. In Tickabell everything the system knows is collected in Settings → Bulgaria (N-18).

2. The agency’s number in Tickabell

You enter the unique number in Settings → Bulgaria (N-18), together with the company details. Until they are there, Tickabell does not take live card payments, because the sales document must contain them (Art. 52o(1), points 2 and 6).

3. The client pays a 20 € deposit by card

Tickabell issues a document registering the sale and emails it to the client at payment (Art. 52o(5)). The document contains (Art. 52o(1)):

  • a name, a 10-digit number that grows by 1 with every sale and is unique for the shop and the trader, and the date;
  • the trader’s details: name, UIC, registered office, email or phone;
  • the order number and the transaction reference number;
  • the service, the tax group code, the quantity, the price, the amount and the payment method;
  • a QR code with the shop’s unique number, the date and time, the transaction number, the amount and the order number (Annex No. 18a).

4. The client comes and pays the remaining 40 € at the salon

The remaining payment is registered on the cash register (Art. 3(1)). For partly paid services the ordinance allows the whole service to be registered at the final payment, followed by a value discount equal to the amount already paid, with an explanation between “#” signs (Art. 26a(2)). You enter the till receipt number in the booking in Tickabell, so it goes into the audit file.

5. If you refund the deposit

Tickabell issues a reversal document with the next number in the same sequence and sends it to the client. The refunded amount goes into the audit file for the month in which it was refunded.

6. By the 15th: the audit file

For every month you submit a standardised audit file under Annex No. 38 by the 15th of the following month (Art. 52t(2)). It contains the website orders for which the service was performed during the month. Tickabell makes it, checks it against the agency’s official schema and reminds you. You submit it with a qualified electronic signature in the agency’s portal.

7. When something changes

A new domain, a new payment provider or another POS is reported to the agency within 7 days of the change. When online sales stop, this is also reported within 7 days (Art. 52m(3) and (4)).

Conditions that must be met

  • The accounts. Card payments arrive in accounts in your name, with a provider in the EU or in a country that exchanges banking information with Bulgaria. The money may first arrive with the POS provider and then be transferred to your account (Art. 52p). Stripe and BORICA work this way.
  • The shop software. It gives every order a unique number, keeps the data complete and intact, and every user logs in with a personal account (Art. 52s(1) and Annex No. 29, points 2 and 7). In Tickabell a booking with a document is not deleted but archived, and every team member has their own login with two-factor authentication. During an inspection you give the agency access to the admin (Art. 52s(3)).
  • If any requirement stops being met, the trader loses the right to issue documents instead of till receipts (Art. 52u). That is why Tickabell stops card payments until the details are complete, and warns you if card payments run without N-18 turned on.

What is not needed

  • Certified sales management software (SUPTO) is not required. A business that issues till receipts “may choose” software from the agency’s list (Art. 118(18) of the VAT Act). Tickabell is not SUPTO and does not require one.
  • A cash register for online payments. The sales document replaces the till receipt for card payments through the website (Art. 3(17)).

Questions for your accountant

  • VAT on the deposit: for an advance payment, the tax usually becomes chargeable when it is received.
  • Gift vouchers and visit cards: whether they are single-purpose or multi-purpose vouchers under Art. 128a-128c of the VAT Act.
  • A deposit kept for a no-show: how it is recorded in the accounts.

Sources (in Bulgarian)

Have a question about this page? Write to us at [email protected].