Bulgarian pension must go to Bulgarian bank

Hi Dawn

Are you a citizen of Bulgaria, or, do you have longterm / permanent residency?

My first thoughts are, Bulgarian banks would not  allow expat accounts, but then, thinking about it, many Bulgarians live in the UK and send money back to Bulgaria. I think it will depend on your bank's policy and on your status as either resident or citizen - I might be wrong.

However, you can get round it by having a Wise, or Revolut account.  Just leave the address, for the Bulgarian bank account with the same Bulgarian address and transfer your pension, when it's paid, from the Bulgarian account to Wise, or Revolut.  I do this from a UK account to Wise and use the money here, from my Wise account.

Will you still have a Bulgarian address?  If yes, then you shouldn't have any problems.

Hi

Thanks for the reply.  So I currently have a bank account with Unicredit.  I have a 10 year resident card but I have relocated to the Uk for the last 6 months.  I tried to have  my pension sent to my Revolut account but that has a UK Iban so I can not use it.  I no longer have a permanent address in Bulgaria and my pension has to go to a Bulgarian bank account only, they will not accept my wise or revolut.  I will be back in Bulgaria to give my the bank my new UK address and telephone number but I am worried they will not accept it and shut my account without having an address in Bulgaria.

Luckily I have a contact in the tax office who helped me a lot, but they have said only that the bank account must be a BG Iban for the pension to be deposited in.

Do you have someone in Bulgaria you trust whose address you can use for the bank account?

The other option is that as you do have a resident's card you might be able to open an account with one of the Bulgarian online services like iCard that give a Bulgarian IBAN. iCard (Dot) com

It will accept a UK passport for ID but also has the requirement for an EEA residence card, so I can't say for sure it will work for you if you use a UK address.

And unfortunately it's still no help for those of us who need a Bulgarian IBAN to get our residency card in the first place.

Thanks for your reply.  I do have some friends address I could use, but dont really want to complicate things, I will see what happens when I come back to Bulgaria and update my details with unicredit but I will also try icard and some others as a back up.   I will let you know what happens!

Thanks again