E-Government in Bulgaria:
Taxes, Bills & Prescriptions Online

The 60-second answer

If you only read one section before you start clicking, read this. It tells you which system owns which problem, so you stop hunting for a single Bulgarian government website that does not exist.

What you need before you start: the identifier problem

The single biggest reason a British expat gets stuck is the identifier. You expect one login. Bulgaria gives you up to nine different numbers, and each system wants a specific one. Sort this out before you open a single portal.

In the UK you have, more or less, one set of credentials per service and your name and address usually find your account. Bulgarian systems identify you and your obligations by number, and there are several numbers in play. Which one a given portal wants is rarely obvious from the page. This table is the thing to screenshot and keep on your phone.

The Bulgarian words that matter

You do not need to read Bulgarian. You need to recognise about fifteen labels on sight, the way you recognise a road sign without reading a sentence. Learn these and you can navigate any of the portals in this guide by shape and keyword.

Getting your NRA PIK/PIC

The NRA PIK is the master key for tax e-services. It is a 12-digit personal identification code from the National Revenue Agency, and it lets you into a range of services without buying a qualified electronic signature. Get it early; it unlocks more than you first realise.

The NRA (Natsionalna Agentsiya za Prihodite, the National Revenue Agency, sometimes written NAP) is Bulgaria's HMRC equivalent for national taxes and social insurance. Its PIK (Personalen Identifikatsionen Kod) is a free 12-digit code that authenticates you for many of its online services. A qualified electronic signature (KEP) would also do the job and more, but it costs money, lives on a smartcard or USB token, and is overkill for what most British expats need.

How to apply

1. Go in person to an NRA office. For ordinary foreigners the PIK is collected in person; you cannot simply self-issue it online. The Shumen NRA office handles the region.
2. Complete the application ("Заявление за ползване на електронни услуги, предоставяни от НАП, чрез персонален идентификационен код"). It asks for your personal details, a correspondence email address, and which NRA office you want to collect the code from.
3. Bring ID and your Bulgarian number. Passport, residence card, and documentation of your EGN or LNCh. If you only have an LNCh, ask the desk specifically how to use it in portals that visually display ЕГН.
4. Receive the code. The PIK is issued to you. NRA guidance notes that your first login with your identifier and PIK triggers an automatic email to the correspondence address you listed.

PIK versus KEP: which do you need?

For the needs of almost every Shumen.UK reader, the PIK is enough: checking your tax account, viewing obligations, and the access routes that feed into local-tax and payment systems. A KEP (qualified electronic signature) is only worth the cost and hassle if a specific service forces it on you, which for personal, non-business use is rare. Do not let anyone upsell you a KEP for paying your house tax; you do not need it.

Property, rubbish & vehicle tax: who actually collects it

This is the single most important thing to get straight, because getting it wrong sends you to the wrong website for an hour. Your house tax, your bin tax and your car tax are municipal, not national. The NRA does not collect them, and since March 2024 the NRA does not even handle them online.

Bulgarian local taxes and fees (mestni danatsi i taksi) cover the building/property tax, the waste/rubbish fee, and the vehicle tax, plus some acquisition, patent and tourist taxes depending on the case. These belong to your municipality, the obshtina. For Shumen.UK readers that means Obshtina Shumen.

Your three routes to pay local tax

Whichever you choose, the destination is the same: the money reaches Obshtina Shumen and the obligation is marked paid. They differ in how you authenticate and how much friction there is.

• Route A, the municipality direct. Shumen's own local-tax pages and its virtual POS, or ePay. Best if you have your KIN. Covered in Section 6.
• Route B, the central eGov portal. pay.egov.bg can query every connected municipality for what you owe against your EGN. Best if you have a QES or want one place for fines too. Covered in Section 7.
• Route C, plain bank transfer. Pay the municipality's IBAN with the exact payment code. Best if the online routes will not recognise your identifier. Covered in Section 8.

Paying Shumen local taxes online (Route A)

The Shumen municipality website (shumen.bg) carries a Local Taxes and Fees section with a lookup tool, a vehicle-tax calculator, payment pages and the bank details. For most resident property owners this is the most direct route, provided you have your KIN.

Step by step

1. Go to the Shumen municipality local taxes page (shumen.bg, the Местни данъци и такси section).
2. Click Проверка на местни данъци и такси (check local taxes and fees).
3. Log in by the route the page offers: EGN/EIK plus your KIN, a digital certificate (QES), or your NRA PIK, depending on what is accepted.
4. Confirm the taxpayer and the property or vehicle shown are actually yours before paying.
5. Pay via the Shumen virtual POS terminal (card payment on shumen.bg) or via ePay if offered.
6. Save the PDF or screenshot receipt. Note the reference number.

What Shumen accepts to identify you

Shumen's own notices list the local-tax login routes as: EGN/EIK together with the KIN (issued free by the Local Taxes and Fees department), a digital certificate / electronic signature, or the NRA PIK. The payment routes it lists are: cash at the municipal desks, internet via ePay.bg for registered ePay/EasyPay users with Visa or Mastercard, card via the municipal virtual POS on shumen.bg, electronic payment via the Ministry of Electronic Government portal, and bank transfer to the municipal account.

Using eGov & pay.egov.bg (Route B)

pay.egov.bg is the central electronic payment entry point for both national and local administration. It is the official strategic route for local-tax e-payments after the 2024 change, and it can show fines as well as tax. It is also Bulgarian-first and login-dependent, so it suits some readers more than others.

Step by step

1. Go to egov.bg or pay.egov.bg by the official route (type the address yourself, do not follow a search ad).
2. Authenticate with your QES, or a payment code, where the flow offers it.
3. Open Моето пространство (My space) then Задължения (liabilities).
4. Choose Задължения за местни данъци и такси (local taxes and fees liabilities). The system queries every connected municipality against your EGN.
5. Check the municipality and the obligation type are correct.
6. Pay by the central virtual POS if displayed; the help page states this is offered without fees or commissions for citizens.
7. Save the payment confirmation.

The bank-transfer route (Route C)

If the online lookups will not recognise your identifier, or you simply prefer your own online banking, you can pay local tax by direct bank transfer to the municipality. It works, but only if the payment reference is exactly right, or a small unpaid balance will haunt you later.

Use this route when the municipality gives you the precise details. You will need all of:

• The municipality's IBAN for local taxes
• The payment code (vid plashtane) for the specific tax type: property, rubbish, or vehicle each has its own code
• The taxable person identifier (your EGN/LNCh/EIK)
• The year and liability type the payment is for
• The property or vehicle identifier where required

Using ePay without registering the wrong bill

ePay.bg is the practical middle layer that most Bulgarians and many foreigners use, because it aggregates local tax, electricity, water and telecom bills in one place. It is not government; it is a private payment platform, but it is deeply wired into Bulgarian bill-paying culture through the ePay/EasyPay network. The one rule: register the exact right number.

How to use it well

1. Register an ePay account (or use the linked EasyPay network).
2. Add each bill by its exact customer/subscriber number or, for Shumen tax, your EGN/EIK plus KIN.
3. ePay then monitors that bill and can notify you each month.
4. Pay by registered card; check the fee shown for the route before confirming.
5. Save the ePay receipt, and cross-check at the provider or municipality after a few days if anything looks off.

Paying Energo-Pro electricity online

Energo-Pro is the electricity supplier for Shumen and north-east Bulgaria. It has a direct online payment page with an English option, and the only thing it really cares about is your 10-digit customer number.

Step by step

1. Find your 10-digit customer number (klientski nomer) on a recent Energo-Pro invoice or cash receipt. If you cannot find it, call 0700 800 61.
2. For a one-off payment, go to vp.energo-pro.bg (switch to English if you want). For ongoing account access, register in the MyEnergo-Pro customer portal instead.
3. Enter the customer number and the captcha code.
4. Check the invoice period and the amount.
5. Pay by card.
6. Save the receipt.

Energo-Pro also accepts payment through ePay.bg, EasyPay, Bulgarian Post, customer service centres, bank transfer, direct debit, electronic banking and ATM/BPay routes, so the direct page is just the quickest for a one-off. The household-customer information portal asks for the same 10-digit number and confirms it is printed on your last cash receipt or invoice.

Paying Vivacom online

Vivacom is one of Bulgaria's big three telecoms (alongside A1 and Yettel) and the most likely fixed-line and internet provider for a Shumen home. It offers an anonymous pay-by-customer-number page, a full My Vivacom account, and the usual ePay route.

Three ways to pay

1. My Vivacom (app or web) if the account is already in your name: best for ongoing management and seeing your full bill history.
2. Anonymous bill payment at vivacom.bg if you have the customer number but do not want to log in: enter the number, pay by card.
3. ePay if you want the Vivacom bill consolidated with your electricity and tax: register the Vivacom customer number in ePay's utility payments.

Vivacom's FAQ confirms monthly bills can be paid through ePay.bg, iCard.bg, EasyPay and other routes, and that online payment uses SSL and BORICA security. Save the electronic receipt whichever route you use.

District heating (Toplofikatsiya)

If your home has central district heating, this section applies; if you heat with electricity, wood or a heat pump (most of the Shumen region), you can skip it. The key fact: there is no single national Toplofikatsiya interface. It is city-by-city and company-by-company.

District heating in Bulgaria is run by separate municipal or regional companies, each with its own billing system and its own (or no) online portal:

• Toplofikatsiya Sofia has its own payment information, with cash and partner routes including Fast Pay locations.
• Toplofikatsiya Ruse allows payment via ePay after registering by subscriber number, but warns that some overdue or legal-entity cases are not offered for online payment.
• EVN Bulgaria Toplofikatsiya and Toplofikatsiya Varna appear in ePay's merchant directory.
• Toplofikatsiya Shumen exists as a company, but no strong consumer self-service portal was found at the time of writing; Shumen-area readers are far more likely to need the Energo-Pro, water and telecom routes than a modern Shumen district-heating portal.

E-prescriptions: what to say at the pharmacy

Most Bulgarian prescriptions now live in the National Health Information System (NHIS). You usually have no paper slip; the pharmacist looks the prescription up by your patient identifier plus the issue date. Knowing what to hand over turns a confusing exchange into a 30-second transaction.

How pickup actually works

When your doctor issues an electronic prescription, it is logged in the NHIS against your identifier. At the pharmacy, for NHIF-covered prescriptions the pharmacist checks the system by patient identifier plus issue date: that identifier can be your EGN, your LNCh, a service/insurance number, and the foreign-person insurance number where applicable. No paper is needed because the prescription is in the national database.

What to bring

• Your ID card, residence card or passport
• Your EGN or LNCh, whichever the doctor used to issue it
• The date the prescription was issued
• A QR code or prescription number if the doctor or the eZdrave app gave you one
• Your NHIF booklet or card details where the medication is reimbursed

Useful Bulgarian at the counter

This overlaps with our dedicated Pharmacy guide, which covers the wider picture: the 2026 e-prescription crackdown on antibiotics and diabetes drugs, the active-ingredient rule, bringing UK prescriptions, and the major chains. If your prescription is for an antibiotic or diabetes medication, read that guide too; those categories are the most rigidly e-script-gated.

Receipts, proof & common failure modes

"I paid, but it still shows unpaid" is the single most common complaint among foreigners using Bulgarian payment systems. It is almost never a lost payment. It is a sync or matching issue, and the cure is the same every time: keep proof, and verify at the source.

Why a paid bill still shows as owing

• The provider feed has not refreshed. ePay and aggregators update on a lag; allow a few working days.
• You paid by bank transfer but ePay still shows it. Different channels, different update cycles.
• The registration watches the wrong number. ePay is tracking a customer number that is not the one you actually paid against.
• The bill is under the previous owner or landlord. Your payment and the displayed obligation are on different accounts.
• Oldest debt was paid first. Your payment cleared an old balance, leaving a small current one.
• The obligation moved into legal collection. It no longer appears in the normal online payment route.

Owning the property is not the same as owning the portal access

A specific, costly surprise for British buyers: completing the purchase at the notary does not automatically hand you working online accounts for tax and utilities. The records and the portals lag behind the deed, and you have to push them into line.

After you buy a Bulgarian property, the notary process and the municipality's records do not always produce a smooth online account. To get to the point where you can actually pay everything online in your own name, you usually need to:

1. Check the municipality has processed the ownership transfer. Until it has, local-tax lookups may show the old owner or nothing at all.
2. Obtain a KIN/PIN from the Local Taxes and Fees department, in your name, for the property.
3. Switch the utility customer records (electricity, water, internet) out of the previous owner's name at each provider.
4. Make sure any ePay registration points at the current bill and the current customer number, not an inherited one.

Recheck dates & maintenance notes

Bulgarian e-government portals change often. Button names move, pages get redesigned, login routes shift. The underlying Bulgarian labels and the structure in this guide are stable, but the exact screens will drift. Here is what is current and when to distrust it.

What to re-confirm at each review

• NRA PIK issuance route, and whether in-person collection is still required for ordinary foreigners
• That local-tax e-services are still off the NRA platform and on the Ministry of Electronic Government / municipal routes
• That Shumen still offers ePay, virtual POS, eGov and bank-transfer payment, and still accepts KIN / PIK / QES for the lookup
• That pay.egov.bg still supports local taxes, e-fines and payment codes
• That Energo-Pro online payment still works by customer number and captcha
• That Vivacom's anonymous and My Vivacom routes still exist
• NHIS e-prescription pickup requirements: EGN/LNCh, issue date, QR, ID

Frequently asked questions

The questions Shumen.UK readers ask most about Bulgarian e-government, answered with anchors back to the main text.

The bottom line

Bulgarian e-government is not one website and never will be. Once you stop looking for the Bulgarian GOV.UK and start matching each task to its real owner, the fog lifts. National tax is the NRA, and the PIK is your key to it. Local tax (house, rubbish, car) is your municipality, paid through Shumen's own pages, pay.egov.bg or a bank transfer. Electricity is Energo-Pro by customer number. Phone and internet is Vivacom by customer number. ePay ties several of them together if you register the exact right numbers. Prescriptions live in the health system and the pharmacy looks them up by your identifier and date.

Five habits carry a British expat through all of it:

1. Get your NRA PIK early and keep it as safe as a bank card PIN.
2. Know which number each system wants before you log in: EGN, LNCh, KIN, customer number. The right identifier beats fluent Bulgarian.
3. Always use the number from the latest bill, never the router sticker or the previous owner's paperwork.
4. Save every receipt and verify at the source system, not just at ePay.
5. Fix the ownership and KIN admin in your first month after buying, while it is still easy.

Do those five and the systems that look like a maze on day one become a fifteen-minutes-a-month routine. Bulgarians find these portals awkward too; you are not failing, you are just learning a fragmented system that rewards knowing the labels.

Related guides: Bureaucratic Etiquette · Pharmacies & prescriptions · Health & the NHIF · Utilities · Buying a Village House · Car Ownership · Banking · Bulgarian Taxes · Cost of Living · All guides.