Submission of Annual Financial Statement (AFS) or Declaration of Lack of Activity in the Commercial Register

1. You fill in the application form and pay the attorney’s fee – you can pay by bank transfer.

2. We contact you to clarify all the details and then start working on the service performance;

3. We send you the documents we have prepared with detailed instructions, you review and sign them, and you do not need to visit a notary.

4. You return all documents to us along with the AFS itself. The easiest way to do this is by scanning the documents and sending them to us via email, but you can also deliver them to our office address in person or send them to us via courier service.

5. You receive our confirmation for the service performance and the respective registration number issued by the Commercial Register.

You can learn more about the service performance conditions in the “OUR COMMITMENT” section below.

What does our commitment to you refer to?

• Legal consultation and drafting of all the necessary legal documents (declarations, protocols, powers of attorney, etc.);
• Review of the documents once we receive them from you;
• Filling in an application and submitting the documents to the Commercial Register;
• Tracking the status of the application until the end of the registration process.

Our commitment does not include consultations on accounting and tax matters, nor drafting of documents that do not have a legal character – the AFS itself is such a document and should be prepared by your accountant.

Submitting a request for this service is equivalent to concluding a contract for legal protection and assistance with the Law Firm “LegalMasters – Nedeva and Yordanova,” obliging us to provide you with the service on the condition you have paid the attorney’s fee and submit all necessary documents to us.

What costs will there be other than the attorney’s fee?

No state fee is due for the publication of the AFS or the Declaration under Article 38 of the Accountancy Act.

Service Performance Timeframe

Unless we have agreed on a different date, we submit the statement or declaration in the Commercial Register within 5 working days from the receipt of all the necessary documents.

Obligation of Confidentiality

Any information intended for the performance of the service provided, including such acquired through email and telephone, shall be deemed confidential and could not be an object of disclosure under the Attorney Act.

What is AFS and why is it submitted to the Commercial Register?

The annual financial statement (AFS) usually consists of several accounting documents – Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Account and Cash Flow Statement, and is intended to provide information about the financial position and the effectiveness of the activity of the trader. The law provides for the annual financial statements to be submitted to the Commercial Register so that it can be announced, i.e. all interested persons to get acquainted with it.

Who submits an annual financial statement (AFS) and by when?

Each trader who has developed commercial activity during the calendar year should fulfil its obligation to submit for announcement their annual financial statement in the Commercial Register by June 30th of the following year. Some non-traders, such as non-profit legal entities – associations and foundations, also have such an obligation. Regarding 2022, this deadline is September 30th.

In case your company has not developed activity during the calendar year, then you should submit a Declaration under art. 38 of the Accountancy Act – the deadline for this is June 30th. In case you have already submitted such a declaration for the previous year, a new submission is not required!

The responsibility for the timely submission of annual financial statements in the Commercial Register lies with the persons who manage and represent the companies – their managers, chairmen or executives.

The omission to submit the annual financial statements within the time limit is related to the incurrence of significant financial penalties both for the legal representatives personally and for the company itself. Under Art. 74 of the Accountancy Act, a person who has been obliged to and has not published a financial statement within the time limits under Art. 38, shall be punished by a fine of BGN 200 to 3000, and the enterprise shall be imposed a patrimonial sanction varying from 0.1 to 0.5 per cent of the net sales revenue for the reporting period to which the unpublished financial statement relates, but not less than BGN 200. In case of repeated violation, the fine and the pecuniary sanction shall be doubled.

You should also submit an AFS in cases when you already have a refusal decreed regarding the annual financial statement submitted for the previous year. In such instances, the deadline should be no later than 21 calendar days from the date of the receipt of such refusal decree and you will not be sanctioned, even though the new term for the submission has already expired.