TRZ is the Bulgarian abbreviation for “labour and wages” (trud i rabotna zaplata) — the work of calculating and administering employee pay. It covers preparing payroll registers and payslips, calculating social security contributions and taxes, filing declarations with the National Revenue Agency (NRA) and the National Social Security Institute (NSSI), and processing sick leave and annual leave. In English the same activity is called payroll; in Bulgaria the two terms are used interchangeably and mean the same thing.
Payroll (TRZ) covers the calculation side — salaries, contributions, taxes and declarations. HR administration (“personnel records”) covers the documentation side — employment contracts, contract amendments, orders and employee files. In practice the two are inseparable and are usually handled together by the same specialist or service provider.
Every month the payroll specialist prepares the payroll register and the individual payslips, calculates social security contributions and income tax, files Declaration Form 1 and Form 6 with the NRA, and processes sick leave certificates and submits them to the NSSI. They also register hirings, changes and terminations of employment contracts, calculate compensation and leave, prepare employment certificates and statements, and keep track of changes in employment and social security legislation. A key part of the job is meeting statutory deadlines — missing them exposes the employer to penalties, which is why monitoring and meeting every deadline is a direct duty of the payroll specialist or, when the service is outsourced, of the external payroll provider.
No. Accounting records the company’s business activity — revenue, expenses, invoices, and the tax and financial result. Payroll is a separate, specialised field focused on employee pay and social security. In smaller companies payroll is often handled by the accountant, but in many cases it is taken on by a dedicated employee: when the accountant is overloaded, when headcount is large, when employment contracts are complex, or when staff turnover is high. Many accounting firms also offer payroll, but the two services can be commissioned separately — we work alongside your accountant, providing the finished calculations for posting to the books.
No — they are one and the same thing. TRZ is the Bulgarian term for payroll, and in Bulgaria the two are often used interchangeably: “payroll services”, “TRZ services” and “salary processing” all describe the same activity. If you are looking for a payroll provider, you are looking for a TRZ service — and vice versa.
Payroll outsourcing means handing the entire processing of salaries to an external specialist partner, instead of keeping an in-house specialist or department. You submit only the month’s changes — hirings, departures, absences, bonuses — and we take care of everything else: calculations, declarations, sick leave, documents and deadlines. Responsibility for the accuracy and timeliness of the processing passes to us.
The process follows a simple monthly rhythm. By an agreed deadline you submit the month’s changes through the client portal or via an API connection to your HR system. We process the data, calculate salaries and contributions, and file the declarations with the NRA and the NSSI within the statutory deadlines. Finally you receive the finished documents — payslips, payroll register, summary and bank file — which you use to pay salaries. Your role comes down to submitting changes and giving approval; everything else is our responsibility.
All the work goes through our client portal — you see and manage all your data in one place, without scattered emails and spreadsheets. The portal keeps a history by month, so you always have access to both current and past periods, and it also provides standard reports on your employees. Exchanging data through the portal also gives significantly higher information security and personal data privacy than sending files by email. For clients with their own systems (HR software, ERP) we also offer API integration, through which we receive the data automatically, without manual entry.
Through the portal you manage all the data about your staff: hirings of new employees, departures, contract amendments, monthly data (bonuses, deductions, time worked), paid leave and maternity leave. Data is entered by month, and the portal shows you the processing status at any moment. There is no need to send anything extra — what you enter is what we process.
You upload a scanned copy or a photo of the sick leave certificate directly in the portal. The system automatically reads the data from the document, and one of our specialists checks and confirms it. You track the status of each certificate — accepted, in processing or requiring clarification — without sending emails and wondering whether it arrived.
Once processing is complete, the month’s documents appear in the portal, ready to download: individual payslips, the payroll register, the summary and the bank file for bulk payment in the format your bank supports. Everything is archived by period — if you need a payslip from March six months later, it is two clicks away.
A deadline for submitting data is agreed for each month, in line with the statutory deadlines for declarations and payments. After that date the period is locked, to guarantee timely and accurate processing. If something exceptional comes up after the deadline — a late sick leave certificate, a forgotten hiring — you contact us and we record it as an exception.
The transition is our responsibility. We take over the existing data — employee records, contracts, leave balances, social security history — and migrate it into our system. If needed, we process one month in parallel with the old process to reconcile the results before taking over fully. You do not stop work for a single day, and your employees do not notice the change.
Almost all of them — from a start-up with its first employees to a company with hundreds of staff. The service brings the most value to companies that have no in-house payroll expert, are growing fast, or want to free management and accounting from administrative work. We also work with foreign companies that have staff in Bulgaria and are looking for a local partner who knows the legislation.
An in-house specialist takes holiday, falls ill, leaves — and salaries still have to go out on time. With outsourcing you get a team instead of one person, guaranteed continuity and up-to-date knowledge of legislation that changes every year. The costs of payroll software, training and subscriptions fall away, and the monthly fee is predictable and usually lower than the cost of a full-time specialist.
We act as a data processor within the meaning of the GDPR, under a data processing agreement that sets out the responsibilities of both parties. The client portal uses secure login with individual accounts, an encrypted connection and strict isolation — every client sees only their own data. Personal data does not travel by email, and our staff’s access is limited to what they need for their work.
Responsibilities are clearly set out in the contract. When the data you submit is correct and on time, we are responsible for the accuracy of the calculations and for meeting the statutory deadlines — if we make a mistake, we correct it at our expense, including filing corrective declarations. If the mistake stems from incomplete or late input data, we help to put it right, but responsibility remains with the party who submitted it.
No. We provide all the systems — you get access to the client portal, through which you submit data and download the finished documents, with no licences, installations or maintenance. If you already use your own HR or ERP software, there is no need to abandon it: through API integration we can receive the data directly from your system.
It depends on the size and complexity of the company and the state of the existing data — the transition usually takes between one and three months. For small companies with well-organised documentation the timeline is close to the lower end, while for large headcount, complex arrangements or a parallel check against the old process we plan a phased transition over up to three months. Before the start we agree the process and deadlines and set up the portal for your team.
We work with a simplified price list tied to the volume of work — no complex formulas and no fixed packages that you pay for whether you use them or not. You pay for the volume actually processed: the number of employees, contracts and events in the month. Thanks to this transparency, you can easily forecast your costs months ahead. After a short conversation about your company’s specifics, you receive a concrete offer.
The monthly fee covers the standard monthly cycle: salary processing, social security contributions and taxes, declarations to the NRA and the NSSI, sick leave, payslips, the payroll register, the bank file and access to the client portal. Extraordinary activities — support during audits, special reports for an audit, restructuring advice — are agreed separately, always in advance. No hidden fees: you know what you are paying before we have done the work.
The fee follows the volume in both directions. If the number of employees or tasks falls, the monthly fee falls accordingly — you do not pay for capacity you no longer use. This makes the service safe for companies with seasonal employment or fluctuating staff: your payroll cost moves together with your actual business.
For small and medium-sized companies — almost always. A full-time specialist costs a salary plus social security contributions, payroll software, training and cover during absences. Against that stands a single predictable monthly fee tied to the actual number of employees. For large companies the calculation is made individually, but even there outsourcing often wins because it removes the risk of staff turnover and the cost of maintaining software.
We aim for clients to stay with us because of the quality, not because of the clauses. The terms are agreed individually in the contract, including the notice periods for termination, so that you have clarity and flexibility from day one. On termination, we hand over all data and documents properly to you or to your next provider.
Clients expect a payroll service from their accounting firm, but finding and retaining good payroll specialists is becoming harder and more expensive. An in-house specialist is also a single point of risk — holiday, sick leave or resignation threatens the deadlines of the whole portfolio. At the same time, payroll is time-consuming work with low returns compared to consulting work. With a subcontractor you offer the full service without building and maintaining in-house capacity, and your senior team focuses on what brings the highest value.
We carry out complete payroll processing as your subcontractor — on your behalf and to your standards. You keep the commercial relationship and the communication with the client, while we take on the technical work: calculations, declarations, sick leave, documents. In white-label mode, every document the client sees — payslips, registers, reports, correspondence — carries your brand, with no trace of us. The model suits both accounting firms that do not want to maintain their own payroll capacity and agencies going through digital transformation.
However you prefer — this is settled in the partnership agreement. The standard model is for all communication to go through you, so that you remain the only face to the client and keep full control over the relationship and the quality. If you wish, we can also communicate directly with the end client under your brand, following agreed rules.
No — and this is expressly provided for. The partnership contract includes a non-solicitation clause: the client base is and remains your property, and we have no commercial relationship with the end client. If a client approaches us directly, we refer them back to you. Our interest is a long-term partnership with you, not a one-off deal — our model is built on exactly this trust.
There is no minimum volume — you can start with a single client or a small part of the portfolio to test the process, the quality and the communication. You expand the scope when you decide to. We also work in a mixed mode: some clients stay with you for in-house processing, and we take on the rest.
You set the price to your clients and invoice directly — we work to a preferential partner price list, on which you add your own margin. The list is simplified and tied to volume, so your cost is predictable and easy to calculate right at the offer stage for your client. This way you expand your revenue from payroll services without hiring new people and without investing in software.
The partnership agreement sets out measurable commitments: deadlines for processing the data submitted, deadlines for responding to enquiries, and a procedure for correcting errors — at our expense when they are our fault. This lets you confidently make commitments to your own clients, building on our guarantees. The principles are the same as with our direct clients, but formalised at the level of a contract between professionals.
The division is contractual and clear: we are responsible for the accuracy of the calculations, meeting the statutory deadlines and the quality of the processing; you are responsible for the commercial relationship and the framework arrangements with the end client. Data is exchanged through the portal or via API integration with your systems, so the process is traceable for both parties at every moment.
Social security contributions are split between the employer and the employee at roughly 60:40. They cover the Pensions fund, supplementary mandatory pension insurance, health insurance, the General Sickness and Maternity fund, the Unemployment fund and the Industrial Accident and Occupational Disease fund (the latter is paid entirely by the employer). The total social security burden is around one third of gross pay, with the exact rates set annually by the State Social Security Budget Act and the National Health Insurance Fund Budget Act.
First, the employee’s personal social security contributions are deducted from gross pay. Income tax is then charged on the remainder — a flat tax of 10% (as of 2026). What is left after tax is the net amount payable, adjusted for any deductions (garnishments, advances) or tax reliefs (for children, for reduced working capacity, etc.).
These are the two main monthly declarations that every employer files with the NRA. Form 1 contains the individual social security data for each employee — insurable income, days insured, type of insurance. Form 6 summarises the total social security contributions and tax due from the employer for the month. The two declarations must be consistent with each other — a mismatch between them is one of the common causes of problems during an inspection.
The basic rule (as of 2026): Declarations Form 1 and Form 6 are filed, and the contributions and tax due are paid, by the 25th of the month following the month they relate to. Sick leave certificates are submitted to the NSSI monthly within the deadline set by regulation. When a new employee is hired, the employment contract is registered with the NRA before they start work. Meeting these deadlines is entirely our commitment when the service is outsourced.
The ETZ is the unified electronic employment record — the digital successor to the paper employment record book. Each employee’s employment history is kept in an electronic register maintained by the NRA, and the employer is obliged to enter hirings, changes and terminations there within the set deadlines. For employees this means an employment history accessible at any time; for employers — one more obligation with deadlines, which we take on when the service is outsourced.
The doctor issues the sick leave certificate electronically and it enters the NSSI system, while the employee notifies the employer. The employer (or we, on its behalf) submits to the NSSI the data needed to pay the benefit. The first 3 working days of sick leave are paid by the employer — at 70% of the average daily gross pay; from the 4th day onwards the benefit is paid by the NSSI (as of 2026). Our job is to make sure the data reaches the NSSI correctly and on time, so that the employee receives their money without delay.
Pregnancy and childbirth leave is 410 days, of which 45 are taken before the due date. The benefit is 90% of the mother’s average daily insurable income for the last 24 months (as of 2026), with a minimum of 12 months of insurance record covering general sickness and maternity. After the 410 days, leave for raising a child up to the age of 2 follows, with a fixed monthly benefit. The calculations and the filing of documents with the NSSI are part of our service.
Compensation for unused paid annual leave is always due. Depending on the grounds for termination, additional compensation may also be due — for example, for failure to observe the notice period, or for being left without work after a redundancy. On retirement, the employee is entitled to compensation of 2 gross salaries, or 6 if they have longer service with the same employer (as of 2026). Correctly determining the grounds and the amounts due is among the most common questions on which our clients seek advice.
An employment contract governs the performance of work — with working hours, a workplace, leave and the full protection of the Labour Code. A civil contract governs the achievement of a specific result and is subject to the Obligations and Contracts Act — with no leave, no working hours, and social security charged on the fee after deducting statutorily recognised expenses. Using a civil contract to disguise a genuine employment relationship is a violation that the Labour Inspectorate penalises — if in doubt, it is wise to seek advice before choosing the form.
Self-insured persons (freelancers, owners of an EOOD, registered farmers) pay social security contributions in advance on a monthly income of their choice between the minimum and maximum insurable income, with an annual reconciliation against actual income. Managers under a management and control contract (DUK) are insured on their actual remuneration, similarly to an employment contract. The choice of form and insurable income has a direct effect on future benefits and pension — a topic on which we regularly advise our clients.
Unused leave is carried over to the following year, but not indefinitely — the right to take it lapses 2 years after the end of the year to which the leave relates (as of 2026). When the contract is terminated, unused days are compensated in cash. Tracking balances and planning leave in good time is the employer’s duty — in our portal this data is always visible and up to date.