SAF-T for small and medium companies: what changes in 2029
From 1 January 2029 every small, medium and large enterprise in Bulgaria files SAF-T. What that means in practice, and why the work starts long before.
The first SAF-T phases are about the largest companies. For most Bulgarian businesses, the date that matters is 1 January 2029. From then on, every small, medium and large enterprise under the Accounting Act sends its accounting data to the National Revenue Agency (NRA) in the SAF-T format, whatever its revenue.
Three years can sound like a long time. In practice, the companies that will have the easiest start are the ones that use 2026 and 2027 to clean up their data.
Who is in the 2029 phase
The 2029 phase covers every enterprise that the Accounting Act classifies as small, medium or large, unless it has already joined in an earlier phase because of its revenue or tax payments.
Micro-enterprises are not part of this phase. If they are VAT registered, they start in 2030, when SAF-T applies to every VAT-registered business.
Not sure which category you are in? It is stated in your annual financial statements, and our SAF-T calculator shows your likely start date in a minute.
What you will file
From January 2029 you file three kinds of SAF-T report:
- A monthly file, by the end of the following month: general ledger entries, customers and suppliers, sales and purchase invoices, and payments.
- An annual file, by 30 June of the following year: fixed assets and their movements.
- On request, within 14 days: additional data such as stock movements, when the NRA asks for it.
The first monthly file, for January 2029, is due by the end of February 2029. As in every phase, the files for January to June 2029 can be corrected without penalty until the deadline for the seventh file, 31 August 2029.
Why small companies should start early
A SAF-T file is only an export of what is already in your books. If the books are untidy, the file is untidy, and the NRA sees it.
Smaller companies are more likely to have:
- Accounting software that has never exported structured data. Many popular Bulgarian packages are adding SAF-T exports, but older versions or heavily customised set-ups may need an upgrade.
- Master data kept loosely. Customers without VAT numbers, suppliers entered twice, products described differently on every invoice.
- Fixed assets in a spreadsheet rather than in the accounting system, which makes the annual file hard to produce.
- An external accountant who files the VAT return but has never been asked who owns the SAF-T file.
None of this is difficult to fix. It just takes time, and it is much cheaper to fix in a quiet month than in the weeks before the first deadline.
A simple plan for 2026–2028
- Confirm your phase and put the first deadline in the calendar.
- Ask your software provider when, and in which version, SAF-T export will be available for your package.
- Clean up customers and suppliers: VAT numbers, addresses, duplicates.
- Move fixed assets into the accounting system if they live elsewhere.
- Agree who does what: who prepares the file, who checks it, who signs and submits it.
- Run a test export well before 2029 and check it against the NRA’s validation rules.
How we can help
We confirm your phase, review your data and software, work with your accountant or software provider, and test the file before it matters. When the time comes, we can review and submit every monthly file for you. See our SAF-T service.
