Filming in Bulgaria in 2026: The 25% Cash Rebate, the New €5M Cap and What It Actually Costs

Updated 4 August 2026. Reflects the €5 million per-project cap announced by the Bulgarian government at the European Film Market in February 2026.

Bulgaria has quietly become one of the most consequential incentive stories in Central and Eastern Europe. For five years its 25% cash rebate was real but small — a €1 million per-project ceiling meant the scheme worked for mid-range independents and second-unit work, and almost nobody else. Producers costing out a studio-scale shoot there simply could not make the numbers land. That changed in February 2026, when the cap was raised fivefold.

Bulgaria has sharpened its appeal as a filming hub by increasing the cap on its cash rebate to €5m from €1m per project, announced at the European Film Market, with productions now able to receive a 25% cash rebate on eligible expenses up to €5m against a total annual programme budget of €10.3m.

For producers, the practical effect is that filming in Bulgaria is now viable for the €5–20 million bracket that previously defaulted to Budapest or Prague. This guide sets out what the rebate covers, how the application actually runs, how Bulgaria compares with Hungary, Romania and Czechia on 2026 rules, and where the scheme’s real constraints sit.

Filming in Bulgaria: quick facts on the 25% cash rebate

One correction worth making early, because it circulates widely: the €250,000 minimum spend figure that appears in older third-party summaries is not Bulgaria’s. It has been imported from other jurisdictions. Bulgaria’s thresholds are an order of magnitude lower, which is precisely what makes the scheme accessible to documentary and animation work that would not clear the bar in Hungary or Romania. For those formats, filming in Bulgaria is often the only rebate-backed option in the region.

Filming in Bulgaria in 2026: what changed and why it matters

The rebate itself has run since 2021, administered by the Bulgarian National Film Center under the Film Industry Act. The rate has always been 25%. What moved was the ceiling.

Bulgaria reinforced its position as an attractive filming destination by raising the cap on its cash rebate scheme from €1m to €5m per project, with the rebate granted under a state aid scheme governed by the Film Industry Act and its Implementing Regulation.

At a 25% rate, a €1 million cap bound as soon as qualifying local spend passed €4 million. That is a modest feature. Under the new ceiling, the cap does not bind until qualifying Bulgarian spend reaches roughly €20 million — which covers the overwhelming majority of international productions that would realistically consider filming in Bulgaria at all.

There is a counterweight, and it is the number producers should be watching most closely: the annual scheme budget remains approximately €10.3 million. Two projects claiming at the cap would absorb the entire year’s fund. Applications are assessed first-come, first-served. Timing has therefore become as strategically important as budget size, and that is a genuinely new dynamic for the scheme. Anyone planning a 2027 slate in the country should be lodging paperwork this year.

Filming in Bulgaria: eligible formats and statutory exclusions

Under the Film Industry Act and its Implementing Regulation, the following formats qualify subject to passing the cultural test:

• Feature films — running time over 70 minutes.
• TV or OTT series — episodes of at least 40 minutes, or single TV films over 70 minutes.
• Documentaries — over 60 minutes for a single film, or series with episodes of at least 40 minutes.
• Animation — feature or series with total running time of at least 24 minutes.

Eligible projects include feature films over 70 minutes, documentaries over 60 minutes, documentary series with episodes of at least 40 minutes, animation films or series over 24 minutes, and films intended for TV broadcasting or streaming platforms over 70 minutes, or series with episodes of at least 40 minutes, with projects required to be intended for public release or broadcasting and to meet cultural criteria through a cultural test.

Commercials, brand content, music videos, reality TV, live-event broadcasts, daily soap operas, sit-coms, sports events, talk shows and any political, religious-propaganda or pornographic content are excluded by statute. This is not a discretionary judgement the NFC makes project by project — it is written into the Act. Producers of advertising content sometimes arrive expecting a negotiation. There isn’t one. If you are shooting a TVC, the financial case for filming in Bulgaria rests entirely on the cost base, not the rebate.

What qualifies as local spend when filming in Bulgaria

The 25% applies to goods and services provided in Bulgaria by Bulgarian entities, or by natural persons registered in an EU member state, EEA state or Switzerland whose Bulgarian-source income is subject to final tax under Bulgarian law.

In practice, qualifying spend when filming in Bulgaria covers:

• Local crew and cast — wages for Bulgarian crew, heads of department, supporting staff, local cast and extras.
• Equipment and stage rentals — camera, lighting, grip, sound and stage hire, including at facilities such as Nu Boyana.
• Locations and set builds — permits, site fees, materials and construction labour.
• Post-production completed in Bulgaria — VFX, editing, colour grading, sound mixing.
• Local logistics — in-country travel, transport, hotels and catering.

Non-EU, non-EEA and non-Swiss cast and crew fees generally do not qualify unless the individual is registered to pay Bulgarian income tax on that income, or is engaged through an eligible Bulgarian production service entity operating under local withholding tax rules. This single rule does more to shape the economics of filming in Bulgaria than any other, because it determines whether your director, DOP and lead cast sit inside or outside the rebate base.

Filming in Bulgaria: the application and payout workflow

The Bulgarian scheme is approval-first and cash-on-audit, and the sequence is unforgiving for anyone new to filming in Bulgaria. Skipping the first step disqualifies the project outright, with no remedy.

Step 1 — Establish local presence and register with the NFC. Register your production company with the National Film Center as a producer, co-producer or production service company, or partner with an established Bulgarian service company. A producer, co-producer, or service company registered in Bulgaria, in the EU, Switzerland, the EEA, or in a third country can apply, and a foreign company must have held original registration as a film company for at least two years before applying.

Step 2 — Submit the application and pass the cultural test. Submit the script, the Section A cultural qualification form and the project outline to the NFC. All documents must be submitted to the National Film Center in Bulgarian only, script included, and the application is reviewed within a month by a Committee that decides whether the project meets the cultural criteria of the qualification test, with the list of approved projects published on the NFC website seven days after the Committee session.

Step 3 — Secure the approved budget certificate. Once the cultural test passes, the production submits its detailed local budget and requested rebate amount to the Budget Committee, which issues a certificate for the approved amount up to the €5M cap.

Step 4 — Shoot, then audit. Execute the production in Bulgaria. Following wrap, submit a certified local financial audit report to the NFC detailing all qualifying local spend.

Step 5 — Certificate and disbursal. After wrapping the production in Bulgaria, an audited financial report must be submitted to the NFC, and within up to 14 days a Certificate is granted with the final amount of the cash rebate. The rebate is then paid in cash directly to the local production account.

The rule that catches the most productions is the timing gate. If work on the project has already started in Bulgaria before the first application is submitted, the production will not be eligible for a rebate. This includes preparatory work — location recces booked through a local vendor, early set construction, crew deals signed. Producers accustomed to jurisdictions where the application can trail the shoot by a few weeks lose the entire rebate this way. It is the single largest avoidable risk in the whole process.

Filming in Bulgaria versus Hungary, Romania and Czechia

Headline percentages are the least useful way to compare filming in Bulgaria against its neighbours. Bulgaria’s base cost of labour, stage hire and logistics sits materially below Budapest or Prague, so a 25% rebate on a smaller cost base frequently lands close to — or below — a 30% rebate on a larger one.

Notes on the comparators.

• Hungary’s 37.5% is arithmetic rather than a headline rate. Hungary’s 30% incentive can be extended to 37.5% of eligible production expenditure by including non-Hungarian costs in the base. Hungary’s registration cap has been volatile: registrations froze in mid-2025 when the envelope was exhausted, a HUF 140 billion semi-annual cap applied to the first half of 2026, and from 1 July 2026 the Hungarian Government restarted the programme with no cap, with the National Film Office again accepting support applications without limitation. Processing backlogs remain.
• Romania’s 45% requires the finished work to visibly promote Romania — country, region, city or landmarks. The base 35% applies without it.
• Czechia’s 35% is exclusive to animation, VFX and digital production. Live-action features receive 25%, the same as Bulgaria, on a higher cost base.
• Bulgaria’s constraint is the fund, not the cap. A €10.3M annual envelope against a €5M per-project ceiling means the scheme can fully back roughly two flagship projects a year at the cap.

Comparative model: identical €5 million scope, Bulgaria versus Hungary

The table below prices an identical scope of work for filming in Bulgaria and for Hungary, assuming 80% of spend qualifies locally in each. Line-item ratios reflect market rates from crew and vendor quotes across both countries in 2026. Treat this as an illustrative model, not a quote.

Even before Hungary’s optional uplift is modelled, Bulgaria’s lower cost base delivers a lower net out-of-pocket figure on this scope. The gap narrows as budgets scale into the €15–30M range, where Hungary’s uncapped rebate compounds. Bulgaria’s new €5M cap was designed precisely to keep it competitive there, and it has materially improved the case for filming in Bulgaria at scale.

Building a budget model for filming in Bulgaria

To model the true cost of filming in Bulgaria, separate qualifying local spend — Bulgarian or EU/EEA/Swiss vendors and eligible local labour — from non-qualifying spend, meaning foreign cast, non-EU crew, foreign-sourced gear and non-Bulgarian services.

Worked example: €4.7M production

The maths. Qualifying spend is €3,640,000. That passes the 80% test, since €4.70M × 0.80 gives a €3.76M ceiling. The cash rebate is €3,640,000 × 0.25 = €910,000. Net out-of-pocket is €4,700,000 − €910,000 = €3,790,000. The rebate sits below the €5M cap, so no cap adjustment applies.

The structural lever in this model is the €850,000 of above-the-line and foreign HOD spend sitting at 0%. Every euro moved from that block into eligible local engagement returns 25 cents. That is where the real optimisation work happens when filming in Bulgaria, and it is why early structuring matters more than late negotiation.

Beyond the rebate: why productions choose filming in Bulgaria

The rebate is rarely the only reason a production commits. These are the operational arguments for filming in Bulgaria.

• Location range inside a two-hour drive of Sofia — Roman ruins, Soviet-era architecture, snow-capped mountains, dense pine forest and Black Sea coastline. Bulgaria’s environments range from the alpine peaks of the Rila Mountains to the cobblestone streets of Plovdiv and the coastlines of Varna and Burgas, each with distinct permissions, cultural expectations, heritage restrictions and logistical considerations.
• Nu Boyana Film Studios — roughly 30 hectares, ten sound stages, and standing sets including New York, London, a Middle Eastern street, St Paul’s Cathedral and an ancient Rome complex with a colosseum.
• Doubling capability — Bulgaria frequently doubles for Eastern Europe, Russia, Turkey, the Middle East, the Balkans and even parts of Western Europe due to its architectural range and scenic landscapes.
• Crew depth in English — Bulgaria has serviced US and UK studio productions since the early 2010s, and English-fluent crew depth is the reason a €5M scope executes to a Budapest-equivalent standard on a lower cost base.
• Drone access, with process — drone flights require approval from the Bulgarian Directorate General for Civil Aviation Administration, with restrictions near cities and protected nature zones.

Filming in Bulgaria: frequently asked questions

Talk to a Bulgarian fixer

Cultural qualification tests, Bulgarian-language filings, vendor eligibility checks and audit-ready cost tracking are all handled locally, and all of them sit on the critical path. Hoodlum Film Fixers runs a Bulgaria desk for productions filming in Bulgaria, structuring the NFC submission, models qualifying spend against the 80% and cap thresholds, and manages the audit-to-disbursal workflow.

If you are weighing Bulgaria against Hungary, Romania or Czechia, we will run a custom rebate calculation against your actual budget rather than a headline rate — including the scenario where filming in Bulgaria is not the right answer.

Next steps:

• Explore our production support in Bulgaria
• Review our Bulgaria country page for permits, customs and crew
• Compare rebates across Europe
• Browse the full film incentives hub

Sources

• Bulgarian National Film Center — Guidelines for the Film Incentive Scheme
• Screen Daily — Bulgaria boosts project cap on tax rebate, February 2026
• Film New Europe — Bulgaria expands cash rebate programme, March 2026
• Bulgarian Film Consulting — 25% Cash Rebate
• CMS Law — Bulgaria increases film production cash rebate cap to EUR 5 million
• UNESCO Creativity Policy Monitoring Platform — Scheme for the reimbursement of 25% of eligible costs incurred in Bulgaria
• Council of Europe / Merlin Observatory — Bulgarian Film Industry Act cash rebate
• Olsberg SPI — Global Incentives Index 2025
• Andersen Hungary — Hungarian film rebate registrations restart without limitation
• Variety — Hungary removes cap on new registrations for production incentive
• Screen Daily — Czech film and TV rebate to increase to 25%
• Nu Boyana Film Studios — Sound stages