Fifty Minimum Wages a Year, and a Permit That Can Be Renewed Exactly Once
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Guatemala on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
154 exceptions recorded across 56 countries · none match Guatemala to Bulgaria · Residency on passive income
Bulgaria opened a route for people living on money earned elsewhere in June 2025, and it is narrower than it sounds. Article 24(1)(23) of the Aliens Act, added by ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г., lets a "digital nomad" get the ordinary one-year continuing-residence permit; article 24s sets the price of entry at an average annual income of not less than 50 minimum monthly wages for the previous calendar year, measured on gross income, on top of the general conditions in article 24(2) - secured housing, compulsory health insurance, and means of support of at least the minimum monthly wage, stipend or pension. The definition in paragraph 1(36) of the supplementary provisions is where the route is actually drawn: an employment contract with an employer established outside the Union, the EEA and Switzerland; or ownership of more than 25 per cent of such a company; or a year of providing remote services in a personal capacity - and in the second and third cases, on condition that no work is done and no services are supplied to anyone on Bulgarian territory. The permit runs for a year and may be extended once, for one more year, and that is the whole of it: there is no third year on this ground.
At a glance
- Income test
- Average annual income of at least 50 minimum monthly wages for the previous calendar year
Article 24s of the Aliens Act, paragraph 1, added by ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. Gross income is what counts.
- Permit length
- 1 year, extendable once by 1 year
Article 24s, paragraph 2. No further extension is provided for on this ground.
- General means test, in addition
- Not less than the minimum monthly wage, the minimum stipend or the minimum pension
Article 24(2) of the Aliens Act, which applies to every continuing-residence ground.
- Where the employer must be
- Outside the Union, the EEA and Switzerland
Paragraph 1(36)(1) of the supplementary provisions to the Aliens Act.
- Work for people in Bulgaria
- Excluded in the ownership and personal-capacity limbs of the definition
Paragraph 1(36)(2) and (3).
Requirements
- A long-stay (type D) visa under article 15(1) of the Aliens Act
- Average annual gross income of at least 50 minimum monthly wages for the previous calendar year
- Work for a non-EU/EEA/Swiss employer or company, or a year of remote self-employment
- No work and no services supplied to anyone in Bulgaria, in the ownership and self-employment limbs
- Secured housing, health insurance, and means of at least the minimum monthly wage
Country-level policy
Bulgaria's currency is the euro. Article 4 of the Zakon za vavezhdane na evroto v Republika Balgariya says so in terms, and the Payment Services Act was amended with effect from 1 January 2026 so that a basic payment account provides its services in euro. None of that redenominated the statutes. The Aliens Act still asks for 600,000 leva of real estate, 250,000 leva in a disadvantaged region, 500,000 leva with ten jobs, 2,000,000 leva in listed securities and 6,000,000 leva in an unlisted company, because the Euro Introduction Act did not go through the statute book changing numbers. It did something else: article 11(1) says the introduction of the euro does not affect the operation of existing legal instruments that refer to the lev, and article 11(2) says amounts stated in leva in existing legal instruments are treated as amounts in euro at the official rate, with the conversion rule in article 12 and the rounding rule in article 13. So the lev figures in the Aliens Act are live law and are read as euro, and a reader converting them is doing what the statute tells them to do rather than correcting an oversight. Where an amendment does touch such a provision it is expected to carry the euro figure across: paragraph 5(2) of the transitional provisions requires that, for sums that came into Bulgarian law from a Union act which stated a euro amount.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Guatemala
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«са дигитални номади.»Our translation - not official
are digital nomads.
The whole of the new ground. Everything that gives it content is elsewhere.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Bulgaria's foreign ministry, which issues visas and publishes consolidated prints of the statutes it applies. Its copy at /upload/148163/ is the consolidated Закон за чужденците в Република България with the June 2025 Schengen amendment incorporated, extracted cleanly by pdftotext, and it is the text almost every Bulgarian residence record here quotes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not an official text. Bulgaria has no official consolidation and this is a ministry's own working print, whose currency can only be judged from the amendment list in its header - which at /upload/148163/ runs to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. and is already one amendment behind the Ministry of the Interior's copy. The ministry also keeps an older print at /upload/138160/, consolidated only to ДВ бр. 79 от 2024 г.; the two sit on the same site with nothing to say which is current. It must not be cited for anything the foreign ministry does not administer.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«В случаите по чл. 24, ал. 1, т. 23 разрешението за продължително пребиваване се издава, освен при наличие на условията, предвидени в чл. 24, ал. 2 и правилника за прилагане на закона, и ако чужденецът докаже наличие на средногодишен доход в размер не по-малък от 50 (петдесет) минимални месечни работни заплати съгласно законодателството на Република България за предходната календарна година. За целите на определяне на размера на дохода се взема предвид брутната сума на придобитите доходи.»The income test and the gross-income rule. The article is чл. 24с of the Act's Cyrillic lettering.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Bulgaria's foreign ministry, which issues visas and publishes consolidated prints of the statutes it applies. Its copy at /upload/148163/ is the consolidated Закон за чужденците в Република България with the June 2025 Schengen amendment incorporated, extracted cleanly by pdftotext, and it is the text almost every Bulgarian residence record here quotes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not an official text. Bulgaria has no official consolidation and this is a ministry's own working print, whose currency can only be judged from the amendment list in its header - which at /upload/148163/ runs to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. and is already one amendment behind the Ministry of the Interior's copy. The ministry also keeps an older print at /upload/138160/, consolidated only to ДВ бр. 79 от 2024 г.; the two sit on the same site with nothing to say which is current. It must not be cited for anything the foreign ministry does not administer.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Срокът на валидност на разрешението по ал. 1 е една година. Разрешението може да бъде удължено еднократно за още една година.»Our translation - not official
The permit under paragraph 1 is valid for one year. The permit may be extended once by one further year.
One extension, and the Act provides no third year.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Bulgaria's foreign ministry, which issues visas and publishes consolidated prints of the statutes it applies. Its copy at /upload/148163/ is the consolidated Закон за чужденците в Република България with the June 2025 Schengen amendment incorporated, extracted cleanly by pdftotext, and it is the text almost every Bulgarian residence record here quotes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not an official text. Bulgaria has no official consolidation and this is a ministry's own working print, whose currency can only be judged from the amendment list in its header - which at /upload/148163/ runs to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. and is already one amendment behind the Ministry of the Interior's copy. The ministry also keeps an older print at /upload/138160/, consolidated only to ДВ бр. 79 от 2024 г.; the two sit on the same site with nothing to say which is current. It must not be cited for anything the foreign ministry does not administer.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«"Дигитален номад" е чужденец, който: 1. е нает с трудов договор от работодател, регистриран/учреден извън държава – членка на Европейския съюз, или на държава – страна по Споразумението за Европейското икономическо пространство, или на Конфедерация Швейцария и който предоставя дистанционни услуги чрез използване на информационни технологии; в случай че трудовият договор е сключен за определен срок, то оставащият срок на договора трябва да е не по-малък от срока на действие на разрешението за продължително пребиваване, издадено на това основание, или»The first limb of the definition. The second and third limbs cover an owner of more than 25 per cent of a non-Union company and a person who has supplied remote services in a personal capacity for at least a year, and both add that no work may be done and no services supplied to persons on Bulgarian territory.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Bulgaria's foreign ministry, which issues visas and publishes consolidated prints of the statutes it applies. Its copy at /upload/148163/ is the consolidated Закон за чужденците в Република България with the June 2025 Schengen amendment incorporated, extracted cleanly by pdftotext, and it is the text almost every Bulgarian residence record here quotes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not an official text. Bulgaria has no official consolidation and this is a ministry's own working print, whose currency can only be judged from the amendment list in its header - which at /upload/148163/ runs to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. and is already one amendment behind the Ministry of the Interior's copy. The ministry also keeps an older print at /upload/138160/, consolidated only to ДВ бр. 79 от 2024 г.; the two sit on the same site with nothing to say which is current. It must not be cited for anything the foreign ministry does not administer.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«За получаване на разрешение за продължително пребиваване лицата следва да имат осигурено жилище, задължителни здравни застраховки и осигуряване, достатъчни средства за издръжка, без да прибягват до системата за социално подпомагане, в размер не по-малък от минималната месечна заплата, минималната стипендия или минималната пенсия съгласно законодателството на Република България за срока на пребиваване.»Our translation - not official
To obtain a continuing-residence permit, the persons must have secured housing, compulsory health insurance and insurance cover, and sufficient means of support without recourse to the social assistance system, of not less than the minimum monthly wage, the minimum stipend or the minimum pension under the legislation of the Republic of Bulgaria, for the period of residence.
The general condition, which applies on top of the income test.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Bulgaria's foreign ministry, which issues visas and publishes consolidated prints of the statutes it applies. Its copy at /upload/148163/ is the consolidated Закон за чужденците в Република България with the June 2025 Schengen amendment incorporated, extracted cleanly by pdftotext, and it is the text almost every Bulgarian residence record here quotes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not an official text. Bulgaria has no official consolidation and this is a ministry's own working print, whose currency can only be judged from the amendment list in its header - which at /upload/148163/ runs to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. and is already one amendment behind the Ministry of the Interior's copy. The ministry also keeps an older print at /upload/138160/, consolidated only to ДВ бр. 79 от 2024 г.; the two sit on the same site with nothing to say which is current. It must not be cited for anything the foreign ministry does not administer.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«доказателства за стабилни, редовни, предвидими и достатъчни средства за издръжка, без да се прибягва до системата за социално подпомагане, в размер, не по-малък от минималната месечна работна заплата, минималната стипендия или минималната пенсия за страната, за срока на пребиваване на територията на Република България;»Our translation - not official
evidence of stable, regular, predictable and sufficient means of support, without recourse to the social assistance system, of not less than the minimum monthly wage, the minimum stipend or the minimum pension for the country, for the period of residence on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria;
What the implementing regulation asks to be produced.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The interior ministry's migration directorate, which decides every residence permit in Bulgaria and keeps a page of the legislation it applies at /migration/дирекцията/нормативна-уредба/bgzac. The files behind it are prints generated by the commercial system Сиела and are the most current texts of the Aliens Act, its implementing regulation and the Act on Union citizens that any Bulgarian public body publishes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The files are vendor prints, not official texts, and the vendor's watermark is injected into the running text where it interrupts sentences mid-clause. Worse, the directorate's server returns 403 to a direct download, so the only way in is the extraction service, which reads these PDFs as two columns and interleaves the words of long paragraphs: article 23(5)-(6) of the Aliens Act and article 16(3) of the Act on Union citizens both come back scrambled. Nothing may be quoted from this publisher without reading the sentence back in Bulgarian first. Its own HTML service pages, which describe procedures, were unreachable by every tool.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The threshold is a multiple of the Bulgarian minimum monthly wage and no amount is published here, because the wage for 2025 was not read in any instrument. The rule is the fact; the sum is arithmetic on a figure we have not sourced.
The Act writes the test as an average annual income for the previous calendar year, not as a monthly income at the date of application.
A holder of this permit is not in the closed list of article 33(1) of the Health Insurance Act, so compulsory health insurance does not follow from it - see the healthcare record.
- administersЗакон за чужденците в Република България, consolidated text to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г.
Министерство на външните работи
About this source
Bulgaria's foreign ministry, which issues visas and publishes consolidated prints of the statutes it applies. Its copy at /upload/148163/ is the consolidated Закон за чужденците в Република България with the June 2025 Schengen amendment incorporated, extracted cleanly by pdftotext, and it is the text almost every Bulgarian residence record here quotes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not an official text. Bulgaria has no official consolidation and this is a ministry's own working print, whose currency can only be judged from the amendment list in its header - which at /upload/148163/ runs to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. and is already one amendment behind the Ministry of the Interior's copy. The ministry also keeps an older print at /upload/138160/, consolidated only to ДВ бр. 79 от 2024 г.; the two sit on the same site with nothing to say which is current. It must not be cited for anything the foreign ministry does not administer.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- administersПравилник за прилагане на Закона за чужденците в Република България, consolidated text to ДВ бр. 7 от 2026 г.
Министерство на вътрешните работи, дирекция "Миграция"
About this source
The interior ministry's migration directorate, which decides every residence permit in Bulgaria and keeps a page of the legislation it applies at /migration/дирекцията/нормативна-уредба/bgzac. The files behind it are prints generated by the commercial system Сиела and are the most current texts of the Aliens Act, its implementing regulation and the Act on Union citizens that any Bulgarian public body publishes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The files are vendor prints, not official texts, and the vendor's watermark is injected into the running text where it interrupts sentences mid-clause. Worse, the directorate's server returns 403 to a direct download, so the only way in is the extraction service, which reads these PDFs as two columns and interleaves the words of long paragraphs: article 23(5)-(6) of the Aliens Act and article 16(3) of the Act on Union citizens both come back scrambled. Nothing may be quoted from this publisher without reading the sentence back in Bulgarian first. Its own HTML service pages, which describe procedures, were unreachable by every tool.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source