Bulgarian language website rules for an online store

In short: an online store that sells to consumers in Bulgaria must give the legally required information in Bulgarian. The Bulgarian Consumer Protection Act requires Bulgarian for written product information (Article 5), labels (Article 9), instructions for imported goods (Article 13), the information in a distance contract (Article 47(7)) and product safety texts. English can stay alongside it. Fines start at €200 per case.

This guide is for foreign founders, expats and EU companies who run an online store in English and sell to people in Bulgaria. It lists, article by article, what has to be in Bulgarian, what can stay in English, what the fines are in euro, and how to run a Bulgarian and English store side by side in CloudCart, the Bulgarian ecommerce platform. The legal text quoted here is the Consumer Protection Act as amended up to State Gazette No. 87 of 2026. Confirm the details for your products with a Bulgarian lawyer.

Does an online store in Bulgaria have to be in Bulgarian?

Yes, for every piece of information the law asks you to give a Bulgarian consumer. The Consumer Protection Act (in Bulgarian: Zakon za zashtita na potrebitelite, ZZP) is written around information, not around the website as a whole: product facts, prices, the contract, labels, instructions and safety warnings must reach the consumer in Bulgarian. The Act is enforced by the Commission for Consumer Protection (KZP).

In practice this means the parts of the store a customer reads before and after paying: product pages, prices and delivery costs, the checkout, the terms, the withdrawal information and the order confirmation email. An English-only store aimed at Bulgarian consumers misses these obligations, even when every customer happens to read English.

Two wordings in the Act matter for a bilingual store. Article 9(1) says goods are offered with labels "in Bulgarian or also in Bulgarian", so a label in English and Bulgarian is fine. Article 13(3) asks for instructions "also in Bulgarian" for imported goods. Bulgarian has to be there; English can stay next to it (Consumer Protection Act, lex.bg, in Bulgarian).

What must be in Bulgarian: the list by article

Five groups of information must be in Bulgarian for an online store selling goods to consumers. The table lists each with its article in the Consumer Protection Act and the place in your store where it appears.

What	Article of the Consumer Protection Act	Where it appears in your store
Written information about goods	Art. 5(1): written information must be in Bulgarian and in SI units; Art. 5(2): true, complete, legible, clear and understandable	Product names, descriptions, characteristics, sizes and weights in cm, kg, ml
Labels	Art. 9(1)-(2): labels in Bulgarian, or also in Bulgarian, with the manufacturer, the importer for imported goods, the type of goods, main characteristics, expiry date, storage conditions and, where needed, instructions	The label on the product or the packaging
Instructions for use	Art. 13(3): imported goods that need technical knowledge, contain dangerous substances or need special safety care come with instructions also in Bulgarian	A printed insert in the parcel, and the same text on the product page
Distance contract information	Art. 47(7): the information in a distance sales contract is given in Bulgarian	Product page, prices with VAT, delivery costs, payment options, checkout, terms, withdrawal information, order confirmation
Product safety information	Arts. 71(2), 72(1) and 75, in force since February 3, 2026: manufacturers and importers give the safety information required by the EU General Product Safety Regulation in Bulgarian	Warnings, manufacturer and importer details, safety instructions on the product or an accompanying document

Pictograms and widely known symbols can replace text on a label (Article 9(1)), for example washing symbols on clothing. Anything written still has to be in Bulgarian.

What the distance contract information covers

Article 47(1) lists the information a consumer must have before ordering online, and Article 47(7) puts all of it in Bulgarian. For a typical store that is:

• the main characteristics of the product;
• your company name, registered address, phone number and email;
• the total price with VAT and every tax, plus delivery costs;
• payment, delivery and the date by which you deliver;
• the 14-day right of withdrawal, how to use it and who pays for the return;
• the legal guarantee of conformity, and since September 27, 2026 a visible reminder of it through the harmonized EU notice (Article 47(1), item 12a).

These rules come from EU consumer law, and the Bulgarian version is detailed in the guide to terms and conditions for an online store. Returns and refunds are covered in the guide to returns and consumer rights.

What are the fines for missing Bulgarian information?

Fines under the Consumer Protection Act are in euro since September 24, 2026 and are set per article. A company pays a property sanction, the Bulgarian term for a fine on a legal entity or sole trader; an individual pays a fine. Several of them apply "for each separate case".

Breach	Penalty article	Individual	Company or sole trader
Written product information not in Bulgarian (Arts. 4, 5, 6, 8)	Art. 197	€200 to €1,000	€300 to €2,000 for each case
Labels (Arts. 9, 10, 11)	Art. 198	€200 to €1,000	€300 to €1,000
Instructions for use (Arts. 13, 14)	Art. 199	€200 to €1,000	€300 to €1,500
Distance contract information (Arts. 47, 48, 49)	Art. 204	€200 to €1,500	€700 to €3,000 for each case
Product without Bulgarian safety information from the importer (Art. 72(1))	Art. 213(2)	€600 to €1,000	€1,500 to €3,000

"For each case" means each breach found counts on its own, so a missing Bulgarian text across many products or orders is a larger risk than one fine. For product safety, the market surveillance authorities can also carry out checks, take samples and ask for documents under Article 84, including test purchases made under a hidden identity.

Can the store stay in English with a Bulgarian version?

Yes. Nothing in the Consumer Protection Act stops you from keeping English as your main language, as long as the Bulgarian consumer gets the required information in Bulgarian. Three setups work in practice.

Setup	Who it suits	What to watch
Bulgarian store with an English version	Most stores selling mainly to people in Bulgaria, with expats and tourists as a second audience	The English version is a convenience; the Bulgarian one carries the legal texts
English store with a Bulgarian version	Foreign founders and international brands who want English as the main catalog	The Bulgarian version needs everything a Bulgarian consumer reads: checkout, terms, emails
One store with bilingual texts	A small catalog where each description fits in two languages	Long pages, and Google sees one language mixed with another, which hurts search in both

A browser translator does not count as a Bulgarian version. The text exists only on the visitor's screen, the store has no Bulgarian terms or emails, and Google cannot index it. Google recommends a separate URL for each language version instead of switching language by cookies or browser settings (Google Search Central).

The language also affects sales directly. In a CSA Research survey of 8,709 consumers in 29 countries, 76% of online shoppers prefer to buy products with information in their native language, and 40% never buy from websites in other languages (CSA Research, 2020). For an English-first store in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian version is where most local searches and orders come from.

How to run a Bulgarian and English store in CloudCart

A CloudCart store has one storefront language, set in Settings → Store settings → Language settings, and a second language is added as a language store with the Multilang app. The admin language is a separate field, so you can run the admin in English while the storefront is in Bulgarian.

1. Choose the main store's language. In Settings → Store settings → Language settings, the Storefront Language is what customers see and the Admin Panel Language is what your team sees. Changing the storefront language rebuilds translations and the search index, so set it once at the start.
2. Set metric units. Article 5(1) asks for SI units. The store's unit system is set in the same settings screen; use metric, so sizes and weights show in cm and kg.
3. Check the system texts. Settings → Translations lists every button, heading, error message and email subject of the storefront in the current language. Review "Add to cart", the checkout steps and the order emails in Bulgarian, and edit the wording where needed.
4. Install the GDPR app for the legal pages. On install it creates four starting policies in the store's language, including Bulgarian: privacy policy, consent to marketing, terms and conditions, and cookies policy. They are filled with your company name, address, phone and email from the store settings, and are accepted as checkboxes at registration and checkout. Edit them to match your business.
5. Add the second language with Multilang. Apps → Multilang → Stores → "+ Add language site" creates a language store with its own subdomain, language, currency and measurement system. It copies and machine-translates products, categories, blog posts and pages from the main store, and adds hreflang tags automatically.
6. Give each language its own legal pages. With Multilang translating pages, each language store holds its own copy of every policy. Check the Bulgarian terms and the withdrawal information word by word; a machine translation of a legal text is a draft.
7. Connect a domain. In the language store's admin, Settings → Domains adds a domain such as en.mystore.bg; SSL is issued once DNS points to CloudCart.

Important: Multilang syncs one way, from the main store to the language store, and a new translation overwrites manual edits in the language store. Make lasting corrections in the main store, and read the Bulgarian legal pages again after every re-translation.

The full setup, with the translatable fields, quotas and prices per market, is in the guide to the multilingual online store, and the model is described on the multistore and languages page.

Machine translation or a native speaker?

Machine translation is a good start for a catalog and a risk for legal texts. Multilang translates products with Google Cloud Translation, field by field, and the result goes straight to the storefront without a review step. That speed suits hundreds of product descriptions; it does not suit the sentences that decide a dispute with a customer.

Text	Machine translation	Native speaker review
Product titles and descriptions	Fine as a first version	Best sellers and ad landing pages
Meta titles, image alt texts	Fine, turn the fields on in Multilang	Category pages that bring search traffic
Buttons, checkout, email subjects	Built-in Bulgarian texts of the platform	Your own edits in Settings → Translations
Terms, withdrawal information, privacy policy	A draft only	Always, ideally by a Bulgarian lawyer
Safety warnings and instructions	A draft only	Always, matching the text on the product

Use the words Bulgarian shoppers search for. A Bulgarian customer looks for "delivery to an Econt office" or "a Speedy office" (Econt and Speedy are Bulgarian couriers) and "nalozhen platezh", cash on delivery (COD). The local couriers, offices and parcel lockers are explained in the guide to couriers in Bulgaria.

Checklist before you sell to Bulgarian consumers

1. Product pages in Bulgarian. Name, description, characteristics and sizes in SI units, with the manufacturer and, for imports, the importer.
2. Prices with VAT and delivery costs shown in Bulgarian before the order, in euro, since Bulgaria uses the euro.
3. Checkout and emails in Bulgarian. Order a test product and read every screen and every email that arrives.
4. Terms, withdrawal and privacy in Bulgarian, accepted at checkout and saved with the order.
5. Labels and inserts. Each parcel carries a label in Bulgarian, or also in Bulgarian, and instructions in Bulgarian for products that need them.
6. Safety information in Bulgarian for every product covered by the EU General Product Safety Regulation, on the product or in an accompanying document.
7. Customer support in Bulgarian. The law does not set the language of support, yet a reply the customer can read settles most complaints before they reach the KZP.

Companies setting up in Bulgaria for the first time also need a company and a tax setup; see company registration in Bulgaria for an online store. EU stores selling into Bulgaria from abroad can read the guide to selling online to Bulgaria from another EU country. What the product page must show under the safety regulation is in the guide to GPSR for online sellers.

Do the rules apply to B2B sales?

The articles in this guide protect consumers, people who buy for their own use. A store that sells only to companies works under commercial law and the contract the two businesses agree, including its language. A store that sells to both, which is common for wholesalers with a retail section, applies the Bulgarian rules to every consumer order. Product labels and safety information are tied to the product itself, so they follow the product into any channel that reaches consumers.

Frequently asked questions

Plan the Bulgarian version together with the catalog, so every product starts with complete text in both languages. Create a store for €1, compare plans on the CloudCart pricing page, and for questions about language versions write to support@cloudcart.com.