# Cash on delivery vs card payments in Bulgaria: fees and refusals Cash on delivery or card payments in Bulgaria: Econt and Speedy COD fees, N-18 receipts, refused parcels and how to move buyers to cards step by step. Source: https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/cash-on-delivery-vs-card-payments · CloudCart · 2026-11-06 In short: cash on delivery (COD) brings orders from Bulgarian shoppers who will not pay online, but it costs a courier fee (2.4% of the amount on Speedy's public tariff), a wait for the money and the risk of a refused parcel. A card payment makes the order paid on the website. Offer both, and steer buyers to cards with Apple Pay and Google Pay. With [CloudCart Pay](https://cloudcart.com/en/cloudcart-pay), the card fee is 0% through Dec 31, 2026. This guide is for anyone selling to customers in Bulgaria: foreign founders with a Bulgarian company, expats and EU sellers shipping to or from Bulgaria. CloudCart, the Bulgarian ecommerce platform, supports both: COD with Econt, Speedy (DPD Bulgaria) and BOX NOW, and cards through CloudCart Pay or a bank virtual POS. Why COD still matters: in 2025, 35% of people aged 16 to 74 in Bulgaria bought something online in the previous three months, against 62% across the EU ([Eurostat, isoc_ec_ib20](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/isoc_ec_ib20/default/table?lang=en)). Many are new to buying online and trust paying the courier after seeing the parcel. ## What is cash on delivery and how does it work for the seller? Cash on delivery means the customer pays the courier when the parcel arrives: in cash, by card on the courier's terminal, or through a phone link at a parcel locker. The courier collects the amount on your behalf and transfers it to you under your contract. Econt and Speedy are the two main Bulgarian courier networks; BOX NOW is a locker-only network. The path of a COD order: - The customer orders and picks cash on delivery at checkout. The order arrives in the admin with the payment pending. - You create the shipping label with the amount to collect. In CloudCart you create it from the order itself, for Econt, Speedy, BOX NOW and the other built-in couriers. - The courier delivers and collects. With BOX NOW, the customer gets a payment link once the parcel is in the locker, pays, then opens the locker with the SMS code. - The courier transfers the money to your account, within the term in your contract. - The order becomes paid. In CloudCart, Econt and Speedy report back when the customer has paid, and the order is marked as completed automatically. The sync is on every plan, from 25 orders a month on Baby Pack to 1,000 on CC Master ( compare the plans ). ## What does cash on delivery cost with Econt, Speedy and BOX NOW? The COD fee is separate from the delivery price and is charged for collecting and transferring the money. On public courier tariffs it is a percentage of the amount with a minimum; businesses with a contract have negotiated rates, shown in the contract and on the courier's invoice. Speedy's public tariff ([speedy.bg, Cash on delivery](https://www.speedy.bg/en/cash-on-delivery), VAT included) shows the order of magnitude: | Speedy COD in Bulgaria | Public tariff | | Payout by bank transfer or in cash at a Speedy office | 2.4% of the amount, minimum €0.61 | | Payout in cash at the sender's address | 2.4% of the amount, minimum €0.92 | | Customer pays by card on the courier's terminal | a further 0.96%, charged to the store | | Bank payout | first working day after delivery | | Maximum amount | €5,112.41 per parcel, €2,000 to or from a Speedy locker | For cross-border sellers, Speedy's COD from Bulgaria is 1.8% (minimum €0.92) to Romania, capped at RON 5,000, and 2.4% (minimum €1.23) to Greece, capped at €499.99. On a €50 order, that is €1.20, plus €0.48 if the customer pays by card at the door. Econt has its own tariff; check the rates in your Econt contract. The Speedy app in CloudCart has a setting that disables card payment at the door, if you do not want the extra 0.96%. With the courier's rate calculator, the COD fee is usually inside the delivery price, so paying online is cheaper for the customer too. Important: a percentage fee grows with the order. At 2.4%, a €150 order pays €3.60 and a €50 order pays €1.20, so larger orders are where a card saves the most. ## COD with a postal money transfer: what is the difference? A postal money transfer is a service of a licensed postal operator: the courier accepts the customer's money as a transfer to you and issues a document for it. Ordinary COD is money collected on your behalf and paid out later. The difference matters under Ordinance N-18, Bulgaria's regulation on registering and reporting sales ([Ordinance N-18 on lex.bg, in Bulgarian](https://lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2135540645)). Under Article 3, payment by postal money transfer through a licensed postal operator needs no cash register receipt from the seller, because the customer gets the operator's document. Ordinary COD requires your own fiscal receipt. In the monthly Annex 38 file for the NRA (National Revenue Agency, Bulgaria's tax authority), COD with a postal money transfer has its own payment code, 3. Econt offers a similar service for online stores without a cash register: Econt issues the receipt to the customer on your behalf and pays you by bank transfer, under a separate contract. In CloudCart, you mark that contract in the Econt app settings, and the parcel contents list fills in from the order lines when you create the label. The Speedy app has a money transfer option, shown when your Speedy contract allows it. ## Is cash on delivery income taxed like card income? Yes. For a company or sole trader, COD money is revenue like any other, and the tax is the same as for cards; only the sales document differs. Selling goods regularly for profit is trade, and the income is declared whichever way it was paid. Company options for foreign founders are in the guide to [registering a company for an online store](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/company-registration-online-store). NRA registration is covered in [Ordinance N-18 for online stores](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/n18-online-store-nap). ## Do you need a receipt for COD and for card payments? It depends on how the customer pays. These are the three cases online stores in Bulgaria meet: | How the customer pays | Which document | Who issues it | | COD with a postal money transfer, or Econt's service for sales without a cash register | The courier's document, no receipt from you | The courier, as postal operator | | COD without a postal money transfer | Fiscal receipt from a cash register, usually in the parcel | You | | Card online (virtual POS or payment provider) | Fiscal receipt or, under the alternative regime, a sales document with a unique number | The store's software | The alternative regime (Chapter 7g of Ordinance N-18) lets an online store take card payments without a cash register. You register the store with the NRA under Annex 33 and get a unique number, receive card payments in accounts held by your company, and submit the Annex 38 audit file by the 15th of each month for the previous month. Decide the setup with your accountant. > Ordinance N-18 in CloudCart The sales document and the monthly XML file come out by themselves With card payments and invoicing on, CloudCart issues the sales document with a unique number for every paid order, and the N18 Audit app builds the Annex 38 file you upload to the NRA portal. See invoices and Ordinance N-18 in CloudCart → ## The full cost: cash on delivery vs card The full cost also includes refused parcels, the wait for money and reconciliation. Three paths for a €50 order: | €50 order | Cash on delivery | Bank virtual POS | CloudCart Pay | | Payment fee | Per courier contract; €1.20 (2.4%) on Speedy's public tariff | Per bank contract | €0 through Dec 31, 2026; from Jan 1, 2027, 1.29% + €0.05, about €0.70 excl. VAT | | Getting started | Courier contract | Bank contract, documents at a branch | 7-step registration in the admin, approval within hours to 2 working days | | Money arrives | After delivery; Speedy bank payout next working day | Per bank contract | Usually 2 to 5 working days, by SEPA transfer | | Refused parcel | Possible: transport paid both ways | Rare, the customer has paid; EU buyers can still withdraw within 14 days ( Your Europe ) | Same as a bank POS | | N-18 document | Your receipt or a postal money transfer | Receipt or alternative regime document | Alternative regime document, from the order | | Apple Pay, Google Pay | No | Depends on the bank | Yes, also on the product page | From Jan 1, 2027, CloudCart Pay charges 1.29% + €0.05 for consumer EEA Visa and Mastercard cards and 2.69% + €0.05 for other cards, excluding VAT. ### Example: what refused parcels cost Take 200 orders a month at €50, 70% of them COD: 140 parcels. At a 5% refusal rate, 7 parcels come back. With transport of about €4 each way, you lose about €56 on delivery, and €350 of orders never become sales. The formula: COD parcels × refusal rate × (delivery + return). > CloudCart Pay 0% transaction fee through Dec 31, 2026 Every order paid by card on your website is paid before the parcel leaves, with no fee on any card payment through the end of the year and no bank contract. How CloudCart Pay works → ## Refused parcels: why they happen and how to reduce them Customers refuse parcels they forgot, found cheaper, waited too long for or ordered on impulse. Most of this is solved before the parcel leaves: - Confirm the order straight away , with the total including delivery, the payment method and the expected date. In CloudCart the customer also sees the delivery price at checkout, from the courier's calculator or your own rates. - Ship fast and report every step. Status change emails can carry the tracking link, and BOX NOW sends the locker code by SMS. - Set a minimum amount for COD , and a period in which it is hidden, for example around the holidays, in the payment method settings. - Reward card payments with a card discount or a COD surcharge, set per payment method. - Answer questions before the purchase. Aura Chat answers in your store's chat around the clock and shows products from your catalog, so fewer people order "to try". - Decide on inspection before payment deliberately. Couriers let customers open the parcel before paying, usually when the sender pays delivery. It builds trust, but raises refusals if photos are off. - Screen buyers with a history of refusals. With the Nekorekten app, COD can be hidden for a buyer whose phone or email is on your block list or reported on nekorekten.com, a Bulgarian database of unreliable buyers. - Track unpaid parcels. If your store is connected to an AI assistant such as Claude Code or ChatGPT Codex with a read-only PAT token, ask "Show the COD orders from the last 30 days that are still unpaid" and check the list against the courier report. > Shipping in CloudCart COD payouts are recorded by themselves Econt and Speedy report when the customer has paid, the order is marked as completed, and unpaid parcels stand out at once. On every plan, from 25 parcels a month on Baby Pack to 1,000 on CC Master. Econt, Speedy and BOX NOW in CloudCart → ## Card payments in an online store: virtual POS, payment provider or CloudCart Pay A virtual POS terminal lets an online store accept cards. There are three ways to get one, and with each, every card sale needs a fiscal receipt or the N-18 alternative regime. - From a bank. You sign with a bank, usually through Borica, the Bulgarian card processor. CloudCart has ready integrations for Borica, DSK Bank, Fibank, Raiffeisen and UBB. - From a payment provider. myPOS, Paysera, Stripe and PayPal accept cards without a bank contract and have CloudCart integrations, each with its own registration, dashboard and fees. - Built in: CloudCart Pay. Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay, paid out to your bank account by SEPA transfer, in 11 currencies. Registration is in the admin with documents uploaded as files, open to companies, sole traders and non-profits. The cheapest path depends on your turnover and contracts. The platform itself takes [no commission on your sales](https://cloudcart.com/en/offer/zero-commission-ecommerce): you pay a fixed monthly plan, listed on the [CloudCart pricing](https://cloudcart.com/en/pricing) page. ## Cash on delivery or card: which one sells more? COD brings more orders from buyers who do not know your store, and cards bring more completed sales per order. Offer both, and let the situation decide: | Situation | Stronger option | Why | | A new store the customer does not know | Cash on delivery | The customer sees the parcel before paying | | A mobile order from a social media ad | Apple Pay or Google Pay | One tap, no card form | | An order over €150 | Card | The COD fee grows with the amount, and a refusal costs more | | Made to order or personalized goods | Card or prepayment | A refused parcel cannot be resold | | A returning customer | Saved card | Trust is there, and payment takes one tap | | Orders to Romania and Greece | Both | COD costs 1.8 to 2.4% on Speedy's tariff, a card saves it | Watch the card share and the refusal rate each month. How Bulgarians shop online overall is in the guide to [ecommerce in Bulgaria](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/ecommerce-in-bulgaria). ## How do you move customers to cards without losing orders? Keep COD and make the card easier and better value; the fewer steps a card payment takes, the more customers pick it themselves. - Apple Pay and Google Pay, also on the product page and in the cart. The customer confirms with Face ID or a fingerprint, and the address comes from the phone, with no checkout form. - A saved card. Registered customers pay with one tap next time. CloudCart stores only a secure token, never the card details. - The card first in the list , with one line on why: "your order ships straight away, with no cash for the courier". - A small, visible benefit. A card discount or COD surcharge at checkout, small enough to keep customers who only pay on delivery. Fewer checkout fields also mean fewer [abandoned carts](https://cloudcart.com/en/abandoned-carts). ## How do you set up COD and card payments in CloudCart? ### Cash on delivery - Add the method under Settings, Payment methods, Add payment method, Cash on delivery. No keys or test mode are needed. - Set the name, description, surcharge or discount, minimum amount and period. The discount field takes a percentage or a fixed amount; with a plus sign it works as a fee. - Connect the courier. Enable Econt, Speedy or BOX NOW under Apps and switch on the COD option in each app. If COD is your only payment method, checkout shows only couriers with that option, and BOX NOW lockers do not appear without it. - Watch the sync under Orders, COD sync: it shows when each order was checked with the courier and the result, for shipped orders with a label from the last 3 months. ### Card payments through CloudCart Pay - Open Settings, Payment methods, CloudCart Pay, the Registration tab. - Complete the seven steps : profile, business, representative, documents, verification and consent, bank account (IBAN), status. - After approval , usually within a few hours to 2 working days, switch the method on. - Switch on Apple Pay and Google Pay in the Settings tab and register your domain for Apple Pay. Express checkout buttons on product pages and in the cart are on by default. - Switch on N-18 in Apps, N18 Audit: enter the store's NRA unique number and generate the XML file each month, with invoicing on for the whole month. For a new store, the full order of steps is in [how to create an online store](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/how-to-create-online-store), and the AI route in [an online store with AI](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/ai-online-store). If you run WooCommerce today, see [Econt and Speedy on WooCommerce](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/woocommerce-econt-speedy). > A store for €1 €1/month for the first 3 months on every plan A new store starts with the full plan, COD and CloudCart Pay this week, so card payments with a 0% fee are ready for Black Friday and Christmas. Create a store for €1 → ## Checklist: your store's payments before the season - COD is on, with a clear name, a minimum amount and your exact courier fee and payout term known. - Postal money transfer or your own receipt for COD is decided with your accountant. - Card payments are on, with Apple Pay, Google Pay, the Apple Pay domain and express buttons. - The card is first in the list, with a visible benefit. - The store is registered with the NRA, and the Annex 38 file goes in by the 15th. - You know last month's refusal rate and check it weekly. ## Frequently asked questions **What is cash on delivery?** Cash on delivery (COD) is payment on delivery: the customer pays the courier when collecting the parcel, in cash or by card. The courier collects the amount for the store and transfers it to the seller under their contract. **How much is the cash on delivery fee in Bulgaria?** On Speedy's public tariff it is 2.4% of the amount, no less than €0.61, plus 0.96% when the customer pays by card at the door. Contract rates are negotiated, so your exact fee is on the courier's invoice. **Do I need a cash register receipt for cash on delivery in Bulgaria?** Not when COD goes as a postal money transfer, or through Econt's service for sales without a cash register, because the courier issues the document. With ordinary COD, the fiscal receipt is yours and usually goes in the parcel. **How do I reduce refused COD parcels?** Confirm the order straight away with the amount, show delivery prices before payment, ship fast and set a minimum amount for COD. Reward card payments with a small discount, since a prepaid order is rarely refused. **Do I need a cash register if customers pay by card online?** Not necessarily. The alternative regime of Ordinance N-18 lets you issue a sales document instead, if the store is registered with the NRA, payments reach your company account and you file the monthly audit file by the 15th. CloudCart produces both from the orders. **Should I remove cash on delivery from my store?** For most stores selling in Bulgaria, no. Some customers order only with payment on delivery. Keep COD and make cards easier with Apple Pay, Google Pay and a product page button. Send your questions about setting up payments to [support@cloudcart.com](https://cloudcart.commailto:support@cloudcart.com).