Shopify in Bulgaria: payments, COD, Econt, Speedy and the NRA file

In short: Shopify works in Bulgaria, and Shopify Payments is available to Bulgarian businesses. Cash on delivery is a manual payment method, so you mark each COD order as paid yourself, while Econt, Speedy, BOX NOW and the monthly Ordinance N-18 file for the NRA come from third-party apps. CloudCart has all four built in, with a 0% transaction fee on every plan.

This guide is for founders, expats and EU sellers who are weighing Shopify for a store whose customers are in Bulgaria. It goes through the four things a Bulgarian store needs on day one (card payments, cash on delivery, local couriers and the NRA paperwork), says what Shopify covers out of the box according to its own help center, and what you add with apps. Then it shows the same setup in CloudCart, the Bulgarian ecommerce platform, so you can compare the work and the yearly cost on the same order.

Does Shopify work for a store in Bulgaria?

Yes. You can open a Shopify store with a Bulgarian company, sell in euro and accept cards through Shopify Payments, which Shopify lists among its supported countries for Bulgaria (Shopify Help Center). The Shopify admin is also available in Bulgarian, which helps if part of your team prefers it (Shopify Help Center).

What decides the fit is how your Bulgarian customers pay and receive their parcels. The table sums up where each local requirement comes from on Shopify and on CloudCart.

What a Bulgarian store needs	Shopify	CloudCart
Card payments	Shopify Payments, or a third-party payment provider with an extra fee on sales	CloudCart Pay, a Borica virtual POS, ePay, PayPal or Stripe, with a 0% transaction fee
Cash on delivery (COD)	Manual payment method: you mark each order as paid	Econt and DPD report the payout, and the order is marked as paid automatically
Econt, Speedy (DPD Bulgaria), BOX NOW	Third-party apps from the Shopify App Store	Direct integrations, with offices and lockers in checkout
Shipping labels	Shopify Shipping labels are not offered for Bulgaria; labels come from the courier app	Created from the order in one click
Ordinance N-18 sales document and monthly NRA file	Third-party apps from the Shopify App Store	Sales document from the order and the N18 Audit app in the admin

How do card payments and Shopify's fees work in Bulgaria?

On Shopify, the cost of a card payment depends on who processes it. With Shopify Payments you pay the card rate of your plan and no extra fee. With any other payment provider, such as a Bulgarian bank's virtual POS, Shopify adds a third-party transaction fee on top of what the bank charges. These are the rates on shopify.com/pricing in euro:

Shopify plan	Billed yearly	Billed monthly	Shopify Payments online card rate	Fee with a third-party provider
Basic	€19/month	€27/month	1.9% + €0.25	2%
Grow	€56/month	€74/month	1.8% + €0.25	1%
Advanced	€289/month	€384/month	1.7% + €0.25	0.6%

If you keep a virtual POS contract with a Bulgarian bank, the third-party fee applies to every card order on top of the bank's own fee. With Shopify Payments there is no extra fee. Shopify starts with a 3-day trial, then €1/month for 3 months.

In CloudCart the plan price is fixed, and the transaction fee is 0% on every plan, whichever provider you connect: CloudCart Pay, a Borica virtual POS, ePay, PayPal or Stripe. CloudCart Pay takes Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay without a separate bank agreement, pays out to your bank account via SEPA, and charges a 0% transaction fee through Dec 31, 2026. From Jan 1, 2027, its standard rates are 1.29% + €0.05 for consumer Visa and Mastercard cards from the EEA and 2.69% + €0.05 for all other cards, excluding VAT, with no monthly fee.

How does cash on delivery work on Shopify?

Shopify treats cash on delivery as a manual payment method, together with bank transfers and money orders. A COD order is created as unpaid (pending), and after you receive the money you open the order and mark it as paid yourself. Shopify does not charge third-party transaction fees on manual payments (Shopify Help Center), so a COD order carries no extra Shopify fee.

The work is in the reconciliation. With cash on delivery the customer pays the courier when the parcel is handed over, and the courier transfers the collected amounts to your bank account, usually in batches. On a store with many COD orders, someone has to match every payout line to an order, mark the paid ones and follow up the parcels that came back. Before you choose Shopify, check whether the courier app you plan to use updates the payment status of the order, or only creates the shipment.

1. The customer chooses COD at checkout. On Shopify, the order is created as pending.
2. You ship the parcel with the COD amount on the shipping label, through the courier app or the courier's own system.
3. The courier collects the cash and later transfers the payouts to your account.
4. You match the payout to the orders and mark each paid order in the Shopify admin, unless your app does it for you.

In CloudCart, steps 3 and 4 happen by themselves: Econt and DPD report when the customer has paid, and the order is marked as paid automatically. Every check is recorded in a log under Orders, COD sync. The number of COD payouts synced automatically each month depends on the plan: 25 on Baby Pack, 50 on Starter Pack, 500 on CC Pro and 1,000 on CC Master. You can also add a fee or a discount for COD and set a minimum order value for it in the payment settings. For the trade-offs between the two payment methods, see cash on delivery or card payments.

Econt, Speedy and BOX NOW on Shopify

Econt and Speedy (DPD Bulgaria) are the two main Bulgarian courier networks, and BOX NOW runs a network of parcel lockers. Bulgarian shoppers often pick up from a courier office or a locker, so checkout needs a list or map of offices and lockers with a live shipping rate.

Shopify does not include these couriers in its plans. Shopify's own shipping labels are offered for fulfillment locations in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and Bulgaria is not on that list (Shopify Help Center). For a Bulgarian store, the couriers come from third-party apps in the Shopify App Store, which connect Econt, Speedy, BOX NOW and other local networks. Each app has its own plans, often limited by the number of couriers or orders per month, so compare them on three points:

• Couriers and pickup types. Does it cover addresses, offices and lockers for every courier you plan to use?
• Checkout. Does the customer choose the office or locker inside Shopify's checkout, with the live rate?
• Payment status. Does the app bring the COD payout back into the order, or do you still mark it as paid by hand?

In CloudCart, Econt, Speedy (DPD Bulgaria), BOX NOW, Sameday, ACS, GLS and DHL are direct integrations. The customer sees the rate instantly in checkout and picks a courier office or parcel locker from a map or a list. You create the shipping label from the order in one click, print labels for many orders at once, and the customer gets an email with the tracking number at every status change; BOX NOW also sends the locker code. Each courier needs your own active contract with that courier. See the full list on the shipping and couriers page. Rates, free shipping thresholds and returns are covered in couriers and shipping for an online store.

Ordinance N-18 and the NRA file on Shopify

Ordinance N-18 is the Bulgarian regulation on registering and reporting sales, and it applies to online stores. A store that takes card payments online can use the alternative regime: it registers with the NRA (the National Revenue Agency, Bulgaria's tax authority), issues a sales document for every card order instead of a fiscal receipt, and submits a monthly audit file under Annex 38 by the 15th of the following month (NRA, in Bulgarian).

Shopify has no N-18 function of its own, since the rule is specific to Bulgaria. The Shopify App Store lists several third-party apps that generate the monthly audit file or the sales documents for the NRA. If you go with Shopify, choose the app before your first card sale, because the file covers every sale and reversal in the month, and check that it handles refunds and partial returns.

In CloudCart, the sales document, the invoice and the credit note are issued directly from the order. The N18 Audit app builds the monthly XML file from the store's sales and reversals, including partial returns, and each order appears in only one monthly file. You enter the NRA's unique store number once, download the file and upload it to the NRA portal between the 1st and the 15th. For cash on delivery, the courier issues the receipt under your agreement with them. Details are on the invoices and Ordinance N-18 page. The registration itself is explained in Ordinance N-18 and NRA registration.

Important: whether you use a cash register or the alternative regime depends on your payment methods and business. Confirm the setup with your accountant before your first sale, whichever platform you choose.

What does a Bulgarian store cost on Shopify and on CloudCart?

The fair way to compare is one store, one year. Take a store with 60 orders a month at €40 each, so €2,400 a month and €14,400 over six months. Forty percent of the orders (24) are paid by card and sixty percent (36) by cash on delivery.

Cost per year	Shopify Basic with Shopify Payments	CloudCart Starter Pack with CloudCart Pay
Plan, billed yearly	€228 (€19/month)	€396 (€33/month)
Card payments, 24 orders of €40 a month	€291 (1.9% + €0.25)	€0 through Dec 31, 2026; €163 a year at the standard 1.29% + €0.05 for EEA consumer cards
Fee on COD orders	€0 (manual payments carry no third-party fee)	€0
COD reconciliation, 36 orders a month	By hand, or an app that does it	Automatic (up to 50 a month on Starter Pack)
Econt, Speedy, BOX NOW	Courier app plan	Included
N-18 sales document and NRA file	N-18 app plan	Included
Total before apps	€519	€396 in 2026; €559 from 2027

Before apps, the two are close. The difference comes from the two app plans a Shopify store adds, the hours spent marking COD orders as paid, and the provider choice: if you take cards through a Bulgarian bank instead of Shopify Payments, the 2% third-party fee replaces Shopify's card rate, and the bank charges its own fee as well. CloudCart plan prices exclude VAT, and the plan is chosen by revenue over six months, so a store above €24,999 per six months moves to CC Pro. Check the current Shopify prices for your country on its pricing page, and the full list of CloudCart plans on the CloudCart pricing page. A full yearly budget, from domain to marketing, is in what an online store costs in Bulgaria.

When is Shopify the better choice?

Shopify is a strong platform, and for some stores in Bulgaria it is the right one. It fits well in these cases:

• Most of your customers are abroad and pay by card, so cash on delivery and Bulgarian couriers matter little.
• You ship from a warehouse in one of the countries where Shopify's own shipping labels are offered.
• You rely on a specific app or agency from Shopify's larger ecosystem, or you sell under one brand in many international markets.
• You are happy with Shopify Payments as your only card provider, so the third-party fee never applies.

CloudCart fits better when most customers are in Bulgaria, a large share of orders is cash on delivery, customers pick up from offices and lockers, and you want the NRA paperwork, the couriers and the payment providers in one admin without app subscriptions.

How to compare them in one trial week

The quickest test is to run the same Bulgarian order on both platforms before you upload your catalog:

1. Add three products in euro, one of them with size variants.
2. Connect Econt or Speedy with your courier contract, through the courier app on Shopify and through the built-in integration on CloudCart.
3. Place a COD order to a courier office and a card order to a parcel locker from your phone.
4. Create the shipping labels and check the office address and the COD amount on them.
5. Follow the COD order to "paid" and note who changes the status: you, the app or the courier.
6. Find the sales document and generate the NRA file for the month.
7. Add up the year: plan, card fees at your expected revenue, app plans and the hours the manual steps take.

For a wider look at the options, including WooCommerce, OpenCart and Magento, see which ecommerce platform to choose in Bulgaria.

Moving an existing Shopify store to CloudCart

If you already sell on Shopify, there are three ways to move. The CloudCart team can move the store for you: products, customers, blog posts and content, with your order history kept and a 301 redirect from every old address, while the Shopify store keeps selling until you switch the domain. You can do it yourself: the Shopify app in the CloudCart admin imports products with their variants and images from Shopify's standard CSV export (Products, Export), and customers and redirects are uploaded from CSV files. A developer can also migrate through the CloudCart Admin API. The import is one-way, and your Shopify store is not changed.

See how online store migration works in general. A step-by-step plan for the switch is in the platform switch checklist. You can send your questions to support@cloudcart.com.

Frequently asked questions