Bulgaria vs Estonia vs Dubai vs France: the comparison

What criteria should you compare on?

Comparing jurisdictions on the headline tax rate alone is misleading. An online entrepreneur has to think in terms of the income actually available net and the day-to-day operational friction. Six criteria really matter:

• Taxation — not the headline rate, but the total taxation between the profit and the euro that lands in your personal account;
• EU membership and single-market access — decisive for invoicing and selling in Europe without barriers;
• VAT — intra-EU number, OSS/IOSS one-stop shops, simplicity of flows;
• Economic substance — the ability to prove genuine activity, a condition of bank KYC;
• Remote formation — being able to set everything up without relocating or multiplying trips;
• Cost — incorporation and annual running costs.

A 0% rate is useless if you cannot take the money out without having it taxed elsewhere, or if no European bank will open your account. That is the whole point of this comparison.

What does the comparison table say?

Here is an honest reading of the four options, from the point of view of an online entrepreneur living in Europe:

The jurisdiction comparison does not tell the whole story: a company is only worth something if it is genuinely operable. Once the country is chosen, the real differentiator is no longer the rate between Bulgaria, Estonia, Dubai or France — it is operability ticked box by box.

The table below sets side by side what you actually need to run your company remotely, what a generic incorporation delivers, and what the Eurotrade pack includes from the outset.

Is Estonia really at 0% tax?

Estonia built its reputation on two strengths: e-Residency (a digital identity allowing a company to be managed remotely) and 0% taxation of undistributed profits. For a business that reinvests everything, it is elegant.

The problem arises the moment you want to pay yourself. Since 2025, Estonia has scrapped its reduced rate on regular dividends: profit distribution is now taxed at company level at 22% (i.e. 22/78 of the net amount distributed) — markedly more than the Bulgarian 0 to 5% (0% to an EU/EEA parent company, with no threshold or holding period; 5% paid to an individual).

For an online entrepreneur who wants to live off their activity rather than capitalise indefinitely, the Estonian advantage melts away. Another limitation: e-Residency creates neither economic substance nor tax residence, something banks and authorities scrutinise increasingly.

Bulgaria, by contrast, combines light taxation and a lightly taxed way of taking money out.

Is Dubai suited to a European e-commerce seller?

Dubai attracts with its 0% up to AED 375,000 then 9% and the absence of dividend taxation. For certain very specific profiles, it can make sense. But for an entrepreneur whose customers and logistics are in Europe, the drawbacks are structural:

• Outside the European Union — no intra-EU VAT, no Parent-Subsidiary Directive, heavier imports into the EU;
• European bank KYC — an increasing number of banks refuse structures perceived as offshore;
• Cost and substance — free-zone licence, visa, office: the entry and upkeep ticket is high, and a genuine presence is required;
• Regulatory distance — time zone, local law, and risk of re-characterisation on the home tax-residence side.

For an e-commerce seller who sells on Amazon or European marketplaces, these VAT and import frictions quickly erode the tax advantage. An EU company such as a Bulgarian one avoids them by design — see our guide OSS / IOSS VAT for e-commerce.

Should you stay in France?

Staying in France has one merit: proximity and familiarity. But the tax cost is heavy for an online entrepreneur. As things stand, three levies stack up:

• corporate tax stands at 15% up to €42,500 then 25%;
• dividends bear the 31.4% flat tax;
• the director's pay carries high social charges.

For a digital activity, with no commercial premises or captive local clientele, paying this level of levy often has no economic justification.

Concretely, on the same distributed profit, the French tax burden is frequently two to three times higher than that of a Bulgarian company (DPK/EDPK or EOOD). For a mobile entrepreneur, the gap runs into tens of thousands of euros net per year.

Why choose Bulgaria?

Bulgaria is not the lowest on any one criterion taken in isolation — Dubai advertises a lower headline rate, Estonia 0% on reinvestment. But, among these four options, it is the one that best combines all these dimensions at once for a European online entrepreneur:

On the parent-subsidiary exemption, Bulgaria moreover applies a domestic rule more favourable than the "10% / 2 years" minimums of Directive 2011/96/EU.

That leaves the choice of form. For a 100% remote formation, with no capital deposit or prior bank account, the DPK/EDPK is often the simplest choice; the EOOD/OOD remains the classic form (with a capital deposit through a Bulgarian bank). To decide, see EOOD, OOD or DPK.

This is exactly what sets Fenchell's Eurotrade pack apart: not a merely registered Bulgarian company, but an integrated, inseparable system, designed from the outset for remote management.

1 — A file built for distance

The file itself contains more than 20 bilingual documents in Bulgarian/English — more than 30 for multi-shareholder companies — including:

• the articles of association, the stamped official registration certificate and its sworn translation;
• the 8 notarised powers of attorney that cover every step on your behalf;
• obtaining the FID (personal tax identification number required for bookkeeping);
• the QES key (mandatory qualified electronic signature), and many other items.

All are drafted by our legal team admitted to the Plovdiv Bar, specifically to run the company from afar, drawing on years of experience and thousands of real client cases — all points a generic incorporation does not anticipate.

2 — A remote operating infrastructure

Around this foundation, the offer brings together, in a single point of contact, every discipline of an online business run remotely:

• the EIK, the EORI number and Bulgarian VAT registration;
• a dedicated web interface to read live, from any device, the SMS (OTP / 2FA codes from banks and platforms) received on your Bulgarian (company) mobile line;
• a physical office and registered address in Plovdiv, with mail collection and scanning (the quarterly invoices serve as proof of address for bank and marketplace KYC);
• registration of the point of contact (POC, AML/MAMLA compliance);
• a connectable accounting dashboard (Stripe, PayPal, Amazon, Wise, Airwallex) and bookkeeping;
• help assembling bank and fintech account-opening files, remotely — the client remains the applicant and the holder;
• optionally, a dedicated Bulgarian static IP;
• all with multilingual support 6 days a week.

Because it is built from the incorporation file, and not added later, this infrastructure creates genuine economic substance — the kind that makes the tax advantage defensible and the company truly workable, rather than an empty shell.

All backed by a real firm in Plovdiv since 2018 (nearly 1,000 companies formed), with our team and our network of dedicated partners — lawyers, accountants, marketplace account managers — that is 10 to 20 people mobilised depending on the complexity of your case.

For the full dashboard, go back to our pillar guide: forming a Bulgarian company remotely.

General information current as of 6 June 2026, not constituting personalised tax, legal or accounting advice. Rates, timeframes and amounts are indicative and vary according to your situation and your country of residence. Fenchell Capital OOD — Bulgarian firm based in Plovdiv (EIK 207945095).