MPs on parliament's tourism committee have rejected a bill that would have scrapped the annual tourist tax return, at first reading. Two MPs backed it, none voted against, and 11 abstained.

Right now, anyone who rents out rooms or beds to tourists must file a return for the previous calendar year by 31 January. The rule is set out in article 61r, paragraph 5 of the law on local taxes and fees. Dimitar Naydenov and a group of MPs tabled the changes in parliament on 28 August 2026.

Naydenov, from Democratic Bulgaria, told the committee the same data already sits in the unified tourist information system, known as ESTI, and town halls can pull it from there themselves. As things stand, he said, the same figures get filed twice, and moving them between systems can cause mismatches.

The bill aims to cut paperwork for people and firms that rent out beds, Naydenov said. It would need no extra money from the state or local budgets, since it would simply use systems that already exist, he said. The bill also spells out more clearly which data-sharing tasks from ESTI belong to the tourism ministry and which to the finance ministry.

Committee chair Rositsa Kirova, from GERB-SDS, told MPs the finance ministry opposes the bill.

Deputy tourism minister Georgi Todorov called the proposal one small piece of a wider package the government is working on: cutting red tape, changing local taxes and fees, and pushing more business out of the shadow economy. All these steps need to line up with each other, he said. The ministry agrees with the bill in principle, he said, but has doubts about the timing, since ESTI is currently being overhauled from top to bottom.

Silvia Georgieva, executive director of the National Association of Municipalities, said the association does not accept the claim that the annual return just repeats data for no reason. It also works as a separate check, she said, and dropping it would only make sense once ESTI can show its data is just as reliable, or more so.

She set out four conditions that would all need to be met together. First, changes to the tourism law and its bylaws need to take effect, to guarantee the data in ESTI stays intact, can be traced, and any corrections get checked. Second, data needs to flow more automatically between ESTI, the finance ministry, the tax agency and municipal systems. On top of that, she said, there needs to be a clear plan for what happens if ESTI breaks down, plus money for the upgrades, training and upkeep the system needs.

Yasen Shterev, from Progressive Bulgaria, agreed that cutting the burden on tourism businesses is the right goal, but said scrapping the return now carries risks. The sector is waiting for a full overhaul, he said, and passing bits and pieces of change is not the right way to do it.