Tourist registration in Bulgaria: what accommodation providers must do

Categorisation or registration of the property

Before hosting anyone, the property must be categorised or registered under Bulgaria's Tourism Act and entered in the National Tourist Register. This is also the prerequisite for access to ESTI.

The register of accommodated tourists

Every stay is recorded in the register of accommodated tourists, which is submitted to ESTI electronically. A record includes the guest's data (extended for foreign tourists — including identity-document data), the stay dates and the number of nights.

Accuracy matters: the register is the official record of every guest's stay, and its data also feeds the tourist tax reporting to the municipality.

Personal data and GDPR

Guest data is personal data, and GDPR applies. The practical principles:

• Collect only the legally required data — nothing "just in case".
• Tell guests why the data is collected (a legal registration obligation).
• Store the data securely and only for the required period — paper document copies and front-desk notebooks are the weak spot.
• Let the guest enter their own data — with self check-in it flows directly from the guest into the system, with no slips of paper in between.

Common mistakes

• A paper register retyped into ESTI later — double work and double the chance of errors.
• Missing or wrong document data dictated at the front desk.
• Stays booked via platforms that never reach the register because "the booking is in Airbnb".
• Keeping photos/copies of documents without need and without a retention period.

Automation: one system instead of three notebooks

A PMS like Hostello connects the whole chain: reservation → self check-in with document verification → an automatically filled register → a ready ESTI export. The obligations stay — the manual work around them disappears.