Which persons are merchants according to the Bulgarian legislation?
According to the Bulgarian commercial law a merchant is any natural or legal person engaged by occupation in any of the following transactions:
1. purchasing goods or other chattels for the purpose of reselling them in their original, processed or finished form;
2. sale of one's own manufactured goods;
3. purchasing securities for the purpose of selling them;
4. commercial agency and brokerage;
5. commission, forwarding and transportation transactions;
6. insurance transactions;
7. banking and foreign-exchange transactions;
8. bills of exchange, promissory notes and cheques;
9. warehousing transactions;
10. licence transactions;
11. supervision of goods;
12. transactions in intellectual property;
13. hotel operation, tourist, advertising, information, entertainment, impresario and other services;
14. purchase, construction or furnishing of real property for the purpose of sale;
15. leasing.
Merchants are:
1. the commercial companies;
2. the cooperatives, except housing cooperatives;
3. the sole traders.
As a merchant is also deemed any person which has established a business, which in accordance with its subject and volume requires its activities to be conducted on a commercial basis.
As merchants are not deemed:
1. natural persons engaged in farming;
2. artisans, persons providing services through their own labor or members of the professions, except where their activity may be defined as a business;
3. persons providing hotel services by letting rooms in their own homes.
