The Municipality of Sofia has introduced online vehicle tax calculator

The number of cars in Bulgaria’s capital city continues to grow amid suffocating infrastructure

Owners of motor vehicles in Sofia can now easily calculate online what tax they will owe for their personal means of transportation for 2019. This can be done with the help of a new electronic calculator, commissioned by Sofia Municipality.

The new formula for the 2019 motor vehicle tax includes the year of production, engine power and environmental standard of the vehicle. These parameters, along with the owner's address, must be entered in the appropriate fields and the calculator will do the rest.

Car data can be subtracted from the small vehicle identity card  (for newer vehicles) or from the large vehicle identity card. Index B contains the year of first registration by which the age of the car is calculated. The P.2 index is for the car's power in kilowatts. The car's environmental standard (Euro 2 to Euro 6) is recorded next to index V.9. The oldest cars do not have  anything written next to this index, because such an eco-standard is not usually applied to them.

At the end of 2019, the City Council raised the tax rates for vehicles with lower Euro standards - from 0 to Euro 4, as well as for cars with power above 74 kW (over 100 horsepower).

The calculator will also be available on the website of Sofia Municipality.

Increasing number of cars, suffocating infrastructure

According to Capital newspaper, there are between 550 and 600 cars per thousand people in Sofia today, compared to 367 per thousand in Vienna. If the number of newly registered cars continues to grow, pressure on the city's already suffocating infrastructure will increase in parallel with air pollution and  residents discontent, the economic publication predicts.

According to experts, a new vehicle regulating policy is needed in Sofia, and the most painless solution is a more extensive, inexpensive, modern and environmentally friendly public transport that encourages people to get off their cars.