We keep improving ESTI Helper — here’s the latest.
If your property has two smart locks — say one on the building entrance and one on the apartment — your guest used to get two different codes. You can now set a single shared code for all doors, so the guest only has one number to remember for the whole stay. Choose a random code of the length you prefer (4 to 9 digits) or a fixed one you set yourself. A shared code needs a lock with a gateway; a lock without one keeps giving its own code so the door still opens.
Your list of locks now loads by itself as soon as you open “Кодове за достъп” — until now you had to remember to press a button before a lock you had just added would show up. If loading fails, you now clearly see that it did, instead of it looking as though nothing happened. We have also made switching the connected TTLock account more reliable.
Scanning an ID card or passport was noticeably slower on Android phones than on iPhone. We have optimised how each camera frame is processed — it is now considerably faster, with no change to reading accuracy.
Bulgarian children get their ЕГН at birth, but an ID card only at 14. The form now says so plainly: for a child with no ID card or passport, leave the document fields empty — the ЕГН is enough. Until now parents were left guessing what to put there.
Booking.com’s calendar export lists occupied periods rather than individual reservations — two back-to-back bookings merge into a single block. A guest with a perfectly real booking could therefore be told “these dates do not match a booking”, even though you could see it in your calendar. We now also accept a stay that falls inside such a period. The check still stands: dates in a free period are still refused.
If you create a booking and your guest tries to check in straight afterwards, they will no longer be told “these dates do not match a booking”. Until now a very recent booking could be checked against an older read of your calendar. Now, if a booking is not found, the calendar is refreshed live before any guest is turned away.
We have published, word for word, a Bulgarian Ministry of Tourism decision under the Access to Public Information Act with ten answers about ESTI: what to do if a guest refuses to give their details (you may refuse the stay), whether you are still liable, how to verify identity for self check-in, and how long you may keep the data. An official government document you can show a guest or an inspector.
Per an official Ministry of Tourism decision, guest data must not be kept longer than 18 months. We have brought the portal and the terms into line: on the paid plan we now keep files for up to 18 months after the stay instead of 2 years. You will be asked to accept the updated terms next time you open your dashboard.
Until now the permanent link only accepted check-ins within the last 48 hours before arrival. You can now allow it earlier — the tick box is in “Настройки на обекта” and is set per property. Handy for long flights, groups and guests who like to sort everything out in advance. One-off links you create yourself were never restricted.
The landing-page screenshots now show the current version of the portal — including the screen a guest sees after checking in, with the apartment code and the building entrance code, and what the finished ESTI file looks like when you open it.
Both download buttons now give you a password-protected .zip — the password is your PIN. Open it with 7-Zip, Keka, WinRAR or The Unarchiver. Note that 4 digits is a short password: it keeps the file from casual view, but it is not a substitute for handling guest data carefully — do not send the archive over unprotected channels.
The “Подавания към ЕСТИ” section now has two buttons. “All reservations in one file” gives you a single document with every guest, in the official register-of-accommodated-tourists layout — exactly what the law requires you to keep and show if inspected. “All ESTI files” downloads every generated file at once as one archive. Especially useful on the free plan, where we only hold the data for a few days.
When you register we now show a short explanation of what the law actually requires of you: your own register of accommodated tourists, kept for at least 2 years — whether you submit to ESTI by hand or by file. It also spells out how long we keep the data: on the free plan up to 7 days after checkout (you download and keep the file yourself), and on the paid plan at least 2 years on your behalf.
Your account settings — PIN, email, dashboard link and account deletion — are now gathered into one collapsed “Настройки на профила” menu instead of taking up space on the dashboard.
Your dashboard now has a Profile section: change your PIN, have your dashboard link emailed again or issue a brand-new one (if you think someone else has it), and change your account email. An email change is confirmed from the new address and the old one is notified — so you always know a change was yours. Changing your PIN signs out every other device.
Your second (and third) apartment is now added from the dashboard itself — the “Обекти” section → “Добавете още един обект”, confirmed with your PIN. This used to go through the signup form; it now lives where the rest of your account settings are.
If a stay falls through, use “Анулирай” rather than “Изтрий”. Cancelling removes the door codes immediately, keeps the booking in your history and — if you had already uploaded its file to ESTI — prepares a cancellation (DEL) file for you to upload. Deleting destroys the data ESTI uses to find the record, after which the registration can no longer be withdrawn.
A guest’s code no longer lingers on the lock after their stay: one hour after checkout, Nuki and TTLock codes are removed from the device and Вход Про access is deactivated. If the guest is staying longer, just extend the date beforehand — their code stays the same and keeps working.
You can now change a booking’s checkout date. The door code stays the same — only its window moves, so there is no new code or new link to send. If the guest’s link had already expired, it comes back on its own. The check-in date stays fixed, so the link to the door code is never broken.
Every new booking now shows in red on your dashboard until you confirm you have uploaded its file to ESTI. Upload as usual, press “Потвърди качване в ЕСТИ”, answer ДА — and the red disappears. One glance now tells you what is filed and what is still waiting. Pressed it by mistake? There is an undo.
By law you keep your own register of accommodated tourists for at least 2 years (art. 116 of the Tourism Act and Order No. Т-РД-04-10). ESTI does not keep it for you — for Bulgarian and EU guests it stores only the number of guests and the dates. So the portal now keeps the data for 2 years instead of 7 days, giving you something to show if you are inspected.
Until now a check-in link worked forever — a past guest could open it months later and see your current entrance code. Links now stop working 1 hour after checkout. If a guest stays longer, just extend the booking dates: the same link and the same codes come back to life, with no new link to send.
We checked this against the law and the ministry’s own documentation: for tourists who are citizens of Bulgaria, the EU, the EEA or Switzerland, ESTI records only the number of guests and the registration and departure dates (Tourism Act, art. 116(5)(1)). That is why their names do not show in the portal after an import — it is not an error, and your file was accepted correctly. The full details of all your guests stay in your own register of accommodated tourists.
We removed a number of strict form checks that stopped guests without any benefit to the ESTI submission. Check-in now runs smoothly for guests from every country, and you still get exactly the same file as before.
The register of accommodated tourists requires Bulgarian citizens’ names in Cyrillic. When a guest scans an ID card or passport, the portal reads the Latin text from the document and converts it to Cyrillic for them to confirm — so nobody has to type it out by hand.
If your municipality counts floors differently than you do (for example, counting the ground floor as the 1st), you can now set an “ESTI floor” in the venue settings — so the ESTI file comes out with the floor exactly as recorded in the municipal register, while your real floor stays as is.
Scanning a Bulgarian ID card or passport now reads and fills the ЕГН straight from the document and shows the right field — Bulgarian guests no longer get stuck entering it by hand.
Check-in instructions can now be written in Bulgarian (for Bulgarian guests) and English (for everyone else) — with formatting and photos. A new “Preview” button shows exactly how a guest will see them, and the layout is tuned for phones, where guests most often read them.
Guests now pick their country from a list of names (in their own language) instead of typing a code — with Bulgaria at the top. Faster, clearer, and error-free for the ESTI submission.
The check-in form now collects and validates a Bulgarian personal number (ЕГН) from Bulgarian guests and an identity document from foreign guests — the ЕГН with its checksum and the document number by type. Every stay is registered in ESTI with complete data, and guest names come through correctly.
Write your check-in instructions once, in a single field — and every guest sees them in their own language (before, Bulgarian-only instructions never reached foreign guests). One checkbox turns on a full editor: paragraphs, bold/italic, links and photos between the text, uploaded straight into the portal — no sending guests to an external link.
The “What’s new” page now opens in the language you’re browsing the portal in, instead of always English. And the logo at the top is now a link back to the homepage — so you can get back easily from anywhere.
Host on both Airbnb and Booking.com? You can now add both iCal calendars to your venue — guest dates are checked against the two together, and “Check calendar” shows them on one combined month view with a per-source breakdown. The preview now looks great on phones too.
Your dashboard now shows a list of your current and upcoming guests across all your venues right at the top, sorted by date — with clear “today” and “tomorrow” tags. See who’s arriving soon, whether they’ve checked in, and their link, without opening each venue.
Venue settings now have a “Check calendar” button that loads your Airbnb iCal link live and shows a month view of the booked dates, plus a list of upcoming reservations. A single glance confirms the portal reads your bookings correctly — so your guests can check in without a hitch.
You can now follow all the portal’s improvements in one place — right here. Tap the version in the top corner anytime to see the latest updates. We keep developing ESTI Helper and add features based on what hosts ask for.
Upload your venue logo in the settings and guests see it at the top of their page — next to the access codes and instructions. A more professional, branded welcome at no extra cost. The image is resized automatically so it loads fast on a phone.
Add a link to your guest instructions — a Google Maps location, parking, Wi-Fi portal or a how-to video — and it now opens with a single tap right from the phone. No copy-pasting for the guest.
We published a complete step-by-step guide — Bulgarian and English, with real screenshots. It covers everything: venue setup, the iCal calendar, access codes, smart locks, guest links and submitting to ESTI. Open it from the “Guide” menu.
A venue with two smart locks (e.g. one at the building entrance and one on the apartment) now gives a separate unique code for each door. With TTLock you can also choose shorter, guest-friendly codes — 4, 6 or 8 digits. Every code is valid exactly for the stay and expires on its own after checkout.
We refreshed the camera for scanning IDs and passports: a clear guiding frame that turns green on a successful read, a countdown, and a flashlight for dark entrances. The data is read right on the guest’s phone — no photo is uploaded or stored anywhere. It works on older phones too.
Every reservation is now in a neat collapsible card with the dates, guest count and status — find the one you need at a glance, even with dozens of reservations. Venue settings are also split into clear, separate sections so nothing gets mixed up.
The permanent guest link checks the entered dates against your calendar and allows self check-in in the last 48 hours before arrival. So the codes only reach your real guests, at the right time — more control and peace of mind.
Guests fill in their details themselves in their phone browser — in their own language, across 12 languages. No app to install and no midnight “what is this form?” messages. The whole check-in takes under a minute.
After every check-in you get a file in ESTI’s exact format. You upload it to the government portal in a few clicks — no retyping data from passports and no entering each guest by hand.
With a Nuki or TTLock smart lock every guest gets a unique code that’s valid from check-in to checkout and expires on its own. With Vhod Pro the guest also gets access to the building entrance — active only during the stay. No shared codes and no key handovers.