This is the Tournament Portal for our 2026 National Tournament, which will be held in Sofia on April 17th-19th.
Registration
Registration for the tournament opens on March 17th and closes on March 31st.
Participants should complete all the necessary documents and upload them to their Team folder by the 31st of March. Please, don’t wait until the last moment.
Transfer your registration fees, 17.90 EUR (35 BGN) per student, to the BEST bank account mentioning the school’s name and town in the “основание” between March 17th and 31st 2026.
All payments must be made in EUR.
Please, carefully follow all instructions regarding registration as described in the registration email, sent to all coaches on 17.03.2026.
Logistics
Tournament Dates: 17-19 April, 2026
Registration Opens: March 17, 2026
Registration Closes: March 31, 2026
Fee payment: March 17-31, 2026
Host Site
The tournament will take place at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia.
Accommodations
From this year, BEST Foundation will only arrange accommodation if requested. For detailed instructions, refer to the registration email.
BEST reserves up to two nights of accommodation for all participants. BEST commits to negotiating accommodation costs at or under 30 EUR (58.67 BGN) per student per night. This does not apply for single rooms. Participants have to pay for their own accommodation costs while BEST covers the costs of all judges for up to one night in a hotel and up to one chaperone.
All payments must be made in EUR.
Hotels
Judges and Team Coaches will receive emails with their hotel allocation for the weekend. Please refrain from communicating with the hotels directly and contact BEST instead if you have questions or concerns.
Travel
All teams are required to bring a chaperone who will be legally responsible for their team’s safety when traveling to and competing at the venue. Chaperones are required to be aged 18 or over, fluent in Bulgarian, and not high school students.
Teams are encouraged to apply for a travel scholarship. Coaches can fill out the scholarship application form by clicking here. Teams allocated scholarships will be reimbursed after arriving at the tournament venue. Please read our scholarship terms and conditions for further information BEFORE applying for a scholarship.
Please, keep in mind the distance between the tournament site and the different stations:
Distance from the central train station/bus station to the university
Public transport from the central train station/bus station to the university
Public transport from the university to the central train station/bus station (Sunday)
If needed you can use taxi as the Sofia taxi’s prices are max 7-9 EUR, only if you travel to more distant destination:
Taxi Numbers:
OK Supertrans:
Telephone number - 029732121
Yellow! Taxi:
Telephone number - 0291119
App (Android)
App (IOS)
Book online
OK Taxi:
App (Android)
App (IOS)
TaxiMe:
App (Android)
App (IOS)
Green Taxi:
Telephone number - 02810810
For any information or concerns regarding transport in Sofia, contact info@bestfoundation.bg
Judging
We welcome all high school students (only if they are 18 years old or above), graduates or above with C1 or higher English to judge at our tournaments. If you are new to BEST and our tournaments, visit our Judging Basics page!
Coaches, you must register if you are judging, too, and don’t forget to include your judges when you fill out your team roster spreadsheet (see below).
Our Judge sign up form can be accessed by following this link.
We will reimburse all judges for their transport if they use trains or buses, but we strongly encourage taking the most affordable option when possible (usually trains). Please purchase your ticket back from the tournament location as well, as we cannot reimburse you without being presented with tickets. We will provide food at the tournament site, and we will also cover one night of hotel accommodations for regional tournaments.
Coaching
BEST Coaches should download our Coaches’ Checklist and make sure their teams are up to date.
Tournament Schedule
To Be Announced
Debate Motions
To Be Announced