Country-wide policy
One Bulgarian Ancestor Changes Four Different Statutes at Once, and Nobody Has to Prove a Language
Most countries give descendants a faster naturalisation. Bulgaria gives them a different system. The Citizenship Act defines a person of Bulgarian origin, in paragraph 2(1) of its supplementary provisions, as one at least one of whose ascendants is a Bulgarian - a definition that says nothing about generations, documents or language. Article 25(1)(1) of the Aliens Act then puts those people first on the list of foreigners who may be granted permanent residence, with no qualifying period of residence, no income test and no insurance condition, and the implementing regulation reduces the file to identity documents, a notarised declaration of address and a birth certificate. Article 24v(3) of the same Act lets a student of Bulgarian origin skip the long-stay visa. Article 15(1) of the Citizenship Act then removes four of the six naturalisation conditions - five years of residence, income, the Bulgarian-language test and release from the previous citizenship - leaving adulthood and a clean record. Article 35(1)(2) gives the justice minister nine months rather than twelve to put the case to the President. The one place the system tightened is evidential: since ДВ бр. 21 от 2021 г., article 15(2) requires official documents proving kinship to an ascendant of Bulgarian origin up to the third degree inclusive, naming the ascendant and the relationship.
Topics it changes
What it requires
- At least one ascendant who is a Bulgarian
- Official documents proving kinship to an ascendant of Bulgarian origin up to the third degree inclusive, for naturalisation
- A birth certificate or the agency's certificate of Bulgarian origin, for permanent residence
At a glance
- Definition
- A person at least one of whose ascendants is a Bulgarian
Paragraph 2(1) of the supplementary provisions to the Citizenship Act.
- Evidence for naturalisation
- Kinship to an ascendant up to the third degree inclusive
Article 15(2) of the Citizenship Act, as amended by ДВ бр. 21 от 2021 г.
- Residence before permanent residence
- None in article 25(1)(1) of the Aliens Act, which names Bulgarian origin and no period
Article 35(1) of the implementing regulation lists the documents and asks for no income or insurance.
- Naturalisation conditions removed
- Residence, income, the Bulgarian-language test and release from the previous citizenship
Article 15(1) of the Citizenship Act, disapplying article 12(1), points 2, 4, 5 and 6.
- Decision deadline
- 9 months, against 12 for an ordinary naturalisation
Article 35(1)(2) of the Citizenship Act.
What the law says
«"Лице от български произход" е лице, на което поне единият възходящ е българин.»Our translation - not official
"A person of Bulgarian origin" is a person at least one of whose ascendants is a Bulgarian.
About this source
The justice ministry, which runs the Citizenship Council and every naturalisation, release and restoration file, and which hosts a consolidated statute service at /home/normdoc/<id>. That service answered with a clean consolidated Закон за българското гражданство current to ДВ бр. 55 от 16 юни 2026 г., and it uses the same document identifiers as the commercial site lex.bg.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: A curated subset, not a statute book: it carries the acts the ministry works with and answers HTTP 500 for everything else, including the Aliens Act and the Asylum Act. The site also serves an incomplete certificate chain, so a plain client rejects it. It is not an official consolidation and must not be cited for any instrument the Ministry of Justice does not administer.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«Разрешение за постоянно пребиваване могат да получат чужденците: 1. (изм. - ДВ, бр. 9 от 2011 г.) от български произход;»First on the list, and the shortest entry on it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Bulgaria's foreign ministry, which issues visas and publishes consolidated prints of the statutes it applies. Its copy at /upload/148163/ is the consolidated Закон за чужденците в Република България with the June 2025 Schengen amendment incorporated, extracted cleanly by pdftotext, and it is the text almost every Bulgarian residence record here quotes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not an official text. Bulgaria has no official consolidation and this is a ministry's own working print, whose currency can only be judged from the amendment list in its header - which at /upload/148163/ runs to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. and is already one amendment behind the Ministry of the Interior's copy. The ministry also keeps an older print at /upload/138160/, consolidated only to ДВ бр. 79 от 2024 г.; the two sit on the same site with nothing to say which is current. It must not be cited for anything the foreign ministry does not administer.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«За получаване право на постоянно пребиваване на основание чл. 25, ал. 1, т. 1 ЗЧРБ чужденецът прилага документите по чл. 34, ал. 1, т. 1, 2 и 5, нотариално заверена декларация от собственика за предоставяне на адрес на пребиваване и удостоверение за раждане.»Our translation - not official
To obtain the right of permanent residence on the ground of article 25(1)(1) of the Aliens Act, the foreigner shall attach the documents under article 34(1), points 1, 2 and 5, a notarised declaration from the owner providing an address of residence, and a birth certificate.
The whole file.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The interior ministry's migration directorate, which decides every residence permit in Bulgaria and keeps a page of the legislation it applies at /migration/дирекцията/нормативна-уредба/bgzac. The files behind it are prints generated by the commercial system Сиела and are the most current texts of the Aliens Act, its implementing regulation and the Act on Union citizens that any Bulgarian public body publishes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The files are vendor prints, not official texts, and the vendor's watermark is injected into the running text where it interrupts sentences mid-clause. Worse, the directorate's server returns 403 to a direct download, so the only way in is the extraction service, which reads these PDFs as two columns and interleaves the words of long paragraphs: article 23(5)-(6) of the Aliens Act and article 16(3) of the Act on Union citizens both come back scrambled. Nothing may be quoted from this publisher without reading the sentence back in Bulgarian first. Its own HTML service pages, which describe procedures, were unreachable by every tool.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«Лице, което не е български гражданин, може да придобие българско гражданство по натурализация, без да са налице условията по чл. 12, ал. 1, т. 2, 4, 5 и 6 ако отговаря на едно от следните изисквания: 1\. е от български произход;»Four conditions gone at a stroke.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The justice ministry, which runs the Citizenship Council and every naturalisation, release and restoration file, and which hosts a consolidated statute service at /home/normdoc/<id>. That service answered with a clean consolidated Закон за българското гражданство current to ДВ бр. 55 от 16 юни 2026 г., and it uses the same document identifiers as the commercial site lex.bg.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: A curated subset, not a statute book: it carries the acts the ministry works with and answers HTTP 500 for everything else, including the Aliens Act and the Asylum Act. The site also serves an incomplete certificate chain, so a plain client rejects it. It is not an official consolidation and must not be cited for any instrument the Ministry of Justice does not administer.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«В производството за придобиване на българско гражданство по натурализация по ал. 1, т. 1 с молбата се представят официални документи, издадени от български или чуждестранни органи, с които молителят удостоверява, че има родствена връзка с поне едно лице - негов възходящ до трета степен включително, което е от български произход. Документите трябва да съдържат информация за имената на възходящия и родствената му връзка с молителя.»The 2021 tightening, and the only one.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The justice ministry, which runs the Citizenship Council and every naturalisation, release and restoration file, and which hosts a consolidated statute service at /home/normdoc/<id>. That service answered with a clean consolidated Закон за българското гражданство current to ДВ бр. 55 от 16 юни 2026 г., and it uses the same document identifiers as the commercial site lex.bg.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: A curated subset, not a statute book: it carries the acts the ministry works with and answers HTTP 500 for everything else, including the Aliens Act and the Asylum Act. The site also serves an incomplete certificate chain, so a plain client rejects it. It is not an official consolidation and must not be cited for any instrument the Ministry of Justice does not administer.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«Разрешение по ал. 1, без да притежават виза по чл. 15, ал. 1, могат да получат чужденците от български произход, които са приети като студенти в редовна форма на обучение във висше училище в Република България и представят документ за български произход.»Our translation - not official
A permit under paragraph 1 may be obtained, without holding a visa under article 15(1), by foreigners of Bulgarian origin who have been admitted as students in full-time study at a higher-education institution in the Republic of Bulgaria and produce a document of Bulgarian origin.
The same idea, in the student chapter.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Bulgaria's foreign ministry, which issues visas and publishes consolidated prints of the statutes it applies. Its copy at /upload/148163/ is the consolidated Закон за чужденците в Република България with the June 2025 Schengen amendment incorporated, extracted cleanly by pdftotext, and it is the text almost every Bulgarian residence record here quotes.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not an official text. Bulgaria has no official consolidation and this is a ministry's own working print, whose currency can only be judged from the amendment list in its header - which at /upload/148163/ runs to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г. and is already one amendment behind the Ministry of the Interior's copy. The ministry also keeps an older print at /upload/138160/, consolidated only to ДВ бр. 79 от 2024 г.; the two sit on the same site with nothing to say which is current. It must not be cited for anything the foreign ministry does not administer.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The Citizenship Act names the Държавна агенция за българите в чужбина as the keeper of the register; the implementing regulation of the Aliens Act, as amended in 2025, names the Изпълнителна агенция за българите в чужбина. Both are reproduced as their publishers print them.
The third-degree limit is a rule about naturalisation evidence. The permanent-residence ground in the Aliens Act states no degree at all, and what the agency applies when it issues a certificate of Bulgarian origin was not read in any instrument.
Nothing here was read about how the agency decides who is a Bulgarian for the purposes of the definition.