A Pension From Anywhere Will Do, and the Act Never Says How Much
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Barbados on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
154 exceptions recorded across 56 countries · none match Barbados to Bulgaria · Residency as a retiree
Article 24(1)(10) of the Aliens Act gives a one-year continuing-residence permit to a person who has acquired a right to a pension under the law of Bulgaria, of their country of origin, or of any other state, and who has sufficient means of support in the country. The pension does not have to be Bulgarian and does not have to be paid from anywhere in particular; what the Act asks is that the right to it exists. No figure attaches to this ground: the only measure is the general one in article 24(2), which asks for means of not less than the minimum monthly wage, the minimum stipend or the minimum pension, together with secured housing and compulsory health insurance. The route leads somewhere: five continuous years of lawful residence is the condition for the Union long-term status under article 24g, and permanent residence under article 25(1)(5) after five years with no more than 30 months of absence.
At a glance
- Whose pension
- Bulgaria's, your country of origin's, or any other state's
Article 24(1)(10) of the Aliens Act.
- Minimum pension amount for this ground
- None stated in article 24(1)(10) of the Aliens Act, which asks only for sufficient means of support
The only figure is the general test in article 24(2): not less than the minimum monthly wage, the minimum stipend or the minimum pension.
- Permit length
- Up to one year
Article 23(1)(2) of the Act, which is the length of every continuing-residence permit unless the Act says otherwise.
- To the Union long-term status
- 5 continuous years
Article 24g(1) of the Aliens Act.
Requirements
- A right to a pension under Bulgarian law or the law of any other state
- Sufficient means of support in Bulgaria, at least the minimum monthly wage, stipend or pension
- A long-stay (type D) visa, secured housing and health insurance
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Barbados
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«са получили право на пенсия съгласно законодателството на Република България, държавата си на произход или друга държава и разполагат с достатъчно средства за издръжка в страната;»Our translation - not official
have acquired a right to a pension under the legislation of the Republic of Bulgaria, of their country of origin or of another state, and have sufficient means of support in the country;
The whole of the ground. No amount, and no requirement that the pension be paid into Bulgaria.
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 на разрешение за продължително пребиваване лицата следва да имат осигурено жилище, задължителни здравни застраховки и осигуряване, достатъчни средства за издръжка, без да прибягват до системата за социално подпомагане, в размер не по-малък от минималната месечна заплата, минималната стипендия или минималната пенсия съгласно законодателството на Република България за срока на пребиваване.»Our translation - not official
To obtain a continuing-residence permit, the persons must have secured housing, compulsory health insurance and insurance cover, and sufficient means of support without recourse to the social assistance system, of not less than the minimum monthly wage, the minimum stipend or the minimum pension under the legislation of the Republic of Bulgaria, for the period of residence.
The only quantified test that touches a pensioner.
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
«Статут на дългосрочно пребиваване се предоставя на чужденец, който е пребивавал законно и без прекъсване на територията на Република България в рамките на 5 години преди подаване на заявлението за разрешаване на дългосрочно пребиваване. След придобиването му статутът на дългосрочно пребиваване е постоянен, доколкото не са възникнали основания за отнемането му по чл. 40.»Where a year-by-year permit leads.
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
A pensioner on this ground is not inside article 33(1) of the Health Insurance Act until long-term or permanent residence is granted, so private medical insurance is what the implementing regulation asks for in the meantime.
No fee figure is published here. The Ministry of the Interior's own copy of Tariff No. 4 is frozen at ДВ бр. 75 от 2018 г., which is before the euro changeover, so nothing in it can be quoted as a current amount.
- administersЗакон за чужденците в Република България, consolidated text to ДВ бр. 52 от 2025 г.
Министерство на външните работи
About 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
- administersПравилник за прилагане на Закона за чужденците в Република България, consolidated text to ДВ бр. 7 от 2026 г.
Министерство на вътрешните работи, дирекция "Миграция"
About 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