Bulgaria increases fees for citizenship applications tenfold

Bulgaria’s Cabinet approved on June 24 amendments to the law on state fees, providing for a tenfold increase in the fees for applications for acquisition and restoration of Bulgarian citizenship, the government information service said.

The aim is to bring the amount of state fees paid in proceedings related to Bulgarian citizenship in line with the institution of citizenship as part of state sovereignty, national security and national identity, the statement said.

A fivefold increase in the fees is proposed for applications for release from Bulgarian citizenship and for applications for issuance of citizenship certificates.

For some of the other activities related to issuing various certificates related to Bulgarian citizenship, the increase in fees is twofold, the statement said.

Justice Minister Georgi Georgiev told reporters that currently, the average fee for acquiring or restoring Bulgarian citizenship is 30 leva, which means that it is about 47 times lower than in some European countries, and on average, acquiring Bulgarian citizenship is 25 times cheaper than the state fee in EU member states.

The fees have not been changed for nearly 18 years, which necessitates their indexation, he said.

“We are increasing the application fee for acquiring Bulgarian citizenship tenfold – from 30 to 300 leva and the fee for releasing Bulgarian citizenship fivefold – from 50 to 250 leva,” Georgiev said.

He said that his ministry receives about 23 000 applications for Bulgarian citizenship a year.

(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)