NSI: 8.5% of students at Bulgarian universities are foreigners

There are 16 787 foreign students studying for bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Bulgarian universities in the 2025/26 academic year, 8.5 per cent of the total, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said on September 30.

The largest share of foreign students are from Greece (17 per cent), followed by the United Kingdom (13.6 per cent), Ukraine (12.4 per cent), Germany (8.9 per cent) and Italy (5.7 per cent).

The NSI said that foreign students mainly chose health-related studies, with 59.8 per cent studying specialisations in this field and 46.1 per cent studying medicine.

There are 715 foreigners doing PhDs at Bulgarian universities, 12 per cent of the total. The largest share are from China – 35.7 per cent, followed by those from Germany (12.7 per cent) and Greece (11.7 per cent).

(Photo: Mary Gober/ freeimages.com)