Bulgaria: visa and entry rules
What you need to get in, how long you may stay, and what an overstay costs
Bulgaria's borders: every crossing point
Other 6
Airports 4
Since 1 January 2025 control on the land borders has been lifted — Bulgaria has joined Schengen in full.
With Romania and Greece the borders are now internal ones: Ruse — Giurgiu over the Danube bridge, Kulata — Promachonas on the Greek route.
With Turkey it is the external Schengen border: Kapitan Andreevo — Kapikule, one of the busiest crossings in Europe. Control is a full one and queues are normal.
With Serbia and North Macedonia the borders are external as well: Kalotina and Gyueshevo.
Kapitan Andreevo is a working overland route from Turkey into Schengen, alongside the Greek crossings.
By sea — the ports of Varna and Burgas.
Driving to Bulgaria
An electronic vignette is required for the roads.
A Green Card is mandatory.
Winter tyres are mandatory from mid-November through March.
Travelling to Bulgaria with a pet
The rules are the same throughout the EU.
An ISO-standard microchip is mandatory, and it is implanted BEFORE the rabies vaccination — otherwise the vaccination does not count.
Rabies vaccination — no earlier than 12 weeks of age, and 21 days must pass between the vaccination and entry.
A rabies antibody titre test is required only for pets from a country not on the EU's approved list. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK are on the list, so this does not apply to pets travelling from those countries; Russia is one of the countries it does apply to. Blood is taken no earlier than 30 days after the vaccination, after which there is a three-month wait before entry.
An EU veterinary certificate is required, issued by the state veterinary service.
No more than five animals per person without commercial paperwork.
Overstaying your visa in Bulgaria
The violation is recorded across the whole Schengen area, not against one individual country.
The main consequence is a refusal of your next visa. The record stays in the system, and getting a Schengen visa afterwards becomes considerably harder.
An entry ban for a substantial overstay applies to the entire area at once.
The days are counted across the whole of Schengen. The typical mistake is to count your stay in each country separately.
What else to check before you go
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Entry rules change faster than anything else on this site, and they change without notice. We cross-check every page against several sources and state the date it was verified, but that does not replace the main step: before you travel, check an official source — the country’s consulate, its immigration service or its e-visa portal. Especially if more than a couple of months have passed since our check.