Bulgaria may withdraw permanent residence from those living there less than half the year

In brief

• The Council of Ministers approved amendments to the Foreigners Act in July 2026 and sent them to parliament. Public discussion of the bill took place in October.
• A new ground for withdrawing permanent residence: less than 6 months and 1 day in Bulgaria in a calendar year.
• The rule covers all permanent residents regardless of how they obtained the status. The text has no exemption for investors.
• Long-term residence keeps the existing rule: withdrawal after 12 consecutive months outside the EU.
• The bill must pass committee and two readings. The text may change, so family status decisions are best taken on the final wording, while preparing now.

What the bill proposes

Today Article 40 of the Law on Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria allows long-term and permanent residence to be withdrawn if a person spends 12 consecutive months outside the European Union. In practice this meant permanent residence in Bulgaria could be kept while living in another EU country or visiting Europe regularly.

The bill separates the two statuses. The 12-months-outside-the-EU rule stays only for long-term residence. Permanent residence gets a separate new item 24, which counts time inside Bulgaria rather than time outside the EU. Compare the rules:

The toughest part of the text is the absence of exemptions. Long-term residents keep protection for time abroad during a declared state of emergency. The bill gives no such protection for permanent residence. Withdrawal becomes mandatory rather than discretionary, although the migration authority must still weigh length of residence, family and social and cultural ties to Bulgaria.

What this means for you. If you hold Bulgarian permanent residence and live in another country, under the bill you risk losing it. Count how many days a year you actually spend in Bulgaria and keep evidence.

Who is affected

The rule is written for all permanent residents, so several groups are affected at once. The main ones:

• Investors. The Bulgarian golden visa gave permanent residence with no requirement to live there. Under the bill an investor would need to spend more than half the year in Bulgaria or lose the status.
• People of Bulgarian origin with permanent residence. Many first obtained permanent residence as an intermediate status. For them living in the country becomes mandatory.
• Spouses of Bulgarian citizens and other permanent residents who live between two countries.

Do not confuse permanent residence with citizenship. The route to citizenship by Bulgarian origin does not require permanent residence first: a person with a certificate of Bulgarian origin applies for citizenship directly. So the bill does not change the main Bulgarian repatriation route we handle for clients. It affects those who chose permanent residence as an intermediate status or obtained it on other grounds.

What it means for the golden visa

Under the current programme an investor may apply for naturalisation after 5 years of permanent or long-term residence via the fund route and after 10 years via property. The fund route required no annual presence during that period: the years accrued without moving. If the bill passes, accruing years without living in Bulgaria becomes impossible: permanent residence would be withdrawn before the right to citizenship arises.

The bill also converts investment thresholds into euros. Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026, and lev amounts are converted at the official rate:

The thresholds for extended residence (BGN 100,000 and 600,000) are not covered by the presence requirement: it applies to permanent residence only. More on the programme in our articles on Bulgarian citizenship by investment and residence through property.

How to prove half a year in the country

Since 2025 Bulgaria has been fully in Schengen. Trips to Greece, Romania or Germany leave no passport stamps, and there are no regular land checks inside Schengen. Proving from a passport how many days you spent in Bulgaria becomes difficult. If the law passes, presence will have to be shown with other documents.

• Address registration and a lease or proof of ownership.
• Utility bills showing actual consumption, not just standing charges.
• Bank statements with transactions in Bulgaria, health insurance and doctor visits.
• Tickets and boarding passes for entry and exit, and EU entry-exit system records when crossing the external border.

We advise building such an archive now, without waiting for the law. If the rule takes effect from the start of a calendar year, you will have to prove the whole year, and documents are hard to reconstruct after the fact.

Half a year in the country also means taxes

The requirement to live in Bulgaria for more than half the year has a flip side. A person who spends more than 183 days in the country in 12 months usually becomes a Bulgarian tax resident. They then pay Bulgarian tax on worldwide income at 10%, unless a tax treaty allocates taxing rights differently.

For many this is a plus rather than a minus: 10% is one of the lowest income tax rates in the EU. But for those who hold permanent residence as a fallback and pay tax elsewhere, living in Bulgaria for half the year may mean a change of tax residence. This should be worked out in advance, together with taxes in the country where you live now.

An example

A family obtained Bulgarian permanent residence through a fund in 2024 and lives in Dubai, spending two or three summer months in Bulgaria. Today their status is safe: they never spend 12 consecutive months outside the EU. If the bill passes as drafted, this family would have to spend more than half the year in Bulgaria or lose permanent residence, and their tax residence would probably change too. Such a family needs to decide before the law takes effect.

Why Bulgaria is doing this

The explanatory memorandum gives the reason: rising numbers of permanent residence applications and a need for tighter oversight. It names no specific security threat and does not refer to investment migration directly. But the logic is clear: permanent status should go to people who really live in the country.

Bulgaria is moving in the general European direction. Hungary is closing its guest investor programme, and several EU countries demand ever more real presence from status holders. EU long-term resident status has always required real residence. Bulgaria is now extending that logic to national permanent residence.

Long-term residence as an alternative

The bill keeps a softer rule for long-term (extended) residence: it is withdrawn only after 12 consecutive months outside the EU. For some permanent residents who cannot live in Bulgaria for half the year, this may be an option for keeping ties to the country through another status. But extended residence has its own grounds and renewal terms and does not suit everyone. The decision depends on the goal: living in the EU, getting a passport or keeping a fallback status.

What comes next

The bill must pass the relevant committee, a first reading, amendments and a second reading. The text can change at every stage. In October market participants and lawyers sent parliament comments, including objections to the lack of exemptions and to applying the rule to people who already hold permanent residence. How parliament takes these into account will become clear at first reading.

Transitional provisions are a separate issue. If the law applies to existing permanent residence immediately, holders living abroad risk losing it in the first calendar year after entry into force. We will watch this part of the text especially closely.

We will update this report after the first reading and notify clients with Bulgarian permanent residence if the rule survives as drafted. Anyone only now choosing a route to Bulgaria should factor in the bill already: a plan built on permanent residence without living there may not work.

What to do now

More on the steps to a passport in our articles on the route to citizenship by origin and Bulgarian citizenship for Russians. Compare Bulgaria with its neighbours in our review of repatriation to Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Permanent residence is covered in detail in our article on permanent residence in Bulgaria, and taxes in our tax overview. Our team prepares documents and handles the case through to the passport; discuss yours in an online consultation.