Changes to Bulgarian Permanent Residence: The Draft Six-Month Presence Requirement

Private Clients Insights, Citizenship and Immigration, Citizenship by Investment, Expat Assistance, News

On 28 July 2026 the Council of Ministers tabled a Draft amending the Aliens in the Republic of Bulgaria Act which may lead to changes to Bulgarian permanent residence status. If enacted in its present form, every holder of Bulgarian permanent residence including investors under the residence by investment (“RBI”) and Golden Visa routes may lose that status if they spent less than six months and one day in Bulgaria during the preceding calendar year. This is a draft. It is not law, and it may never become law in this form.

Changes to Bulgarian Permanent Residence

Nothing set out below has changed the law. The document in question is a Draft Act amending and supplementing the Aliens in the Republic of Bulgaria Act (Закон за чужденците в Република България, “ARBA” or “the Act“), approved by the Council of Ministers by Decision No 575 of 27 July 2026 and filed with the National Assembly on 28 July 2026 under reference 52-602-01-29.

A draft filed with the National Assembly is a legislative proposal and no more. It must now be referred to committee, debated and voted at first reading, opened to amendment, and voted again at second reading before it can be promulgated. There is no fixed timetable for any of those stages, and there is no guarantee that the text which eventually emerges, if any text emerges at all will resemble the text. Permanent residence holders should therefore treat this as a risk to be monitored and planned around, not as a change to be acted upon in panic. Advisers telling clients that the Bulgarian programme has been closed are running well ahead of the legislature.

This article addresses one part of the draft only – the proposed changes to the grounds for withdrawal of the right of residence, and their consequences for holders of permanent residence, in particular clients holding permanent residence through investment. 

The Current Act – Section 40(1)

Section 40(1) ARBA sets out the grounds on which the right of residence of a foreign national in Bulgaria is withdrawn. Withdrawal of the right of residence is a coercive administrative measure within the meaning of section 39a(1)(1) ARBA, imposed by the authorities listed in section 44(1) — principally the Migration Directorate of the Ministry of Interior.

The relevant limb is item 6, which in its current wording (as last amended, SG No 52 of 2025) reads:

„6. се установи, че чужденецът, получил разрешение за дългосрочно или постоянно пребиваване, е отсъствал от територията на държавите – членки на Европейския съюз, за период от 12 последователни месеца…”

In working translation: the right of residence is withdrawn where it is established that a foreign national holding a long-term or permanent residence permit has been absent from the territory of the Member States of the European Union for a period of 12 consecutive months, save in cases of a declared state of emergency or of permanent residence authorised under section 25g; the duration of a declared state of emergency does not count as absence.

Three features of the provision as it stands matter:

1. The test is absence, not presence. A holder is not required to be anywhere. They are required only not to be entirely outside the Union.
2. The territory is the whole Union. Time spent in Vienna, Lisbon or Dublin defeats the test just as effectively as time spent in Sofia.
3. The period is 12 consecutive months. A single day inside the Union resets the clock.

For an investor with any European footprint at all, this is a test that is close to impossible to fail. That is precisely why Bulgarian permanent residence has been marketed for years as residence without an obligation to reside.

It is worth noting alongside it that section 40(1)(5) the requirement that a holder settle in Bulgaria within one year of the permit being granted  already carves out the investment grounds in section 25(1), items 6, 7, 8, 13 and 16, and section 25g. The legislative pattern to date has been to shield investors from residence-based withdrawal.

What The Draft Proposes

Section 17 (§ 17) of the Draft makes two changes to section 40(1). It rewrites item 6, and it inserts new items 24 and 25.

The redrafted item 6

„6. се установи, че чужденецът, получил разрешение за дългосрочно пребиваване, е отсъствал от територията на държавите – членки на Европейския съюз, за период 12 последователни месеца, освен в случаите на обявено извънредно положение или на разрешено постоянно пребиваване по чл. 25, ал. 1, т. 6-8, 13 и 16 и чл. 25г; срокът на обявено извънредно положение не се счита за отсъствие на чужденеца, получил разрешение за дългосрочно пребиваване, от територията на държавите – членки на Европейския съюз, за период 12 последователни месеца;”

Two things have happened here. First, the words “or permanent” have been deleted: the provision now reaches long-term residence permits. Second, the carve-out has been widened — from permanent residence under section 25g alone, to permanent residence under section 25(1), items 6 to 8, 13 and 16, and section 25g.

The new item 24

„24. се установи, че чужденецът, получил разрешение за постоянно пребиваване, не е пребивавал на територията на Република България през предходната календарна година най-малко 6 месеца и един ден;”

In working translation: the right of residence is withdrawn where it is established that a foreign national holding a permanent residence permit has not resided on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria during the preceding calendar year for at least six months and one day.

What Item 24 means

The two provisions are not variations on a theme. Item 24 replaces the test in every material respect.

First, item 24 applies to every permanent residence holder. It is drafted by reference to the permit, not to the ground on which the permit was issued. section 25(1) ARBA grants permanent residence on a wide range of grounds: persons of Bulgarian origin, spouses and children of Bulgarian citizens, parents of Bulgarian citizens providing statutory support, foreigners who have completed five years’ lawful continuous residence, and the investment routes. Item 24 draws no distinction between them. Read as drafted, it introduces a general physical presence requirement for Bulgarian permanent residence for the first time.

Second, it contains no exemptions of any kind. It spares neither investors nor a holder stranded abroad by a declared state of emergency – a protection that item 6 expressly retains for long-term residents. A holder immobilised by a pandemic, a border closure, illness or the care of a dying relative abroad would, on the face of the text, fall within the ground for withdrawal.

The retained exemption in item 6, and why it contradicts item 24

The most significant drafting problem in Section 17 is this. The redrafted item 6 confines itself to long-term residence permits — yet it retains, and indeed expands, an exemption expressed in terms of permanent residence granted under section 25(1), items 6 to 8, 13 and 16, and section 25g.

An exemption for permanent residence now sits inside a provision that, by its own opening words, no longer applies to permanent residence at all.

Two readings are possible.

Reading one: the carve-out is legislative residue. The drafters copied the existing text, narrowed the opening words and enlarged the list of protected grounds without noticing that the two operations cancel each other out. On this reading the exemption is inoperative, or very nearly so. It could bite only in the narrow case of a person who holds both an EU long-term residence permit and a permanent residence permit issued on one of the listed investment grounds — and even then it would spare them only from item 6. Item 24 would catch them regardless, because item 24 is triggered by the permanent residence permit itself.

Reading two: the carve-out evidences an intention to preserve investor protection. If the legislature took the trouble to widen the list of protected investment grounds in the very section that creates item 24, it is at least arguable that it did not intend investors to be caught by the new presence requirement.

The difficulty is that reading two cannot be made to work on the text as drafted. Section 46(1) of the Normative Acts Act requires that provisions be applied according to their exact meaning, and construed  where unclear in the sense which best accords with the other provisions, the purpose of the instrument and the fundamental principles of Bulgarian law. Item 24 is not unclear. It is unqualified. An exemption contained in item 6, which addresses a different ground of withdrawal applicable to a different permit type, cannot be read across so as to disapply item 24, which does not refer to it.

The result is a Draft that appears to protect investors in one limb and exposes them in another. In our view this is the single most likely point of amendment at committee stage, and the point on which practitioners should focus submissions.

The Bulgarian Legislative Process – What Happens Next

For clients unfamiliar with Bulgarian parliamentary procedure, the stages are as follows.

1. Legislative initiative. Under section 87(1) of the Constitution, a Draft may be introduced by any Member of the National Assembly or by the Council of Ministers. This Draft comes from the Council of Ministers, following public consultation and inter-ministerial clearance.
2. Filing and referral. The Draft is registered with the National Assembly (here, on 28 July 2026) and distributed by the Speaker to a lead committee and to such supporting committees as are relevant. Each reports.
3. First reading. The plenary debates and votes on the Draft in principle. A Draft may be rejected at this stage.
4. Amendments. Following adoption at first reading, Members may table written amendments within the period fixed by the Rules of Organisation and Procedure of the National Assembly — as a rule seven days, which the plenary may shorten or extend up to 21 days. The lead committee reports on each proposal.
5. Second reading. The plenary votes text by text. section 88(1) of the Constitution requires the two readings to be held at separate sittings, though by way of exception the National Assembly may decide to hold both at a single sitting. Substantial redrafting between first and second reading is normal in Bulgarian practice.
6. Promulgation. An adopted Act is sent to the President, who under section 101 of the Constitution may within 15 days return it for further debate; the National Assembly may re-adopt it by a majority of all Members. The Act is then promulgated in the State Gazette (Държавен вестник) not later than 15 days after adoption, under section 88(3).
7. Entry into force. Under section 5(5) of the Constitution, a normative act enters into force three days after promulgation unless it provides otherwise.
8. Discontinuity. If the National Assembly’s term ends before a Draft is finally adopted, the Draft lapses and must be reintroduced. Given the recent frequency of Bulgarian elections, this is not a theoretical qualification.

No commencement provision and no transitional rule

The Draft contains transitional and final provisions at Sections 35 to 38, but none of them addresses Section 17. There is no commencement clause, no grandfathering of existing permit holders, and no provision identifying which calendar year would first be tested.

The default in section 5(5) of the Constitution would therefore apply. Read literally, an Act promulgated late in a given year would put presence during that same year a year in which no such requirement existed in issue. 

Section 14(1) of the Normative Acts Act permits retroactive effect only exceptionally and only by express provision, so the better view is that item 24 could not lawfully be applied to a calendar year completed before it came into force. But the point is unresolved on the face of the Draft, and a transitional provision is among the amendments most obviously required.

What this means in practice for RBI and Golden Visa clients

• The law in force is unchanged. Existing permits remain valid on their existing terms. No holder is currently obliged to spend any particular period in Bulgaria.
• The risk profile has changed. A sitting government has put a physical presence requirement for permanent residents in writing, and has stated an intention to exercise stricter control over this category of resident. Whether or not this Draft passes, that intention is now on the record.
• Clients approaching naturalisation should review timing now. Withdrawal of permanent residence would interrupt the qualifying period and reset the clock. Those who are already eligible, or close to eligible, have a straightforward reason to move rather than wait.
• Clients with genuine residence in Bulgaria should keep records. Where presence is real, it should be documented and capable of proof: address registration, tenancy or title, utility and banking records, health insurance and medical records, school enrolment, and tax filings.
• The committee stage is where this is decided. The provision reaches far beyond investors, extending to spouses of Bulgarian citizens, persons of Bulgarian descent and long-settled foreign residents. That breadth is the most likely source of opposition, and the most likely engine of amendment.

How NBLO can help

New Balkans Law Office  (NBLO) advises investors, families and private clients on Bulgarian residence by investment, permanent residence and naturalisation, and on the distinction between temporary, long-term and permanent residence under the Aliens in the Republic of Bulgaria Act. We are following this Draft through its parliamentary stages and will report on material developments.

If you hold Bulgarian permanent residence, or are considering an application, and would like an assessment of how these proposals could affect your position, please write to us at cbi@newbalkanslawoffice.com or use our contact form. We will respond with a view on your specific circumstances, including naturalisation timing and any steps worth taking in advance of the committee stage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has Bulgaria introduced a residence requirement for permanent residence? No. A Draft proposing one was filed with the National Assembly on 28 July 2026. It has not been debated, amended or adopted, and it is not in force.

What would the requirement be if the Draft passed unamended? Permanent residence holders would have to be present in Bulgaria for at least six months and one day in each preceding calendar year. Falling short would be a ground for withdrawal of the right of residence under a new section 40(1)(24) ARBA.

Would investors be exempt? Not under the text as drafted. New item 24 contains no exemption for any category of permanent residence holder. An investor carve-out is retained in the redrafted item 6, but item 6 as redrafted applies to long-term residence permits — which is the central drafting contradiction in the Draft.

Does this affect the investment amounts? No. Sections 7 and 11 convert the thresholds from leva into euro at the fixed rate of EUR 1 = BGN 1.95583. The qualifying amounts are unchanged in real terms.

When would the change take effect? The Draft contains no commencement provision for Section 17. The constitutional default is three days after promulgation in the State Gazette. There is no transitional or grandfathering provision, which is itself a likely subject of amendment.

What should permanent residence holders do now? Monitor the committee stage; review naturalisation timing where five years of permanent residence are close to complete; and preserve evidence of presence in Bulgaria where presence is genuine.