How to get a Bulgarian passport and identity card after citizenship: certificate, EGN and one visit

A Bulgarian passport comes after citizenship, not together with it. The presidential decree is the act that makes you a citizen, but it is not a travel or identity document in itself. Four short steps then turn the decree into documents you can use: a citizenship certificate, a registered address with a personal number, an identity card, and a passport. In practice the whole sequence takes one to two months. If you are not a citizen yet, our guide to Bulgarian citizenship by descent explains how to get there first.

Step 1. The citizenship certificate

When the President signs the decree, you receive a notice. Where you then collect your certificate depends on where you filed the application:

• if you filed in Sofia, at the Ministry of Justice, 5 Aksakov Street;
• if you filed at a consulate, the notice is sent to the consulate, and you collect the certificate there.

The document is called the Certificate of Bulgarian Citizenship (Удостоверение за българско гражданство). It confirms that you are a citizen and serves as the starting point for every Bulgarian document you apply for afterwards. You receive it in person and sign for it, after showing proof that the state fee has been paid. Bring one current passport-format photo. The certificate is handed over after you declare an address of registration in Bulgaria (Ordinance No. 1, Article 14), and the originals of the documents you filed with your application are returned to you at the same time.

Since each later step starts from this certificate, keep it with you throughout the trip.

No address in Bulgaria?

If you have no home in Bulgaria, you can register at a service address, an address made available for registration purposes. The specific address and district are confirmed by the municipality at the time of registration, so it is best to arrange this with the municipality directly before you travel.

Step 2. Address registration and the EGN

With the certificate in hand, you go to the municipality (община), the local administration for the area of your registration address. Bring:

• the notice or a copy of the decree;
• the Certificate of Bulgarian Citizenship;
• your birth certificate, translated into Bulgarian;
• your foreign passport.

Within one to three working days you receive three certificates. The first confirms your address registration; the second confirms that you have been entered in the population register, the national record of Bulgarian residents and citizens; and the third, the certificate of name correspondence, confirms how your name in Bulgarian corresponds to your name in foreign documents. You also receive your EGN (Единен граждански номер), the Bulgarian personal number that is used on every document issued to you from then on.

Your name. When you acquire citizenship you may adapt your first name or surname to the Bulgarian form, free of charge (Civil Registration Act, Article 19(2)). This is entirely your choice, and your name is not changed unless you ask for it.

Step 3. The identity card and the passport, in one visit

Both documents are applied for at the Ministry of Interior, at its identity documents office. You file the two applications together, in a single visit, and the photo is taken once for both. This saves time, because you do not have to wait for the identity card before applying for the passport: there is no rule that the passport comes 30 days after the card.

Bring:

• the three certificates from the municipality;
• the decree notice or the citizenship certificate;
• your foreign passport, if you hold another citizenship.

At the office, staff take a digital photo, your fingerprints and your signature. The documents are then produced within the times below:

Document	Production time	Validity
Identity card (лична карта)	1–30 days, depending on the tariff	—
Passport (задграничен паспорт)	1–30 days, depending on the tariff	10 years for adults, 5 years under 18

The tariff is the speed of service you choose when you apply. For later renewals it is also useful to know that Bulgarian consulates abroad accept passport applications, so you do not need to travel to Bulgaria each time.

What the identity card and the passport give you

Every Bulgarian citizen is also a citizen of the European Union. With these documents you can live, work, study and run a business in any of the 27 EU countries without a work permit.

• Inside the EU the identity card is enough, and you do not need the passport to cross EU borders.
• Schengen. The Schengen area is the group of European countries without passport checks at their shared borders. Bulgaria’s air and sea borders opened on 31 March 2024 and its land borders on 1 January 2025.
• Outside the EU you travel on the passport. The list of countries you can visit without a visa changes from time to time, so it is worth checking it for your travel date.

Bulgaria allows dual citizenship, so your other passport remains valid. Inside Bulgaria, however, the authorities treat you as a Bulgarian citizen.

How long it all takes

Stage	Time
Certificate of citizenship	1–2 weeks after the decree
Address registration and EGN	1–3 working days
Identity card and passport	1–30 days each, applied for together
From decree to documents	about 1–2 months

Most of the time in the process is spent before the decree. As of August 2026, applicants wait about two years in the queue for a filing appointment, and usually two to three years pass between filing and the decree. The legal rules behind each of these steps are set out in Bulgarian nationality law explained.

Common mistakes

A few points are easy to overlook when planning:

• Planning one trip for everything without an address. The certificate is handed over only after you declare an address, so arrange your address, or a service address, before you travel.
• Applying for the passport weeks after the identity card. Filing both on the same day saves you a second visit to the Ministry of Interior.
• Forgetting the translated birth certificate. The municipality asks for it, and arranging a translation on the spot usually costs a day.
• Expecting a ceremony. Bulgarian law has no citizenship oath, and the decree takes effect on the day it is issued, so there is no ceremony to plan for.