Bulgaria’s caretaker government amends regulations on visas

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Sofia: At a regular meeting on January 8, Bulgaria’s caretaker government adopted a decree amending and supplementing regulations on the conditions and procedures for issuing visas, the government information service said.

The statement said that the amendments synchronise the domestic legal framework with applicable provisions of the Schengen visa acquis and “overcome the risks of contradictory and incorrect application of the domestic legal framework and failure to fulfil obligations under the harmonised Schengen visa procedure”.

January 1 2025 saw the full integration of Bulgaria and Romania into the Schengen visa zone, as the countries’ land borders were included, following the admission of their air and sea ports at the end of March 2024.

The January 8 statement said that through the decree, national procedures for issuing long-term residence visas were “improved and refined”.

The decree creates the opportunity for external service providers to collect biometric data of applicants in countries abroad for long-term residence visas, where representation agreements have been concluded.

This would expand opportunities (places) for submitting long-term visa applications and relieve the burden on the busiest representations abroad, which process large numbers of visa applications, the statement said.