Bulgaria single permit for residence and work: the employer procedure

Bulgaria issues the single permit for residence and work under Article 24i of the Aliens Act. The Migration Directorate of the Interior Ministry decides. One card carries both the right to reside and the right to work for one named employer. The statutory decision period is two months, extendable by two in complex cases.

The application is filed by the employer or an authorised representative with the Migration Directorate, not with the Employment Agency. That surprises employers whose earlier hires went through the labour office. The Employment Agency does take part, but as the body that issues an opinion on a file the Interior Ministry sends across.

Who does what, and inside which deadline

The clock starts when a complete application is filed. If documents are missing, the Migration Directorate notifies the applicant and allows 7 days to cure the defect, and the file does not move forward during that window.

The individual periods add up to less than two months, which does not make two months a pessimistic forecast. In practice every return for a missing document restarts part of the chain, and employers who plan against the sum of the stages routinely move the start date back by four to six weeks.

What the Employment Agency actually checks

The Employment Agency opinion is not a formality. It answers the three questions set out in Article 7(1) of the Labour Migration and Labour Mobility Act.

First, the ratio. The total number of third country nationals employed by the local employer over the preceding 12 months may not exceed 20 percent of the average headcount, and for small and medium enterprises under Article 3(1)(1) of the Small and Medium Enterprises Act the ceiling is 35 percent.

Second, the offered pay and working conditions may not be less favourable than those for Bulgarian nationals in the same category of work. A salary below the reference level for the role and the region is the most common trigger for follow up questions.

Third, the worker must hold the specialised knowledge, skills and professional experience the position requires. What is assessed is the documented qualification, legalised and translated into Bulgarian with a notarised signature, not the description in a CV. The prior labour market search is judged on the same file, and its mechanics are set out in the labour market test and the written justification.

Validity, fees and where the procedure breaks

The permit is issued for up to three years, or for the term of the employment contract when that is shorter. It ties the worker to one employer and one position. Changing either is not an administrative detail and requires a fresh decision.

State fees are collected under Tariff No. 4 on fees in the Interior Ministry system under the State Fees Act, which has been denominated in euro since 1 January 2026 following Bulgaria's adoption of the euro under Council Decision (EU) 2025/1407. Under that tariff, granting long stay residence of up to 6 months costs 102.26 euro, and over 6 months up to one year costs 255.65 euro. Add the 100 euro consular fee for a type D visa, the legalisation and translation of diplomas and police certificates, and the accommodation the employer has to evidence in the file anyway.

What happens after a positive decision, from the notification through the visa application to the appearance before the Migration Directorate, is covered in the type D visa and its deadlines.

Here is the specific failure that costs months. An employer files for a role written as "general worker", copied from the staffing schedule, and attaches a diploma that has not been legalised because legalisation was ordered and is still pending. The Migration Directorate allows 7 days to cure. Legalisation in the origin country takes three weeks. The period lapses, the file is returned, and when the document arrives the filing starts again, this time in a different embassy calendar window. A worker who was ready in March enters the country in June.

The lesson is simple and expensive. Complete the file before you file it. The seven day cure period exists for a missing signature, not for a document still being produced in a third country.

Bulgaria's permit is the national application of a common European Union framework, and the same directive produces different documents and different authorities across member states. The comparison is in the single permit explained. The terms on which Werklist coordinates these stages are set out on the employers page.

Plan backwards from the Employment Agency opinion, not forwards from the signed contract. The start date is set by the slowest body in the chain, and that is rarely the one the employer is watching.