Bulgaria type D work visa: processing times, fees and the order of steps

The type D visa covers a stay of more than three months. Bulgarian diplomatic and consular missions abroad issue it under the Regulation on the conditions and procedure for issuing visas and determining the visa regime. The consular fee under the Foreign Ministry tariff is 100 euro, and the review period is up to 35 working days.

The visa is not a work authorisation and is not applied for before one. It is the travel document between the positive decision on the permit and the appearance before the Migration Directorate for the card. Reversing that order is the most common planning error.

The sequence that does not change

A type D application is filed only at the mission covering the applicant's permanent place of residence. For a Nepali worker currently in the United Arab Emirates on a running contract, that means travelling to the mission competent for his place of residence rather than the nearest one. Employers who do not check this in advance discover it in the week they expect departure.

The cost picture

Beyond the 100 euro consular fee, the visa stage carries legalisation and certified translation of the diploma and the police certificate, medical insurance valid for at least three months, travel to the consular post, and the ticket. State fees to the Interior Ministry are collected under Tariff No. 4 on fees under the State Fees Act, 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 is 102.26 euro, and over 6 months up to one year is 255.65 euro.

Fees are not refunded if a visa is refused. That makes the quality of the visa file a cost question, not only a timing one.

What Schengen changed, and where the schedule breaks

Bulgaria became a full member of the Schengen area on 1 January 2025 and controls at internal land borders were lifted. For employers this has two consequences that get confused with each other.

The first is real. A worker holding a Bulgarian residence card may travel in the other Schengen states for short stays of up to 90 days in any 180 day period without a separate visa.

The second is what the right to travel does not give. It is not a right to work in another member state. Posting in the framework of the provision of services is a separate regime with its own notifications in the host state, and being hired by an employer in another member state requires authorisation under that state's rules. A worker sent to a site in Greece or Romania "on the card" is working there without a basis. The logistics from ticket to first working day are covered in the relocation chain.

Here is the failure mode. An employer receives a positive decision in early November and plans a 2 January start. The worker files the visa application on 20 November. The consular post uses the full period and decides in mid January, because public holidays in both the host state and Bulgaria fall between the two dates. The worker arrives in late January, the permit has been running since the date it was issued, and the employer has paid for four weeks of empty schedule on site.

The practical answer is to treat the visa window as 35 working days rather than five weeks, and to count backwards from the start date with both countries' holidays removed. On seasonal groups this is sharper still, because after the visa is issued the worker has 7 days to enter the country, and group flights rarely line up inside seven days.

The place of the visa in the permit chain is set out in the single permit procedure, and the longer thirty day window on highly qualified employment in the EU Blue Card. The terms on which Werklist sequences consular windows on the Nepal, India and Philippines corridors are set out on the employers page.

The visa is the one step an employer does not control and cannot speed up with better preparation. That is why it is also the one step the plan is built around with headroom.