Created on 10.01.2025

I.What is pension insurance?

This is a system organized by the state that mandatorily covers all workers in Bulgaria and that protects you against the occurrence of certain social risks, such as the risk of 'old age and death'. This system entitles you to receive a monthly sum of money (pension) from the state upon reaching a certain age and accumulating a certain number of years of insurance experience.

In order to retire and receive a pension, over the years you must have been socially insured for the social risk of 'old age and death' - this means that you have paid social insurance contributions for this risk to the National Revenue Agency (NRA) yourself or have had social insurance contributions paid for you every month. You are mandatorily socially insured for "old age and death" if:

  • you work under an employment contract;
  • you are a civil servant;
  • you are staff in the judiciary system;
  • you are a syndic, liquidator, procurator, etc.;
  • you work under employment contracts for short-term, agricultural work of up to 90 days;
  • you carry out activities of collecting wild mushrooms and fruits;
  • you practice a free profession (lawyer, freelancer, doctor, accountant, etc.);
  • you are a trader (sole trader, owner of and partner in commercial companies/firms);
  • you work under a civil contract;

Insurance for the risk of "old age and death" is paid either by you (if you are a trader or a freelancer, for example), or by your employer (for example, if you work under an employment contract) or by the state (if you are a civil servant). For more information about social security and paying social security contributions in Bulgaria, see here.

There are 3 types of pension insurance:

1. Mandatory pension insurance

2. Additional mandatory pension insurance

These two types of insurance are mandatory by law.

3. Additional voluntary pension insurance

With this type of insurance, you decide for yourself whether you want to pay insurance contributions to receive a pension.

Each type of pension insurance will be discussed in detail below:

II. Mandatory pension insurance

This type of pension insurance entitles you to a pension for Contributory-service pension.

1. Required insurance experience and agе

You are entitled to such a pension if you are:

  • a woman and as of January 2025 you have reached the age of 62 years and 4 months and your insurance payments have been paid for 36 years and 8 months
  • a man and as of January 2025 you have reached the age of 64 years and 8 months and your insurance payments have been paid for 39 years and 8 months.

The retirement age changes and increases every year.

Important! In some cases, you can retire earlier and with a shorter insurance experience, depending on the nature and type of work you have done.

In Bulgaria, labor is divided into three categories depending on the conditions for performing the work and whether it is harmful and/or dangerous to the worker's health:

  • The first category of labor includes the professions that are the most difficult and dangerous to the worker's health, for example: people working underground in mines, mine rescuers, divers, metallurgical workers, etc.
  • The second category of labor includes professions that are less dangerous, but still harmful to health - work in workshops for the production of various hazardous substances, such as chlorine, acids, asbestos or those that produce pyrotechnic products, etc.
  • The third category of labor includes all other professions and work activities that do not fall into the first or second category of labor.

If you have worked in the first or second category of labor and have not acquired the right to a pension from the Professional Pension Fund (see Section III, point 3 below), you can retire earlier as follows:

For women:

  • first category of labor – upon reaching 51 years and 10 years of insurance experience by 2025;
  • second category of labor – upon reaching 56 years and 15 years of service by 2025.

For men:

  • first category of labor – upon reaching 54 years and 4 months and 10 years of service by 2025;
  • second category of labor – upon reaching 59 years and 4 months and 15 years of service by 2025.

You can retire earlier and under lighter conditions if you have worked in some professions specified in the law: For example, if you have worked as a ballerina/ballet dancer, you can retire with 25 years of insurance experience and age 44 years and 4 months by 2025, regardless of your gender.

If you have worked as a teacher, you can also retire earlier:

  • for women – age 59 years 4 months and insurance experience 25 years and 8 months by 2025
  • for men – age 61 years and 8 months and insurance expereince 30 years and 8 months by 2025

Important! If you do not have the required length of insurance experience, you can still retire. To do this, you must:

  • be 67 years old (regardless of your gender) AND
  • have at least 15 years of actual insurance experience.

Actual insurance experience includes the calendar time you have actually served under an labor or  state service contract, as well as the time during which you worked and were compulsorily insured for the risk of "old age and death", the time during which you were subject to compulsory insurance at your own expense and paid the due insurance contributions, etc.

If you only have 36 years and 8 months of insurance experience for women and 39 years and 8 months for men, but you have not reached the specified retirement age, you can retire up to 1 year earlier. However, in this case, you will receive a smaller pension.

2. Where should I pay insurance contributions for mandatory pension insurance?

Insurance contributions for this type of pension insurance are paid to the National Revenue Agency (NRA), as there is a separate Pensions Fund, created to the State Public Insurance (SPI).

If you work under a labor contract, insurance contributions are paid by your employer. Part of their amount is borne by the employer, and the rest is deducted from your salary.

If you are self-employed, are a trader or carry out activities related to collecting wild mushrooms, you are obliged to pay the relevant insurance contributions to the NRA yourself.

More about who pays the insurance contributions, where and how they can be paid, see here.

3. Pension amount

The amount of your pension depends on the income you have had over the years and your insurance experience at the time of retirement. The minimum pension amount until June 30, 2025 is 580.57 BGN, and from July 1, 2025 it will be increased to 631.08 BGN.

III. Supplementary mandatory pension insurance

The second type of pension insurance is also mandatory, but it is additional. It is implemented by mandatory participation in a supplementary mandatory pension insurance fund (SMPI).

In Bulgaria, there are two supplementary mandatory pension insurance funds:

  • universal pension fund;
  • professional pension fund.

They are established and managed by licensed pension insurance companies.

1. Universal Pension Fund

You will have insurance contributions for this fund deducted from you if you were born after 31.12.1959, regardless of the category of labor you have performed.

Insurance in the Universal Pension Fund gives you the following rights:

  • to an additional lifetime pension upon reaching the total age and length of insurance experience, required for mandatory pension insurance (see above). This pension cannot be less than 15% of the minimum amount of the pension for insurance length and age under the contributory-service pension or 87.09 BGN until 30.06.2025, and 94.66 BGN from 01.07.2025;
  • if the funds are not sufficient to pay an additional lifetime pension, you have the right to receive the accumulated money all at once or in installments (if they exceed three times the amount of the minimum pension for the contributory-service pension);
  • to have the accumulated amount of money paid to your heirs in the event of death;
  • to receive  payment of up to 50% of the funds accumulated in the individual account all at once or in installments, in case of permanently reduced working capacity over 89.99%, established by an expert decision of the TELK. More about how reduced working capacity is established in Bulgaria, see here;

Contributions to this fund are at the expense of the employer and the employee when working under a labor contract. They are in the amount of 5% (2.8% from the employer and 2.2% from the employee) of the total insured income and are paid together with the contributions for the contributory-service pension to the NRA every month. The NRA then distributes the amount for the additional pension insurance to the relevant fund.

2. Transfer of the account from the universal pension fund

You have the right, at your discretion, to transfer your insurance account from the universal pension fund to the Pensions fund of the State Social Insurance (DOO), but only if:

  • you have not yet been granted the general contributory-service pension; AND
  • no later than 1 year before reaching the relevant age for it - 62 years and 4 months for women and 64 years and 8 months for men.

To do this, you must submit an application for transfer to the NRA. You can do this:

The change is free of charge and takes effect from the first day of the month following the month in which you make the choice.

3. Professional Pension Fund

This pension fund is mandatory for you only if you work in the first and second categories of labor. Contributions to this fund are made only by the employer.

The early retirement pension from the Professional Pension Fund is fixed-term. It is paid until you reach the age and accumulate the experience required for mandatory pension insurance (in 2025 - 62 years 4 months and 36 years 8 months of experience for women and 64 years 8 months and 39 years 8 months of experience for men). After reaching the total age and experience, you will receive your basic pension under mandatory pension insurance.

As a mandatory additional insured person in the Professional Pension Fund, you have the following rights:

3.1. To retire early, i.e. with fewer years of accumulated insurance experience and a lower age than those for mandatory pension insurance:

  • For the first category of labor - with 10 years of insurance experience after 31.12.1999 and upon reaching 52 years 4 months for women and 54 years 8 months for men by 2025.
  • For the second category of labor - with 15 years of minimum service after 31.12.1999 and upon reaching 57 years 4 months for women and 59 years 8 months for men by 2025.

3.2. To receive a one-time payment of up to 50% of the funds accumulated in your individual account, if you have a permanently reduced working capacity of over 89.99%, recognized by an expert decision of the TELK.

3.3. Your heirs have the right to receive payment of the amounts collected in your account in the event of death all at once or in installments;

3.4. To submit a one-time application through the territorial division of the National Social Insurance Fund to the pension insurance company in which you are insured and to request that the funds from the Professional Pension Fund be transferred to the Pensions Fund of the State Public Insurance (SPI). This is possible only if you have not exercised your right to early retirement under item 3.1. above. In this case, the pension is paid by the SPI under the conditions for the first and second categories of labor, specified above in Section II.

4. Choosing a pension insurance company to manage your professional or universal pension fund

There are various licensed pension insurance companies and you have the right to choose one of them within 3 months of the occurrence of your obligation to pay insurance (e.g. starting work under a labor contract, registering as a freelancer, concluding a civil contract, etc.). This applies to both the universal and professional pension funds.

The choice is made to the company you have chosen by submitting an application, a sample of which you can obtain from the company itself. At this link, you can see what the application, which is submitted, for example, to the Pension Insurance Company "Doverie" looks like.

If you do not choose such a company yourself, the NRA will automatically assign you to one of them. A list of pension insurance companies in the country can be found here.

You can also change the company and transfer the funds accumulated in your fund to another pension insurance company. To do this, you submit an application to the pension insurance company you wish to transfer to. Here you can see a sample application to "Pension Insurance Company-UBB" EAD.

The application is submitted on site at the company's office or electronically. The change is free of charge and takes effect from the day your funds are transferred to the newly selected fund.

If you do not know which company you are assigned to, you can check this:

  1. Through the NRA information phone number - 0700 18 700;
  2. On site at the NRA central office, Directorate "Additional Mandatory Pension Insurance", at the address Sofia, 52 "Al. Dondukov" Blvd. - you will need to show an identity document;
  3. By sending a free text request in Bulgarian by email to [email protected], and the request must be signed with an electronic signature;
  4. Through the NRA electronic portal (https://portal.nra.bg ) by logging in with a personal identification code (PIC), which you can get at any NRA office. See this article for how to get a PIC.
  5. Again through the NRA electronic portal (https://portal.nra.bg ), but through a qualified electronic signature (QES). To log in with a QES, you must also submit to an NRA office:

By logging in through the NRA electronic portal, in addition to learning which company your contributions go to, you will also be able to see the amount that has been collected.

IV. Additional voluntary pension insurance

This pension insurance is entirely voluntary. You decide for yourself whether you want to be insured in this way by a licensed pension insurance company.

You can open such a fund if you are over 16 years of age. For this purpose, a contract is concluded with the company.

You decide for yourself what the amount of the contribution will be and whether you will pay monthly or in different periods.

You can decide to withdraw the amount accumulated in this fund at any time. You can also decide to receive it as a pension. Your heirs have the right to receive the funds accumulated in your fund.

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