Health insurance status of refugees

Updated 16.01.2023

Persons with refugee or humanitarian status, asylum seekers and Ukrainian citizens with temporary protection in Bulgaria have equal rights to healthcare with Bulgarian citizens and are subject to compulsory health insurance.

Ukrainian refugees who are registered for temporary protection who entered the territory of Bulgaria before 26.04.2022 are considered as health insured as of 26.04.2022.

If you have refugee or humanitarian status

Once you have been granted refugee or humanitarian status, you are obliged and personally responsible to pay your monthly health insurance contributions if you are unemployed or self-employed. If you are employed, then your employer will deduct the health insurance contributions from your monthly salary.

If you are an asylum seeker with ongoing proceedings

As an asylum seeker, your health insurance is covered by the State Agency for Refugees (SAR) while your procedure for international protection is pending and you have not received a final decision.

If you are a Ukrainian refugee with temporary protection over the age of 18 or under 63 for women and under 65 for men

Your health insurance is covered by the state for 90 days from the date of registering for temporary protection, or from 26 April 2022 if the temporary protection was granted before that date.

After those 90 days, you must pay for your own health insurance. If you are employed, your employer will deduct the health insurance contributions from your salary.

If you are a Ukrainian refugee with temporary protection under the age of 18 or over 63 for women and over 65 for men

Your health insurance contributions will be paid by the State for the entire period of your temporary protection.

Amount of health insurance

The amount of compulsory health insurance contributions for persons who are not registered as self-insured people and who are not insured under an employment or civil contract is 37.32 BGN per month.

If you are working, then your health insurance is charged as a percentage of the income you earn.

How can I pay for my health insurance?

Before you start paying your health insurance contributions, you must submit a Form 7 declaration to the territorial branch of the National Revenue Agency in accordance with the address where you are registered. You can find the addresses of these offices at this link. You can also file this declaration online through the NRA website with a Personal Identification Code (PIC).

You can then pay your health insurance on the spot at the territorial branches of the NRA with debit and credit cards at POS terminals, by bank transfer, by postal order or online through the NRA portal.

To pay your health insurance online, you need a Personal Identification Code (PIC). You can find out how to get one in this article:

HOW TO GET A PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION CODE (PIC)

Deadline to pay your health insuarance contributions

These contributions are due by the 25th day of the month following the month for which you owe health insurance contributions. If you pay later than this date, you will need to pay an interest for each day of delay. For example, the health insuarance contribution for January 2024 must be paid by 25 February 2024 at the latest.

What if I don't pay health insurance?

Your health insurance rights are interrupted if more than 3 monthly contributions are not paid. This means that if you need to go to the doctor you will have to pay a much higher fee for a check-up. Interrupted health insurance rights can be restored provided you pay all your outstanding health insurance contributions. Entitlements are restored from the date all outstanding health insurance contributions for that period are paid.

You can check your health insurance status, as well as check the periods for which you have not paid health insurance contributions, through the NRA's electronic service, which has free access: https://portal.nra.bg/health-status

Where your employer or another person is liable for your contributions, failure to pay will not disqualify you from health insurance system.

Registration at the doctor/GP

Log in to post comments

Note:
The Refugeelight.bg platform is funded by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and the International Rescue Committee (IRC). However, UNHCR and IRC bear no responsibility for the content hosted on Refugeelight.bg, as it is solely operated by the Foundation for Access to Right (FAR). It is important to note that FAR prepares information in both English and Bulgarian, but it does not guarantee the quality of translations into other languages.

This platform aims to provide information to asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants in Bulgaria. It should not be considered exhaustive and does not substitute the need for legal advice or consultation with experts in the field. The platform's content was last comprehensively updated in 2023, with individual articles receiving updates marked with their respective dates.

All copyrights and other elements considered intellectual property that are published at Refugeelight.bg are reserved by the Foundation for Access to Rights- FAR. You are not allowed to copy, reproduce, republish, modify, compile, adapt, download, distribute or use in public any part of Refugeelight.bg in any way for commercial purposes without the express written agreement of FAR.

You may use the content of Refugeelight.bg for personal and non-commercial purposes, including when publishing content on the Internet, provided that you include a link/reference to the relevant page of Refugeelight.bg on which the quoted content is published. If any changes are made, they must be indicated when quoting.

Gratitude

The Foundation for Access to Rights expresses its deepest gratitude to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the European Programme for Migration and Integration (EPIM), the Sigrid Rausing Trust and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for the support in establishing and maintaining this platform over the years.