site.btaCabinet Amends Visa Regime

The Council of Ministers has adopted a decree amending and supplementing the ordinance on the conditions and procedure for issuing visas and determining the visa regime.

The decree synchronises domestic legislation with directly applicable provisions of the Schengen acquis and overcomes the risks of contradictory and incorrect application of domestic legislation and non-compliance with obligations under the harmonised Schengen visa procedure.

National procedures for issuing long-stay visas are improved and clarified. The legal possibility is created for external service providers to collect biometric data of applicants for long-stay visas in countries where representation contracts have been concluded. This will lead to an expansion of the possibilities/places/applications for long-stay visas and will relieve the busiest overseas representations of the Republic of Bulgaria abroad which process a large number of visa applications.