Schools and Childcare in Bulgaria: A Guide for Foreign Parents

Nursery and kindergarten

Municipal nursery and kindergarten places are free. The fees parents used to pay — one for the place, one for meals — were abolished on 1 April 2022 and the state funds them instead. This is worth stating plainly because a great deal of expat advice online still quotes a monthly figure.

Free does not mean available. Places in the larger cities, Sofia above all, are allocated through a municipal admissions system that ranks applicants on criteria including how long the family has been registered at an address in the municipality — which is precisely the criterion a newly arrived family scores worst on. Register your address as early as you can, and apply in the round before the one you need.

Preschool is compulsory from the school year that begins in the year your child turns 4 (Pre-school and School Education Act, Art. 8), phased in nationally and universal since 2023/24. Parents choose the form: full-day, half-day, hourly, or independent study at home. That last option exists and is used, but it is a formal arrangement with the kindergarten, not simply keeping the child at home.

State school

School education is compulsory until the age of 16 and begins with the school year starting in the year the child turns 7. A child who turns 6 in that year can start at parental request, subject to a school-readiness assessment.

State schooling is free, including for foreign children. Bulgaria's schools are ordinary neighbourhood schools with catchment-based admission to first grade; from grade V onwards, entry to the selective schools runs on national external assessment scores.

The document that has to be recognised

A child arriving mid-education is not simply placed by age. The school years they completed abroad have to be formally recognised first, and who does the recognising changed on 1 October 2025 under Ordinance No. 11 of 1 September 2016:

The practical consequence: for a child in the first six grades you deal with the school you want them to attend, and for anything above that you deal with the regional directorate. Advice that sends you to NACID for a school certificate is out of date — NACID's remit is higher education.

What to bring

• The application form, on the ministry's template.
• The foreign educational document, original or notarised copy, showing subjects and grades.
• A document setting out what rights that qualification carries in the issuing country.
• A subject-and-hours schedule, if the grades document does not already contain one.
• An official Bulgarian translation, notarised or authenticated through diplomatic channels.
• The last Bulgarian school document, if the child has been in the system before.

Documents from countries party to the Hague Convention need an apostille — except where Bulgaria has a bilateral legal assistance treaty with the issuing country, in which case they do not. Our apostille guide covers how to get one before you leave.

The fee

Since compulsory school age ends at 16, recognition is free for essentially every child you would be enrolling in compulsory education.

Language

Instruction is in Bulgarian. Schools provide additional Bulgarian-language support for children who do not speak it, and how well that works varies enormously between a large city school that has done it before and a small-town school that has not. Ask the specific school what they actually run — how many hours, delivered by whom, and whether the child sits in the mainstream class meanwhile. It is the single question that most determines how the first year goes, and it is not answerable from a website.

Identity documents

School paperwork in Bulgaria is organised around a personal number, and which one your child is assigned depends on your route, not on their age:

• Children of non-EU nationals on the standard residence track receive an LNCh (ЛНЧ) with the residence permit.
• Children of EU, EEA and Swiss citizens who register receive a личен номер (ЛН) — a different identifier, and so do non-EU family members registering alongside an EU citizen.

The two are not interchangeable and neither is an EGN. See the Bulgarian ID card guide and, for the registration itself, residence permits explained or, for EU citizens, EU citizens moving to Bulgaria.

International and private schools

Sofia has the deepest choice; Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas have some. Fees are the real decision.

The Anglo-American School of Sofia publishes these for 2026-2027:

Tuition is not the whole number. New students at that school also pay a capital fee of €3,402, an entrance capital fee of €1,707 and a registration fee of €1,102, all due together in the first year. The optional school bus is €2,900 a year for the full service or €1,885 part-time, and new students who qualify for English-as-an-additional-language support on the WIDA test pay a one-off €1,500.

So a first year in the primary band at that school is roughly €28,500 before transport, not €22,300. Ask every school for the first-year total, not the tuition line — the one-off fees are where the two numbers diverge, and they diverge by more than a month's rent.

Other international and bilingual schools in Sofia sit well below that, with several in the €7,000–13,000 range. Compare the published fee schedule for the year you are actually enrolling in; aggregator sites are frequently a year behind and some still quote converted lev figures.

For context on what these figures mean against local earnings, see the cost of living in Bulgaria.

Frequently asked questions

Can my child attend a state school if we have not finished our residence paperwork?
Start the conversation with the school and the regional directorate early rather than waiting. Recognition of previous school years is a separate process from residence and can be started with the documents you already hold.

Is preschool really compulsory at four?
Yes, from the school year beginning in the calendar year the child turns 4, and it applies to children resident in Bulgaria. Independent study is one of the permitted forms, but it is arranged with the kindergarten.

Do we have to repeat a year?
A pupil who has studied abroad may choose to repeat the last recognised class in a Bulgarian school. It is an option, not an imposition, and for a child arriving without Bulgarian it is often the sensible one.

Is homeschooling allowed?
Bulgaria recognises independent study as a form within the system, arranged through a school, rather than home education outside it. Treat it as a school arrangement with assessments, not as opting out.

We are only here for two years. State or international?
The question is usually not cost but continuity: whether the child will re-enter their home system afterwards, and whether that system will recognise Bulgarian grades. An international school on a widely recognised curriculum removes that problem, and is what most short-term postings choose.

Sources

• Pre-school and School Education Act — Art. 8, compulsory preschool from age 4 and compulsory school education to 16
• Ordinance No. 11 of 1 September 2016, as amended with effect from 1 October 2025 — the split of recognition duties between the school director and the head of the Regional Education Directorate; see the published procedure at РУО Varna
• NACID — recognition of foreign higher education
• The Anglo-American School of Sofia — published tuition and fees, school year 2026-2027

This guide describes the rules as published and is not legal advice. Admission criteria, waiting lists and language support are decided locally, so confirm the details with the specific municipality, regional education directorate or school before you rely on them.