Bulgaria introduces visa regime for Russian citizens with service passports

Bulgaria’s Council of Ministers on October 12 adopted a decision on the partial suspension of a provision of the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Government of the Russian Federation on mutual travel of citizens.

With the decision, holders of valid diplomatic and service passports from Russia will no longer be allowed to enter, exit, transit and temporarily stay in the country without a visa.

A visa regime for diplomatic passport holders was already introduced on 25 February 2022 with the adoption of Council Decision (EU) 2022/333. Today's decision also introduces a visa regime for holders of Russian service passports as of 20 October.

The Council of Ministers recalls that on 9 September 2022, a decision was published in the Official Journal of the EC on the full suspension of the application of the Agreement between the European Community and the Russian Federation on the facilitation of the issuance of visas to the citizens of the European Union and the Russian Federation, which entered into force on 12 September 2022 and is directly applicable by the Republic of Bulgaria.

The European Commission has also repeatedly called for the suspension of the bilateral visa agreements of the Member States with the Russian Federation, in particular the visa-free regimes for holders of diplomatic and service passports introduced by them.