What type of legalization must a document issued by a foreign country carry?
In order for a document issued by a foreign country to be valid in the Republic of Bulgaria, it must be legalized according to the requirements for legalization, which may differ depending on the country from which the document was issued
Depending on the country that has issued the document, the requirements for the formatting of the document are:
1. Apostille from member states of the Hague Convention (see question "Which countries are members of the Hague Convention?").
2. In cases where the document comes from a country which is not a member of the Hague Convention and there is no bilateral agreement, the same must be issued as an original with a fresh stamp from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country concerned and a stamp from the Bulgarian embassy in the same country.
3. For North Macedonia, Romania, Russia and other countries with which the Republic of Bulgaria has bilateral relations, the document may be legalized without an apostille (see question "List of countries with which Bulgaria has signed a bilateral agreement").
In addition to the requirements described above, the document should be translated into Bulgarian and the signature of the sworn translator should be certified by a notary public.