Bulgarian translator in Tbilisi

Bulgaria is Georgia's other shore of the Black Sea: the maritime link between Varna and Poti, the Bachkovo Monastery founded by the Georgian Grigol Bakurianis-dze in 1083, the English-language programmes of Bulgaria's medical universities for Georgian students, and full membership of the EU and Schengen, which makes Bulgaria attractive for Georgian workers and entrepreneurs. A flow of documents follows this link, which the Bulgarian system accepts under its own, rather peculiar rules. We translate personal, academic, corporate and medical documents from Bulgarian into Georgian and from Georgian into Bulgarian, certify them notarially and attach the apostille. This page describes how Bulgaria's system of legalisation and translations is organised, what the Bulgarian embassy and authorities require, what the peculiarities of Bulgarian Cyrillic, the three-part name system and grammar are, and where typical errors appear.

The Bulgarian system: sworn translator and notary at the same time

Bulgaria is a rare case in Europe where the system of official translation unites two stages. A translator is registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through a translation agency, as a sworn translator (заклет преводач), and since 2018, after the amendment of the Regulation on Legalisations, Certifications and Translations (Правилник за легализациите, заверките и преводите), the translator's signature on a Bulgarian translation of a foreign document to be submitted in Bulgaria is certified by a Bulgarian notary. This means that the Bulgarian system structurally resembles the Georgian one (the notary certifies the signature of a registered translator), but Bulgarian authorities, as a rule, require this certification to be done in Bulgaria, with a Bulgarian notary and the signature of a translator registered in Bulgaria. A Bulgarian translation certified by a Georgian notary, in our experience, is accepted for visa applications at the Bulgarian embassy, by private companies, some universities and banks, while at the Migration Directorate, the civil status register and the court it often needs re-certification in Bulgaria. When taking the order we find out who the recipient is, and we know both routes.

The apostille between Georgia and Bulgaria

Bulgaria has been a member of the Hague Convention since 2001, Georgia since 2007, so documents move between the two countries with an apostille, without consular legalisation. In Georgia the apostille is issued by the Public Service Hall, while in Bulgaria the body issuing the apostille depends on the type of document and there are several: the Ministry of Justice for court and notarial documents, the National Centre for Information and Documentation (NACID), operating within the Ministry of Education, for educational documents, the regional administrations (областни администрации) for municipal documents (birth, marriage certificates), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the remaining administrative documents. This distribution often confuses a Georgian client, and a document brought from Bulgaria must have its apostille attached in Bulgaria itself, at the right body; "fixing" this in Georgia is impossible.

The Bulgarian embassy in Tbilisi and visa practice

The consular section of the Bulgarian embassy in Tbilisi accepts applications for long-term (type D) visas: study, employment, family reunification, business. Bulgaria has been a full member of the Schengen area since 2025, and for Georgian citizens short-term travel is visa-free, so dealings with the embassy mainly concern long-term residence. In the application package Georgian papers go with an apostille and a Bulgarian translation: criminal record certificate, birth and marriage certificates, diploma, enrolment certificate, bank statement, medical insurance. The embassy, in our experience, accepts a Bulgarian translation certified by a Georgian notary at the visa stage, while after arrival in Bulgaria the Migration Directorate may require a translation certified in Bulgaria for the residence permit, which we tell you in advance.

Which documents are translated most often

• The study package for Bulgaria's medical and other universities: school certificate, grades, medical certificate, enrolment documents
• The residence and work permit package: criminal record certificate, birth and marriage certificates, diploma, employment contract
• Bulgarian civil status certificates (удостоверение за раждане, за сключен граждански брак) for registration in Georgia
• Diploma and transcript for NACID recognition, and a Bulgarian diploma for recognition in Georgia
• Extract from the register of entrepreneurs, charter and power of attorney for founding an EOOD in Bulgaria or registering a Bulgarian company in Georgia
• Real estate notarial deed (нотариален акт) and cadastre documents for property acquired on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast and mountain resorts
• Medical history for treatment in Bulgarian clinics and balneological resorts, TELK disability conclusions
• Transport and maritime documents for the ports of Varna and Burgas, shipping companies and logistics

Bulgarian Cyrillic and transliteration

Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic, and in a Bulgarian document a Georgian's name is written in Cyrillic (Гиорги Беридзе), while the Latin form is added under Bulgaria's official transliteration law (the "streamlined system" of 2009), which often does not match the Latin line of the Georgian passport: Bulgarian transliteration renders ж as zh, ц as ts, ъ as a, and a Georgian surname on a Bulgarian residence card may be in a Latin form different from the passport. When translating from Georgian into Bulgarian we write the name in Cyrillic according to Bulgarian phonetics and indicate the Latin form from the Georgian passport unchanged; when translating from Bulgarian into Georgian the Georgian transcription of a Bulgarian name follows the established rule (Георги, Димитър, Стоянова rendered as Georgi, Dimitari, Stoianova), while the sound ъ, which has no exact equivalent in Georgian, we convey identically in all documents of one client, and the Latin form stays in brackets.

The three-part name: име, презиме, фамилия

In Bulgarian documents the name has three parts: the given name, a middle name derived from the father's name (презиме, with the suffix -ов/-ова, -ев/-ева) and the surname, and all three fields are obligatory. The Georgian document system knows the name, the surname and, as a separate field, the father's name, but the Bulgarian system often "derives" a middle name for a Georgian from the father's name with a Bulgarian suffix (Гиорги Давидов Беридзе), and this form appears on the Bulgarian residence card, in the EGN or LNCh register, in academic and medical documents. When translating from Bulgarian into Georgian we reduce the Bulgarian suffixed middle name to the Georgian "father's name" field, without the suffix, and note the Bulgarian form in a remark, otherwise a Georgian authority perceives "Davidov" as part of the surname or as an entirely different name. When translating from Georgian into Bulgarian the father's name goes across unchanged, without the suffix, unless the receiving authority itself requires the Bulgarian form. The gender form of a Bulgarian surname (Иванов/Иванова) goes into Georgian as it is in the specific person's document, with a note that this is the gender form of one surname.

Bulgarian grammar: no cases, with an article and the renarrative mood

Bulgarian is unique among the Slavic languages: it has practically no cases, instead the definite article is added at the end of the word (документът, заверката), and the verb has a renarrative mood (преизказно наклонение), by which the speaker marks that they know the information from someone else's words and did not see it themselves. The latter requires separate attention in official documents: in a court record, a police explanation or an expert opinion the renarrative mood carries a legally significant difference (the witness "saw" or "says that they saw"), which must be conveyed in Georgian by lexical means, otherwise the legal weight of the testimony changes. The absence of cases, in turn, simplifies the translation of names, but Bulgarian syntax stands on prepositions and a long official sentence requires restructuring in Georgian.

Bulgaria's medical universities and NACID

The English-language programmes of the medical universities of Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Pleven are one of the accessible routes to European medical education for Georgian applicants, while Sofia University, the University of National and World Economy, the Technical University of Sofia and the American University in Blagoevgrad offer other directions. In the enrolment package the school certificate, grades, medical certificate and enrolment documents are translated into Bulgarian or English, while recognition of the school certificate at school level is carried out by the Regional Education Directorate (RUO), a higher education diploma for employment by NACID, and for continuing studies by the university itself. The names of subjects must correspond to the terminology of Bulgarian education, otherwise the recognition is returned for clarification. In the opposite direction a Bulgarian medical diploma is translated into Georgian for the National Centre for Educational Quality Enhancement and professional licensing, and this flow grows every year.

Business, the Commercial Register and Black Sea property

Bulgaria is one of the lowest-tax jurisdictions in the EU, and Georgian entrepreneurs found an EOOD (a single-member limited liability company) or an OOD in the Commercial Register of the Registry Agency (Агенция по вписванията) to enter the European market; Bulgarian companies are present in Georgia in tourism, logistics, the food industry and pharmaceuticals. Bulgarian company forms are translated with the Georgian equivalent, the Commercial Register extract and the EIK (unified identification code) stay unchanged, and a bilingual contract passes a check by two native-speaking editors and a lawyer. Real estate on the Black Sea coast and at mountain resorts is attractive for foreigners, and a non-EU citizen can freely acquire a building, but land, as a rule, through a Bulgarian company; the notarial deed (нотариален акт), the cadastre plan and the power of attorney are translated in both directions.

The Bulgarian medical direction: resorts and TELK

Bulgaria is a country of balneological resorts: Velingrad, Hisarya, Sandanski, Pavel Banya, where rehabilitation of the spine, respiratory and musculoskeletal systems takes place, and Georgian patients turn to these resorts regularly; the clinics of Sofia and Plovdiv offer specialised treatment and dentistry. For planning treatment the Georgian medical history is translated into Bulgarian or English, after treatment the Bulgarian discharge summary (епикриза) and doctor's report into Georgian. For Georgians living in Bulgaria a separate category is the disability conclusions of TELK (the Territorial Expert Medical Commission), a concept of the Bulgarian system that establishes the percentage of incapacity for work, the period and benefits, and is translated with notes for the Social Service and Pension Agencies of Georgia.

Varna, Burgas and Black Sea logistics

The ports of Varna and Burgas, the Varna-Poti sea line and the format of Black Sea economic cooperation create a flow of Georgian-Bulgarian transport documents: forwarding contracts, bill of lading, consignment notes, customs declaration, cargo insurance, while Bulgarian shipping companies and the Naval Academy of Varna also work with Georgian seafarers. This text stands on the terminology of international transport conventions (CMR, Incoterms, STCW), which must sound in the established form in both languages, while the terminology of Bulgarian customs and port authorities goes across with the Georgian equivalent. For regular logistics clients we build a term base that shortens the deadline to hours on every new shipment.

Bachkovo, Rila and the church link

The Bachkovo Monastery, founded in 1083 by the Georgian commander of the Byzantine Empire Grigol Bakurianis-dze, whose typikon was drawn up in Georgian and Greek, is the centre of the Georgian-Bulgarian church and cultural link, and Georgian pilgrims, researchers and official delegations visit it regularly, as well as the Rila Monastery. This link creates a specific flow of documents: church visit programmes, materials of academic conferences, translation of historical sources, church marriage and baptism certificates, which are used in Bulgaria together with civil status registration. Church terminology, the names of saints and church offices must sound in the established form in both languages, and a translator with the relevant education works on these documents.

Who translates and how quality is checked

Qualified Bulgarian translators in Georgia are graduates of Bulgarian universities, Georgians who worked in Bulgaria for years, Bulgarian-speaking specialists living in Georgia and philologists with an education in Slavic studies who studied Bulgarian as their specialisation. Only a translator registered with the notary in the Bulgarian-Georgian pair works on a translation to be notarised; a translation from Georgian into Bulgarian is checked by a native-speaking editor, from Bulgarian into Georgian by a Georgian language editor, while Cyrillic transliteration, the three-part name, the gender form of the surname, the renarrative mood, dates and seals are checked separately at the format control stage. On the Bulgarian side, when needed, we cooperate with a sworn translator and a notary, which gives the client the form required by a Bulgarian authority under our own coordination.

What we cannot do and where we advise another route

We cannot put an apostille on a document issued in Bulgaria, because only the Bulgarian ministries, NACID and the regional administrations can do that. We cannot "issue" a Bulgarian notary's certification of a sworn translator's signature from Georgia, though we cooperate with a partner in Bulgaria. We cannot promise that Georgian notarisation will be accepted by every Bulgarian authority, because after the 2018 regulation practice differs between authorities. And we cannot translate a Macedonian document with a Bulgarian translator: the two languages are close, but at document level they differ and require separate registration. In every such case we tell you exactly which route works.

Deadlines, format and confidentiality

A Bulgarian translation of a standard personal document with notarisation is ready within one working day, in express mode within 1-2 hours. The apostille is added within the Public Service Hall deadlines, which we name when confirming the order. For a voluminous contract and a study package the deadline is calculated individually. The whole process is online: you upload the document on the website and receive the translation electronically or by courier in any city in Georgia, and for sending to Bulgaria we arrange the international courier ourselves. Commercial and medical documents are processed under a confidentiality agreement.

Frequently asked questions