Off topic - whats on your mind?

@TonyFF It is so good to hear that you have had a positive move and vibe in Bulgaria, and to hear other people's experience.  I had a field near varna with a tumble down bungalow, I sold it because I just couldn't keep up with it when I move permanently (regret that now!! should have kept it which may have made a move over there easier, anyway......).

I wish you well

I hope to be over later in the year, got 3 dogs to drive over as well - I am worried about the strays there, they are looked after better than other european countries, but I think I'd take too many in!

@buckleyps

Good luck to you too!  It is a learning curve here, at times  it is challenging but most of the time it is fun.

I am not worried, I am not in a hurry.

I have noticed that  there are no set rules in this town;  very flexible working hours;  and if there are  rules they are very easily bendable.

I call this " just guidelines". I am very very comfortable with " just guidelines".

People live longer life this way- why worry  or bother?!!! 

Bulgaria is  a great choice for retirement.

I met a great group of retirees in a village near varna about 8 years ago, they all loved it.

It's the more natural life that I am after, rather than the  shackles of UK (and other countries). Hopefully Bulgaria will be left alone for a while longer!

I moved from UK to france in 2000 and the learning curve/settling in is part of the experience - except then I moved back to uk in 2016 because the rules and regs were getting tedious and draconian.

@buckleyps

I hear you. Calfornia used to be so nice in  the 70s/80s.  Now the state is permanently ruined.

The whole country is ruined. This is the sad truth. I am glad that I am in Bulgaria now.

It is never too late to start a new life...

   
It is never too late to start a new life...
   

    -@TonyFF

That's only true if they put a spade in the coffin before they bury you.....

I don't know about you but I'm getting fed up with the number of emails I'm getting from this site? Are you? Just give it a rest I've loads of things to get on with besides being on this site thank you.

@Kath948381

what r u talking about? Huh????

Then unsubscribe, you won't get notification emails when new posts added.

@Kath948381 put the notifications into spam, then you won't receive, and you can visit when you wish.

I see what you mean now. Just use e-mail that you rarely open. Unsubscribe as well like others say.

@Kath948381

You can change your notification settings and get waaaaaay fewer emails. Click on the round person icon in the top right corner, and there's a Notifications Settings option in the dropdown menu. You can change everything to one email a week or opt out altogether.

But please don't move emails to the spam folder or mark them as spam as someone suggested! That will reduce the chances those who do want to get emails from the site receive them. Spam reports are extremely damaging to forums and newsletters and should only be used when emails really are spam.

@buckleyps

Please don't suggest this! Spam reports are far more damaging that people realise to the sender reputation of a business or organisation, and should only be used when emails really are spam.

Plus, then Kath won't see any more helpful suggestions for how to resolve her issue with too many emails, because she'll be too busy chucking all the messages into spam!

Still getting loads of unwanted and unasked for emails from this site please stop. Oh and I've noticed that the last message regarding this situation has disappeared from this heading, that's not very nice isn't it.

Kath, it may take a few days for your request to kick in.

And do check in your notification settings that you've stopped all of them. There are a lot of different emails the site can send! If you changed to weekly, you may find you still get sent if the emails about comments on posts you commented on option is still on.

You'll need to go down that long list under notification settings and click every single turquoise button to turn all emails off!

I hope things are okay. It sounds as if more than site emails are bothering you. <3

I'm still getting loads of unwanted emails from this site. Please stop it.

    I'm still getting loads of unwanted emails from this site. Please stop it.
   

    -@Kath948381

Kath, have you gone to your notification settings and turned everything off?

I was just checking my health insurance status and the unemployed rate ("Self-insured person under Art. 40, para. 5 of the Health Insurance Act") is still only 37.32 lv per month. Or, for all for 2024 (including interest), 470.75 lv. This is 241 euros for full healthcare coverage with no exclusions or age limits, free or nearly-free treatment from your registered GP and in public hospitals, heavily subsidized care in most private hospitals, and a Bulgarian EHIC for cover elsewhere in the EU.

Having had both private and public health insurance elsewhere, it seems like a massive bargain to me. I reckon all expats (unless they have an S1) should try to enroll in NHIF and make appropriate contributions.

https://portal.nra.bg/free-access-services

OK Thank you all, I have founds loads of answers on this site.

A wee thought If I buy a house outright and apply for D Visa etc Do I need an income. I am 5 years from retiring I do however get 500 private pension How does this work ?

I thought do I need rent out a property in UK to at least show an income?

Thank you in advance

Tricia, the retirement D visa isn't age based but based on having a pension income, whether the state old-age pension or a private pension. Renting out your UK house or having income from remote working actually doesn't help get a D visa, or we'd be there already!

With the retirement visa, my understanding is that if you're not yet the official retirement age of 67 you need to show a pension of at least the Bulgarian minimum wage, which this year is 1077 BGN, that's 464 GBP at the current exchange rate. So if you have a pension of 500 GBP a month, you probably would qualify.

I think they also like to see six months worth of the minimum wage in the bank, so that would be about 3000 GBP in savings.

Thats helped Thank you

Is that 500 a month each as in 1000 for a couple ?

@triciaconnolly66

Interesting question. My guess is probably yes, you'd need two pensions of 500, or one of 1,000. Personally, I'd prefer not to try for the D visa on a couple basis, just in case they say no (unless some expert was able to confirm that 500 would be accepted). INSTEAD, I would apply for the D visa (and subsequently my residence permit in Bulgaria) for ONLY myself. After, as a legal Bulgarian resident, I would apply for Family Reunification as it's an easy process with no pension requirement (just sufficient funds to support another, in terms of total income/savings). I've gone through this process for both my partner and my father.

More generally, I think 500 quid is not much to live on these days, even if it's enough to keep immigration happy. If you buy a village house for cash (you can do this before getting your D visa, if you want) then you'd have no rent or mortgage. But it still sounds tight. Pretty much that's my monthly grocery bill. :-) You'd almost certainly need savings and/or other income (rental property, remote working, etc. as mentioned by @janemulberry) to supplement your pension until your state pensions kick in down the road.

That said, everywhere has gotten more expensive, and Bulgaria is still significantly cheaper than popular retirement options like Spain, Portugal and Cyprus. I think it's great value, and we're very happy here... and we have a far higher quality of life than we could possibly afford in those other countries.

Thank you really informative No didn't expect to live of 500, just wanted to see if I can tick the boxes.

Perhaps my route would be, try and apply for Irish passport. Not a straight forward process, as it would be my great grandparent's. Failing that looks like its not possible 

Hello, regarding irish passport, great grand parents do not qualify your eligibility.

Grandparents and parents do.

Maybe look at if any were citizens of  another eu country to qualify for eu passport.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/

This explains irish citizenship criteria

@mickg

I think that varies. I have looked at it

Ha ha my home town was known as little Ireland I wish they checked DNA on citizenship as I am 75 percent Irish lol

Tricia, I'm in the same situation. I'd always assumed when Brexit hit I could just get an Irish passport. My birth name is an Irish one. I look Irish. I was always told my grandfather (who died when I was a young child) was Irish. He even spoke with a brogue! I wasted days and money searching the Irish birth records trying to find him. Turned out, as we only discovered when Dad died, Poppy was born in Liverpool to Irish parents. To complicate matters, Dad's birth certificate shows his father's name as Alfred because that's what his dad was known as (real name Patrick), while Dad was known as Paddy but his real name is Robert! *sigh*

My understanding is that great-grandparentage only counts in very specific situations, and the parents needed to have registered the baby's birth with the Irish authorities. If you find anything different, I would be delighted to know! Having an Irish passport would make life far easier.

What Gwyn said on the income requirements. Whoever has the pension that pays enough to qualify can apply for the D visa for themselves, then once they have residency apply for family reunification for the spouse. That's what we'll be doing once I reach state pension age. Hubby (younger than me) had to take ill health retirement from his job but unfortunately also took bad advice on his work pension years before we met and stopped paying in, so his work pension is too small to count.

I also think 500 GBP a month for a couple would require frugal living, but should be possible. Much more comfortable if you do have savings you can draw from or some other income.

Awww Jayne. Thank you Good stuff, Fortunately for me, I do family

tree stuff. I already have the info. You might be right on registration of birth though. Not sure as usual conflicting views on Google.

Yes I would have savings, its just the tick boxing bits xx

Thanks again very helpful xx

@triciaconnolly66

Here's a handy official guide (from MFA) on the D visa application.

https://www.mfa.bg/upload/99380/2_Visa_D.pdf

This says the "evidence of minimum financial means for subsistence" is 6 (for 6 months D visa) x minimum wage, or x minimum pension (depending on what's the basis of your application).

In 2025, the minimum wage is 1,077 lv per month, about 465 quid. Or about 2,800 UKP. The pension minimum has been raised to 637 lv per month, 275 quid. That's about 1,650 UKP. If they differentiate for pensioners based on minimum pension rather than minimum wage, it seems likely they would do the same for the pension amount itself. Your 500 is small, but more than 275, and just shy of 550 for 2 pensions. Seems quite encouraging to me, and I'd expect them to want to see a bit more for family members, but not necessarily a full pension per person.

This info sheet also confirms that pensioners need to show they already have a Bulgarian account to receive their pension.

Given the above, it might be prudent to try for both of you on the same D visa application (rather than go through the extra bureaucracy/aggravation of a 2nd one). Especially if you can show a nice nest egg of savings/property purchase fund, rather than the bare minimum. It might be helpful to write a supporting letter so you can clarify that your private pension of [amount] starts on [date] but you have savings and rental income to supplement your pension, until your UK state pension of [amount] starts on [date]. It's easy to get a pension forecast to confirm the amount and start date of your state pension, to go along with your entitlement letter for your private pension.

A couple would struggle on 1,000 leva a month these days!  A few years back, whenever you went to Lidl it seemed as though you always paid around 50 leva, regardless of what you bought - nowadays, it's over 100 leva.  Obviously, that's just a subjective impression and depends very much on what you buy.

I'm a cheapskate and go for the "yellow stickers" whenever I can. 😂  The stickers in Lidl are actually orange, which used to denote short-dated goods at a 30% reduction, but has now been chiselled down to 20%; the green stickers are 50% off but are only used for bread, or meat/veggies/fruit expiring the next day and which look like something you really wouldn't want to risk eating unless you're very skint...

@JimJ

Yup, I concur. Pretty much every time I shop, I rarely keep it under 100 lv, if I get cheap canned sardines. If there's meat, nice salmon, EVOO or other pricey bits it can be 150 or more. (The EVOO alone I was shocked that it was only 6 lv here, back in the day, and perhaps how I got accustomed to the luxury of guzzling it every day. Now it's 30 lv or more per litre for decent stuff!)

I also have another data point, as I am now looking after my elderly father (97) in Plovdiv. He's in our old flat with his live-in carer. I leave money for the carer to buy bits and pieces and fresh fruit/veggies/milk, as needed, from the nearby supermarket (a neighbourhood T Market, not a big Kaufland). She says she can't get anything there without spending 20 lv, or close to it (and I've seen her receipts). Most days I have to top up this petty cash fund, so this is 500 lv per month, at least, and just for 2 older people who don't eat much. She also gives me a list of things for a big weekly shop at Kaufland. So that's another 500 lv!