Child custody in Bulgaria

Both parents exercise parental rights jointly.

The official fact sheet does not say who holds parental rights for a child born outside marriage, or how a father acquires them. Where unmarried or separated parents cannot agree, the district court of the child's habitual residence decides.

The unmarried father, in one line: The official source does not say; check before relying on it.

The divorce judgment must decide which parent holds parental rights, taking the child's best interests into account, and how the other parent keeps contact. The parent with the rights makes daily decisions. In practice the other parent is commonly given two or more non-working days a month and a set number of weeks in the school holidays.

The court hears a child of 10 or over when it decides which parent will exercise parental rights, and in disputes between separated parents. In other cases the child is heard if necessary, with no minimum age stated.

Both parents' consent is needed for the child to leave the country, whatever the length or purpose of the trip, including holidays.

Bulgaria is a party to the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention, which lets a parent ask for a child wrongly taken to another country to be returned. It works only with countries that have accepted its accession, so check the other country on the treaty status table.

Within the EU, Regulation (EU) 2019/1111 (called Brussels IIb) decides which country's courts handle parental responsibility: in principle the courts of the country where the child habitually lives, and it speeds up the return of a child wrongly taken to another member state. Denmark does not take part in it.

Bulgaria belongs to the Civil law family. Family law grows out of the legal tradition, so it helps to know how the system works.

Read the Bulgaria legal-system profile in the Legal Families Atlas →
Who owns what in a marriage in Bulgaria? →
Divorce rate and trend in Bulgaria →

• European e-Justice Portal: parental responsibility, child custody and contact rights in Bulgaria