Who inherits without a will in Bulgaria?

The spouse and the children inherit equal shares. A child who has died is replaced by their own children.

With no children, the spouse is the sole heir if there are no parents, siblings or their descendants. With parents or siblings the spouse takes one half if the person died less than 10 years after the marriage, and two thirds after that.

Children first, then parents, then siblings (a sibling shares with a surviving parent two thirds to one third). If nobody inherits, the estate goes to the state, though some property such as homes passes to the municipality.

The official fact sheet does not describe any rights for unmarried or registered partners. Treat an unmarried partner as having no automatic right and take advice.

Children, parents and the spouse have a reserved share. The free part of the estate is a third with one child, a quarter with two, and a sixth with three or more.

In this EU country the Succession Regulation applies to people who die after 16 August 2015: the whole estate is generally governed by the law of the country where the person had their habitual residence at death, unless they chose the law of their nationality in a will. A foreigner living here, or a citizen living abroad, can therefore be governed by a different law than the one described on this page.

Bulgaria belongs to the Civil law family. Succession 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? →

• European e-Justice Portal: succession in Bulgaria