Bulgaria

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Previous reports: 2024 | 2023/24




Conscription currently imposed? No

Suspended 2008 by amendment of the Defence and Armed Forces Act.

May be reinstated in the event of declaration of state of war, martial law or a state of emergency pursuant to Article 116 of the Act.1
Conscientious objection first recognised 1991

Constitution, Article 59.2

First implemented under Law for Replacement of Military Service with Alternative Service, 1998
CO release of professional soldiers – No specific provisions. Early release may be requested (see below).
Minimum recruitment age 18
Military expenditure2
$ (% change from 2024) Per capita % of GDP
2,589m (+9.3%) $384 2.0%

Principal EBCO concerns

In accelerated procedures of consideration of asylum applications there is a risk that well-founded applications of conscientious objectors might be automatically rejected

Asylum for conscientious objectors

According to UNHCHR, in addition to asylum seekers from Morocco, Egypt and other countries from North Africa, cases of applicants from Afghanistan, Iraq and the Russian Federation are often processed under accelerated procedures with a presumption that they are often manifestly unfounded applications, even where applicants made claims raising issues such as ongoing armed conflict. 1525 individuals, including applicants from the Russian Federation, were rejected in accelerated procedures as manifestly unfounded, and 1615 were rejected in regular procedures.3 The Bulgarian Government maintains access to people displaced from Ukraine through its borders, granting temporary protection to more than 220,800 refugees since March 2022 until October 2025.4

On 15 April 2025 the Administrative Court of Sofia City canceled a decision to deny refugee status to a conscientious objector from the Russian Federation who was summoned for conscription and refused to follow "criminal orders" to seize foreign territories or kill Ukrainians, citing personal pacifist and political convictions5. He claimed that returning would result in immediate arrest and forced deployment to the front lines. The State Agency for Refugees (SAR) denied an asylum request claiming that Russian soldiers who refuse to fight are not criminally prosecuted. The Court pointed out that Russia introduced prison sentences (up to 15 years) for refusing to participate in military actions and cited the UNHCR Manual, noting that protection should be granted if military service conflicts with a person’s genuine political, religious, or moral convictions; according to the judgment, the SAR failed to ask the applicant specific questions about his convictions or investigate whether his forced participation in the war would lead to the commission of war crimes.

  1. https://ebco-beoc.org/sites/ebco-beoc.org/files/attachments/2023-01-31-Bulgaria-gov-reply.pdf↩︎
  2. Military expenditure figures are estimates published by SIPRI (The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) in April 2026.↩︎
  3. https://reliefweb.int/report/bulgaria/bulgaria-protection-brief-international-protection-procedures-january-2025↩︎
  4. https://reliefweb.int/report/bulgaria/bulgaria-2025-q4-protection-profiling-and-monitoring-brief-10-october-202↩︎
  5. https://search-sofia-adms-g.justice.bg/Acts/GetActContent?BlobID=45fe5fff-886a-4839-9981-cfb97039a847↩︎