Bulgaria

Summary

Bulgaria is often listed as a bowhunting country, and the European Bowhunting Federation marks it as permitted. The hunting act as it stands says otherwise. Hunting is practised with firearms, and the law names nothing else. A bow is not a lawful hunting means, and a crossbow is a prohibited one.

We looked for the text behind the listings and the outfitter offers, ibex included, and did not find it.

Why it is prohibited

Three provisions of the Hunting and Game Preservation Act (Закон за лова и опазване на дивеча), consolidated text with the last amendment of December 2023. No later amendment had been published in the State Gazette by the date below.

Article 56 (1), as amended in 2019: Hunting is carried out with smooth-bore and long-barrelled rifled hunting firearms and with short-barrelled rifled firearms for hunting purposes. That is the whole list.

Article 65, point 1: the prohibited means begin with firearms that do not meet article 56 and crossbows. Bows used to be in this point. They were struck out in January 2009, and not by an amendment of the hunting act itself: § 14 of the act amending the Forests Act, published in the State Gazette as ДВ 6/2009, deleted the word “bows” from article 65, point 1, and in the same section rewrote article 56 (1) as a list of firearms. That is where the confusion starts: the bow is no longer named as forbidden, but it was never added to article 56 as permitted.

Article 83п fines anyone who does not comply with article 56 (1), 100 to 1,000 leva in the act’s text. Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026, and the Euro Introduction Act (§ 5 and articles 12–13) keeps such fines in force, converted at 1.95583 leva to the euro and rounded to the cent: 51.13 to 511.29 euros. Hunting, defined in article 43 as killing, capturing, pursuing or wounding game, done with a bow is not hunting with the means article 56 (1) lists. We found no court decision applying this to a bow.

The Bulgarian word for bow does not occur anywhere in the consolidated act, nor in the implementing regulation of August 2024.

The drafts that never passed

Adding the bow has been on the table for a decade.

• March 2016: Parliament passed at first reading a bill allowing bows and air rifles. It did not reach a second reading.
• June 2018: the Ministry of Agriculture published a draft for public consultation with a definition of a hunting bow, draw weight over 60 lb and arrow speed over 190 fps, bowhunting in all hunting areas, and air rifles over 24 J.
• October 2020: a further ministry draft; the national hunters’ union asked for bows and trained birds of prey, to be added to article 56 as traditional methods.

None of it is in the act. If a future amendment passes, the 2018 draft shows the shape it is likely to take.

Before you go

This page describes the Bulgarian legal texts as they stood on the date below. Bulgaria is marketed as a bowhunting destination, ibex included, and the European Bowhunting Federation lists it as permitted. Before you book, ask the Executive Forest Agency (Изпълнителна агенция по горите) or the estate for the article of the act that allows hunting with a bow, and check it on lex.bg. If an amendment has passed since this page was checked, it will be there. The final check is yours.