Is Alcohol legal in Bulgaria?

Legal status

Not listed. Alcohol is not a named entry of Списък I, Списък II or Списък III of the Наредба за реда за класифициране на растенията и веществата като наркотични. The forms searched in the Bulgarian text were «Етанол», «алкохол», «етилов», in the running text and again with all whitespace removed so that a name broken across lines could not read as an absence. A search of all three lists returned nothing that is ethanol. Bulgaria regulates alcohol through excise and public order law and not through the narcotics lists. This is an absence from the lists and not a statement that the substance is free of Bulgarian law: чл. 4, ал. 2 of the Закон за контрол върху наркотичните вещества и прекурсорите applies the same control measures to preparations and to analogues, and § 1, т. 17 defines the analogue as «"Аналог" означава всяко вещество, което не е включено в списъците по чл. 3, ал. 2, но има сходен химически строеж с някое наркотично вещество и предизвиква аналогично действие върху човешкия организъм.» so an unlisted molecule that is chemically close to a listed one can still be reached. Whether this substance is such an analogue was not established here. The absence is stated as those lists stand after Постановление № 49 of 8 May 2025, which is the last amendment to the наредба recorded by the Council of Ministers legal information system.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. Bulgaria is in the European Union and the death penalty was abolished in 1998, so no Bulgarian drug provision carries one. The figures in the rest of this paragraph are carried forward from the live Bulgaria cell and were not re-derived in this pass. Possession is not subject to a formal personal-use threshold. Penal Code article 354a(5) lets a judge impose a fine up to about 1,000 leva (about €511) for insignificant quantities, but it remains a criminal conviction. Standard possession of high-risk drugs draws 1 to 6 years. A 2,000 to 10,000 leva fine runs alongside that band. Possession of moderate-risk drugs draws up to 5 years. Trafficking under article 354a draws 2 to 8 years for high-risk drugs and 1 to 6 years for moderate-risk drugs. It rises to up to 15 years for aggravated or particularly large amounts. Cultivation of opium poppy, coca or cannabis is prohibited by article 354c. The high-risk and moderate-risk split those bands run on is drawn by Penal Code articles 354a, 354b and 354c together with the Law on Control of Narcotic Substances and Precursors, the ЗКНВП. Those are Penal Code provisions rather than наредба provisions, and this row is placed outside that regime, so they are recorded as Bulgaria's published drug penalties and not as this substance's exposure.

If prescribed or medical

Чл. 58, ал. 1 of the Закон за контрол върху наркотичните вещества и прекурсорите lets a person in transit or temporarily in the country hold medicinal products containing narcotic substances «от списъците по чл. 3, ал. 2, т. 2 и 3» only for treatment and in quantities no greater than 30 days of treatment, and чл. 58, ал. 2 requires a foreign national to hold a document issued by the competent authorities of the country where the treatment was prescribed. A substance outside all three списъци is not one of the products that allowance is written for, so neither the 30 day rule nor the чл. 59 permit for taking narcotic medicines abroad is the route for Alcohol. If it is a prescription medicine where you are travelling from, carry the prescription and the original dispensing packaging, and treat the absence from the lists as an absence rather than as permission. Confirm requirements with your embassy before travel.

Documentation

The наредба has no consolidated text at an official publisher. What was read instead is the official file set: the наредба as adopted by Постановление № 293 of 27 October 2011, then every one of the fourteen amending Постановления in order, each downloaded as the Word file the Council of Ministers legal information system publishes. Приложение № 1 was replaced whole by Постановление № 253 of 2013, so the 2013 text and not the 2011 one is the base for Списък I. No row is relied on for this cell, because none was found. Every one of the three appendices was searched for this substance, in Bulgarian and, where the lists print Latin codes, in Latin. One § of Постановление № 184 of 2023 amends a different instrument, Постановление № 23 of 1998 on the prices of narcotic substances for court proceedings, and its rows were excluded from the search rather than read as schedule entries. The Penal Code figures in the street paragraph are carried forward from the live Bulgaria cell and were not re-derived here, so the Penal Code itself was not read for this row. Carry any controlled medicine with its prescription and confirm requirements with your embassy before travel.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Bulgaria’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.