Bulgarian car insurance check and fine without a policy (2026)

You are buying a second-hand car and the seller says the insurance is paid until the end of the year. Or you are sure your policy is valid, and a ticket arrives in the post. In both cases the check takes about a minute and is free. The insurance in question is compulsory motor third-party liability insurance, known in Bulgaria as Гражданска отговорност.

What matters for 2026: from February the law provides for toll-system data to be checked automatically against the Guarantee Fund’s (Гаранционен фонд) database, and missing insurance can also lead to the ex officio deregistration of the car. Here is how to check and what follows if there is no policy.

Where to do the check

The official source is the Guarantee Fund’s Information Centre. Policies are issued through its information system (Art. 575(1) of the Insurance Code (КЗ)), and the Ministry of the Interior (МВР) receives from it the data on active and terminated contracts (Art. 574(6)).

The Guarantee Fund itself advises entering only the chassis number for a fuller result. The car’s plates may have been changed, while the chassis number stays the same.

The signed PDF is handy when you need to prove to someone that there was insurance at a given moment: when buying, in a dispute with an insurer or when appealing a ticket. The Fund states that the service does not require registration or identity verification.

Who must have a policy

The obligation rests on everyone who owns a vehicle that is registered in Bulgaria and has not been suspended from traffic. The policy can also be taken out by someone else, but the fine for not having one is imposed on the owner (Art. 638(1)).

This is where the most common mistake comes from: the owner thinks that if they do not drive the car, there is no problem. The obligation under Art. 483 of the Insurance Code is tied to owning a registered car, not to driving. If you will not use it for a long time, suspend it temporarily from traffic (see the questions at the end).

How much the fine is for missing third-party liability insurance

The fines for owners and drivers in Art. 638(1)-(6) of the Insurance Code are still written in leva. With the amendments of 23 October 2026, only the sanctions for insurers (para. 7) were recalculated into euro. Under the Act on the Introduction of the Euro (ЗВЕРБ), amounts in leva are read as amounts in euro at the rate of BGN 1.95583 to €1, rounded to the cent.

In a roadside check the fine is not the only consequence. The police suspend the car temporarily from traffic until insurance is taken out and seize the registration certificate when the report is drawn up (Art. 171, item 2, letter “в” and Art. 172(4) of the Road Traffic Act (ЗДвП)). After you take out a policy, part II of the certificate is returned within 7 days of the report being drawn up by the МВР unit that took it, and after that by the Road Police (“Пътна полиция”) at the car’s place of registration. This procedure was introduced in Ordinance No. I-45, amended in State Gazette (ДВ) issue 97 of 23 October 2026.

That is why the check is not only about your own car. Before you borrow someone else’s car or buy a second-hand one, take the minute.

Cameras and the toll system catch the lack of insurance automatically

For a long time a lack of insurance was found mainly at roadside checks. From February 2026 the Road Infrastructure Agency (Агенция „Пътна инфраструктура“) passes to the МВР the registration numbers of cars that have used the paid road network, and the МВР checks them against the Guarantee Fund’s data. If there is no policy, the МВР receives the toll system’s photograph as evidence.

When the lack of insurance is caught on camera, the fine is imposed on the owner, regardless of who was driving.

Two special features of the third-party liability sanction

An electronic ticket (електронен фиш) for missing insurance looks like any other, but two special rules apply to it and to the reports drawn up at roadside checks.

First: you cannot name who was driving. For most violations caught on camera, the owner can within 14 days file a declaration with the details of the actual driver, and then the ticket is cancelled and a new one is issued to the driver (Art. 189(4) of the Road Traffic Act). For the third-party liability ticket this possibility is expressly excluded.

Second: you cannot make a settlement agreement. When a report has been drawn up at a roadside check, under the general rule the proceedings can end with an agreement with the penalising authority. The fine is then 70% of the minimum or of the exactly specified amount (Art. 58г(8) of the Administrative Violations and Sanctions Act (ЗАНН)). Since September 2025 this option has not applied to violations connected with third-party liability insurance.

Pay to the account stated on the ticket itself. By law the ticket contains the deadline, the account and the ways of voluntary payment (Art. 189(5), item 9 of the Road Traffic Act). Fines under Art. 638 go to the Guarantee Fund’s Fund for Uninsured Vehicles (Фонд за незастраховани превозни средства) (Art. 554, item 3 of the Insurance Code), so the account may differ from the one for other traffic police (КАТ) tickets. There is more about the series and the accounts in our article on the electronic ticket.

The car’s registration can be terminated ex officio

This is the consequence that hurts the most, and many people find out about it too late. The Information Centre notifies the owners of cars with no policy, or with a terminated and unrenewed policy, and gives them a deadline.

If you drive a car whose registration has been terminated ex officio, the plates and part II of the registration certificate are taken away when the report is drawn up (Art. 143(11) of the Road Traffic Act). The practical conclusion is simple: a notice from the Information Centre is not advertising. It is a deadline that is already running.

If an uninsured driver, or one who fled, hits you

This is where the check turns into money. If the driver at fault has no third-party liability insurance, the compensation does not disappear. The Guarantee Fund pays it from the Fund for Uninsured Vehicles (Art. 557 of the Insurance Code). If the accident report contains no details of the insurance of the driver at fault, the Information Centre gives the injured person a statement on a written application.

The documents and rules of the compensation fund are in the section “Ред за уреждане на претенции” (Procedure for settling claims) on its website.

That is why, after a road traffic accident, the first thing after safety is to write down the other car’s registration number. It is the difference between a full claim and a partial one or none at all.

Frequently asked questions

Can I check someone else’s car?

Yes. The check works by registration number, chassis number or sticker number and does not require you to be the owner. That is exactly why it is useful when buying a second-hand car.

Does the check cost anything?

No. The check on the Guarantee Fund’s website is free and does not require registration. Downloading the signed PDF does not require registration either.

My car sits in the yard and I do not drive it. Do I still need a policy?

Yes, if it is registered and has not been suspended from traffic. If you will not use it, you can suspend it temporarily from traffic at the owner’s request (Art. 40(1), item 2 of Ordinance No. I-45). The application can be submitted with an electronic signature in the МВР e-services portal (the service “Временно спиране от движение на пътно превозно средство по желание на собственика”, temporary suspension of a road vehicle from traffic at the owner’s request), for a state fee. After that you must go to the Road Police (“Пътна полиция”) and hand in part II of the registration certificate. To drive again, you apply to have it put back into traffic.

I checked and the policy expired two days ago. What do I do?

Take out a new one immediately. Every day without cover is a day on which a camera, the toll system or a roadside check can lead to a fine. And in an accident that is your fault, the injured person gets their money from the Guarantee Fund, after which the Fund steps into their rights up to the amount of the compensation paid, the interest and the costs of determining and paying it (Art. 558(7) of the Insurance Code). In other words, the bill still comes to the driver at fault, only later and larger.

Does it matter that I paid only the first instalment?

Yes. If an instalment is unpaid, the insurer can terminate the contract, but not earlier than 15 days after you received a written notice. If the policy says the contract is deemed terminated after a certain period from the instalment’s due date (not shorter than 15 days), it is terminated automatically and without a separate notice (Art. 368(4) of the Insurance Code). The insurer must report the termination to the Information Centre at the same time as the termination (Art. 490(2)), so the result will show the end of cover. Check the date in the result, not in your own calendar.

The check shows insurance, but I have no sticker on the windscreen. Is that a problem?

The sticker is a separate obligation under the Road Traffic Act and is checked on the road. Under Art. 100(3) the driver must stick a valid sticker in the lower left corner of the windscreen and carry the control coupon that goes with it. A driver whose car has no valid sticker and who does not carry a valid control coupon is fined BGN 50 under the text of the law, that is €25.56 (Art. 179(5)). If the sticker is valid but you do not carry the insurance document, the fine is BGN 30, that is €15.34 (Art. 183(1), item 2).

Useful links

• Guarantee Fund (Гаранционен фонд): check for valid third-party liability insurance and claims for compensation
• МВР e-services portal: checking and paying liabilities under a ticket, an electronic ticket and a penal decree
• Checking liabilities to the traffic police (КАТ)
• Checking a vignette fine
• Annual technical inspection: validity