Bulgaria eases car registration rules: fewer inspections for older vehicles
Bulgaria's Interior Ministry amended its vehicle registration rules: fewer mandatory inspections for older cars, a cap of three transit plates per vehicle and simpler registration of inherited cars.
Archive image · Photo: Konstantin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
New rules for registering motor vehicles took effect in Bulgaria on Tuesday, as amendments to the Interior Ministry's ordinance on vehicle registration came into force, several Bulgarian media outlets reported. A physical inspection of the vehicle at a traffic police inspection pit remains mandatory when a car's registration moves to another administrative region or when ownership changes, but only if fewer than 10 years have passed since its first registration. For cars registered in Bulgaria for more than 10 years, the inspection is dropped in cases such as a change of fuel type, a correction of the emissions category or the issue of a duplicate document.
The issue of transit plates is now capped: they can be issued no more than three times for the same vehicle. Owners who replace an engine will no longer need to submit a document proving ownership of the new engine. The new engine number will be recorded directly during the pit inspection. If the new engine carries a different identification code, a technical inspection and a certificate of structural modification are required.
Heirs also benefit: when a car is owned by several heirs, one of them can start the re-registration without written power of attorney from the others, and all co-owners are entered on the registration certificate. A single heir may deregister the vehicle only in specific cases, such as dismantling, a total loss, confiscation by the state or destruction by fire or natural disaster.