Chief Directorate Border Police is one of the directorates of the Ministry of Interior. It is a national specialized structure with protective, preventive and investigative functions. Its main purpose is to perform border control and protection of the state borders of Bulgaria.

The total length of Bulgaria’s borders is 2 368 km. Out of them, EU external borders are 1 225 km, with 412 km sea border and 813 km land border.

The Bulgarian Border Police is a centralized unit with well defined organizational structure, with three levels of governance:

The first level is the Chief Directorate Border Police, responsible for the overall management and coordination of the Border Police national, regional and local units.

The second level consists of the Regional Directorates.

The third level includes the local Border Police Units and the Border Police Base Vessels.

At the second level, Border Police has 7 Regional Directorates, each responsible for a specific border (land borders with Serbia, FYROM, Greece, Turkey and Romania, the Black Sea border and international airports). At the third level, the Border Police structure is made of 37 Border Police Units, with 35 Border Crossing Points (BCPs) and 2 Border Police Base Vessels. In line with Schengen best practices, the Border Police has set up a specialized Air Surveillance Unit.

The Bulgarian Border Police plays a crucial role in safeguarding EU’s external borders. Its efforts are focused on enhancing the effectiveness of border control and prevention of illegal migration, as an indispensable part of the integrated border management.

The human and technical resources dedicated to border control are conditioned by the intensity and profile of travelers’ flow, assessment of threats and risk analysis. The Bulgarian Border Police deploys adequate infrastructure, equipment and modern technical devices in its efforts to combat illegal migration, trafficking in human beings and cross-border crime.