Bulgaria Emigration and Immigration

Online Sources

 * 1850-1934 Auswandererlisten, 1850-1934 (Hamburg passenger lists)(*) at FamilySearch Catalog - images
 * 1850-1934 Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934 at Ancestry ($) index and images
 * 1855-1924 Hamburg Passenger Lists, Handwritten Indexes, 1855-1934 at Ancestry ($) images
 * Hamburg, Germany Emigrants at Findmypast ($) index
 * 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, at Ancestry - index and images ($)
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at Findmypast - index & images ($)
 * 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for Bulgaria
 * 1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry - free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.

Cultural Groups

 * Die Deutschen in der Dobrudscha : zugleich ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Wanderungen in Osteuropa at FamilySearch Digital Library, e-book. History of the Germans in the Dobrudja, Romania, mainly Tulcea and and Constanţa counties, and partly in Bulgaria.
 * Registers of the Spanish Legation in Sofia, Bulgaria (Registros de la Legación de España en Sofía, Bulgaria)(*) at FamilySearch Catalog - images
 * Registers of the Consulate of Spain in Rustchuk, Bulgaria (Registros del Consulado de España en Rustchuk, Bulgaria)(*) at FamilySearch Catalog - images; passports and identity cards

British Overseas Subjects

 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Bulgaria at Findmypast - index and images ($)


 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Bulgaria at Findmypast - index and images ($)


 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, Bulgaria at Findmypast - index and images ($)

Finding the Town of Origin in Bulgaria
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Bulgaria, see Bulgaria Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Bulgaria Emigration and Immigration
"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country. Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Immigration into Bulgaria
As of 2019, Bulgarians are the main ethnic group and constitute 84.8% of the population. Turkish and Roma minorities account for 8.8 and 4.9%, respectively; some 40 smaller minorities account for 0.7%, and 0.8% do not self-identify with an ethnic group. These ethnic groups are not necessarily immigrants, but lived in the region for centuries.

Eastern Rumelia

 * Eastern Rumelia was an autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire created in 1878. It ended in 1885, when it was united with the Principality of Bulgaria. Ethnic Bulgarians formed a majority of the population in Eastern Rumelia, but there were significant Turkish and Greek minorities.
 * There is little information on the actual population numbers of the different ethnic groups in Eastern Rumelia (now in Bulbaria) before 1878.
 * According to a British report before the 1877–1878 war, the non-Muslim population (consisting mostly of Bulgarians) of Eastern Rumelia (now part of Bulgaria) was about 60%, a proportion that grew due to the flight and emigration of Muslims during and after the war.
 * The 1878 census show a population of 815,946 people- 573,231 Bulgarians (70.29%), 174,759 Muslims (21.43%), 42,516 Greeks (5.21%), 19,524 Roma (Gypsies), 4,177 Jews, and 1,306 Armenians.
 * The Greek inhabitants of Eastern Rumelia were concentrated on the coast, where they were strong in numbers, and certain cities in the interior such as Plovdiv (known in Greek as Philippopolis), where they formed a substantial minority.
 * Most of the Greek population of the region was exchanged with Bulgarians from the Greek provinces of Macedonia and Thrace in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars and World War I.
 * Eastern Rumelia was also inhabited by foreign nationals, most notably Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians, French people and Italians.

Emigration From Bulgaria
An estimated three million ethnic Bulgarians are dispersed around the world, the majority in Europe such as in neighboring nations of Romania, Greece, Serbia, Türkiye and North Macedonia. About 200,000 in the U.S., with 50,000 others in Canada, 20,000 in Australia, and 20,000 in Brazil. Other large Bulgarian diaspora communities are in France, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Italy, Russia and the United Kingdom.

Internal Migration
Percentage of ethnic Bulgarians born in a different municipality calculated from the total of the ethnic Bulgarians according to the 1910 census.

For Further Reading
There are additional sources listed in the FamilySearch Catalog: