The Bulgarian Gendarmerie forms part of the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior and the country’s General Directorate of Gendarmerie, Special Operations and Counterterrorism.
It is a special police force with military training, deployed to secure important facilities and buildings, respond to riots, and counter militant threats. Its agents are trained to operate in urban and wilderness environments, carrying out a wide range of duties. The Gendarmerie was intended as an intermediate force between the army and the police with military status. The Gendarmerie originated from the Internal troops of the MIA after the transition from a socialist regime to democracy between 1989 and 1991. It was organised as the “National Gendarmerie Service,” equal in status and independent from the National Police Service.
Following the 2012 reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Gendarmerie was disbanded and its personnel and equipment were absorbed into the Police, with the name changing from ‘Gendarmerie’ to ‘Specialised Police Forces’ (Bulgarian: Spezializirani policijski sili), which could be seen on some of the daily attire of its service members. The name was changed back to ‘Gendarmerie’ in 2014, but the service did not regain its separate status and remained part of the Main Directorate of National Police. As of 2023, it is part of the General Directorate ‘Gendarmerie, Special Operations and Counterterrorism’, which is under the remit of the Ministry of the Interior.
Service members had military-style ranks ranging from sergeant to colonel, a system not used by other Bulgarian police forces. The overall commander of the force was usually a major general.
Current structure
Following the latest reform of the service, its members transferred to the uniform ranking system of the police, meaning they no longer held military-style ranks. The Gendarmerie is headed by a director with the rank of senior commissioner (equivalent to a two-star general), who is assisted by a deputy director with the rank of commissioner (equivalent to an army colonel).Central apparatus:
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- Administrative and Training Sector
- Sector for Protection of Banking and High Security Institutions
- Sector for Organization of Protective Measures
- Commandature Sector
Territorial organization. Each zone department is headed by a chief inspector (lieutenant-colonel equivalent). The only exception is the ZGD Sofia, as it manpower almost equals the other seven ZGDs combined and is therefore headed by a commissar (a colonel equivalent).
The Gendarmerie units are a high-readiness operational reserve of the Bulgarian police, held centrally under the command of the General Directorate “Gendarmerie, Special Operations and Counterterrorism” . Each of the provincial directorates of the National Police has a similarly equipped and tasked Specialised Police Forces unit and these number from over 530 (in Sofia’s metropolitan police department SDVR) to as few as a squad of less than 10 people in most provincial ODMVR departments. These units are visually similar to the Gendarmerie and function in a similar manner, but locally for their respective territorial departments.
In 2020, the government proposed a reform plan calling for the integration of the Ministry’s primary counter-terrorism unit, the SOBT, and the Gendarmerie Directorate into a new General Directorate of Gendarmerie, Special Operations and Counterterrorism. The plan was met with serious criticism from within the Ministry of the Interior, as well as from political parties, security experts, public order experts and counter-terrorism experts, but was nevertheless implemented.
Since 2020, the Gendarmerie has formed part of the General Directorate of Gendarmerie, Special Operations and Counterterrorism alongside the SOBT.
Updated, February 2026.
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