Social Worker CPD Requirements in Bulgaria

Social Workers in Bulgaria follow a CPD-based model rather than a fixed hour total. Social work is NOT an individually licensed/registered profession in Bulgaria as of July 2026, and there is no statutory personal CPD mandate for social workers. Entry is via higher-education qualification; there is no professional chamber, no protected individual title, and no individual continuing-education/renewal requirement. The Social Services Act (Закон за социалните услуги, in force 1 July 2020) and its quality standards place obligations on social-service PROVIDERS — including ensuring supervision and ongoing training/professional development of staff — but these are employer/provider quality obligations, not an individual licence-linked CPD requirement with a defined hour total. A voluntary Bulgarian Association of Social Workers exists but is not a statutory regulator. No statutory hour total or cycle applies to the individual.

Bulgaria does not mandate specific CE subjects for Social Worker beyond the general requirement — any board-approved continuing education generally counts. Always confirm with the regulator.

Generally yes — Bulgaria does not require live or interactive hours for Social Worker, so approved online / home-study CE can typically satisfy the requirement. Home-study note: N/A — no statutory individual CPD requirement.

The key distinction is provider-level vs individual-level regulation: Bulgaria regulates and licenses social-service organisations and mandates that they provide supervision and staff development, but it does not license, register, or impose CPD hours on individual social workers. Confidence medium: the absence of an individual licensing/CPD regime is well supported by the structure of Bulgarian social-services law, but exact provider-side training/supervision requirements are set in secondary quality standards rather than as personal CPD hours.