Bulgaria has 145 fewer foster families than less than two years ago, the National Association for Foster Care (NAPG) said on 25 October, Foster Parent and Foster Care Day. At the end of September 2026 there were 1,576 approved families, and 329 of them had no child placed with them.

At the end of 2024 there were 1,721 approved families, and a year later 1,629. Their number fell by 8.4% in September.

Two years ago 110 new families were approved. In 2025 the figure was nearly a third lower. In September alone, 13 families were struck off the register and 4 were approved.

There are 1,420 children in foster care, 98 fewer than at the end of last year. Since the start of the year, 119 applications have been filed for professional foster care and none for voluntary foster care.

NAPG says the gaps between regions are wide. Averaged over January 2024 to September 2026, 66% of foster families in Targovishte had no child, as did 44% in Kardzhali, 35% in Gabrovo and 32% in Yambol. In Sofia city and Pleven the share is about 9%, while Sofia region has only 28 foster families.

At the end of 2024, 2,807 children and young people lived in family-type residential centres (CNST), against 1,483 children in foster families. At the end of 2025, 2,967 were in CNST and transitional housing combined, against 1,518 children in foster families.

The association says some of the children in the centres could grow up in foster families if suitable parents are found and given the help they need. Placing a child in another region is often hard because there is no free social worker, car or money for the trip. As a result, a child stays in a CNST even though a family elsewhere could take them in.

NAPG wants keeping foster parents to be as important as recruiting new ones. It says specialists across the country should be able to see which families are free, what experience they have, whether they can take siblings, a teenager or a child with a disability, and what support they need. The Social Assistance Agency already keeps an electronic database by region. The association proposes making it a shared tool with up-to-date information, open to authorised specialists for their work.

If no suitable family is found locally, a national search should start. For planned placements, NAPG wants a first answer on the options within five working days, with preparation and getting to know the child based on the child's needs. Teams should discuss cases remotely and share information securely to cut waiting times. When a child is placed in another region, contact with the birth family and important people in the child's life should be arranged, where this is in the child's interest.

NAPG also proposes that the cases of children in CNST be reviewed within six months. For each child, officials would decide whether they can be placed with a foster family and, if not, why. The youngest children would come first, along with those already judged suitable for a foster family.

The national campaign "Accept Me" ("Priemi me") to promote foster care was launched on 6 April. It is part of a project to boost the capacity of Social Assistance Agency staff, funded under the Human Resources Development Programme with money from the European Social Fund Plus.