Directorate General Civil Registration and Administrative Services

Acting Director General: Desislava Stoicheva
E-mail: dstoycheva@grao.government.bgE-mail: office@grao.government.bg

Functions:

1. Assists the Minister in carrying out the methodological guidance and control of the activities related to the civil registration;
2. Prepare opinions, suggestions and answers on issues related to civil registration;
3. Prepares and participates in the development of draft regulations related to civil registration;
4. Provides methodological assistance to municipalities in connection with the creation and maintenance of civil status records, the National Electronic Register of Civil Status Records and the Population Register;
5. Organizes the processes of integration of the registers maintained at national level with other information systems;
6. Manages and organizes the development of the information system for civil registration;
7. Manages the operational maintenance of registers at national level;
8. Provides and maintains the software of the Local Population Database (LBD) and the Regional Population Database (RDB) used at regional and municipal level;
9. Organises and manages the refuelling and recharging activities of the Population LSD and Population RDB from the National Population Database (Population NDB);
10. Provides and maintains the applied program tools for maintaining the registers at national level;
11. Maintains the Register of Unitary Civil Numbers;
12. Supports the National Classification of Permanent and Current Addresses;
13. Provides data to natural and legal persons in accordance with the regulatory provisions;
14. Performs activities related to the provision of access to the NBS Population;
15. Carries out activities on the protection of personal data contained in the registers maintained at national and regional level;
16. Carries out activities related to the preparation and holding of elections, referenda, citizens' initiatives and general meetings;
17. Proposes and supports the conduct of procedures under the Law on the Administrative-Territorial Structure of the Republic of Bulgaria;
18. Organizes the development, monitoring and updating of the categorization of the administrative-territorial and territorial units in the country;
19. Collects, maintains and analyzes information about administrative-territorial changes;
20. Supports the maintenance and updating of the Unified Classifier of Administrative-Territorial and Territorial Units and the National Register of Settlements;
21. Carries out the activities of creating, maintaining and storing a register of agglomerations under the Environmental Noise Protection Act;
22. Organizes the development of strategic and programmatic documents in the field of decentralization of government and coordinates their discussion and coordination;
23. Performs the functions of the Secretariat of the Council for Decentralization of the State Government;
24. Initiates, coordinates and participates in various projects and programs in the field of development of local self-government and inter-municipal cooperation;
25. Participates in the regular sessions of bodies and working groups of the Council of Europe and coordinates the relationship between the institutions of the Council of Europe and the local and regional authorities in the Republic of Bulgaria;
26. Supports the conduct of a procedure for determining the composition of the Bulgarian representatives in the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and in the Committee of the Regions to the European Union;
27. Organizes and coordinates the implementation of the Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance at local level of the Council of Europe and the participation of the Bulgarian municipalities;
28. Serves as the Secretariat of the National Platform of Partners for Good Democratic Governance at Local Level.

The GRAO Directorate-General has territorial units in the administrative centres of the districts into which the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria is divided.
Territorial units "GRAO":

1. Methodologically manage and control the activities related to the civil registration;
2. Organizes and is responsible for the daily receipt of update files from municipalities;
3. Bring together and send daily the information to update the registers at national level;
4. Perform visual control of the processed revision documents;
5. Carry out activities for assigning and changing a personal identification number and issue certificates for a correct personal identification number on the basis of a request from the municipal administration;
6. Methodologically support and control the activities of municipal administrations in updating the Population LSD;
7. Maintain regional population databases at district level;
8. Receiving, distributing and sending information for updating the Population LBBS;
9. Perform activities for updating the National Classifier of permanent and current addresses;
10. Prepare replies to received letters from municipalities, state authorities and institutions in the field on issues of civil registration;
11. They carry out activities related to the preparation and holding of elections, referenda, citizens' initiatives and general meetings.