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 exercising methodological guidance and control over activities related to civil registration.
2. Prepares opinions, proposals and responses on matters related to civil registration.
3. Prepares and participates in the drafting of legislative and regulatory acts related to civil registration.
4. Provides methodological assistance to municipalities regarding the creation and maintenance of the Civil Status Registers, the National Electronic Civil Status Register, and the Population Register.
5. Organises the integration of nationally maintained registers with other information systems.
6. Directs and coordinates the development of the civil registration information system.
7. Oversees the operational maintenance of registers at national level.
8. Provides and maintains the software applications of the Local Population Database (LPD Population) and the Regional Population Database (RPD Population) used at municipal and regional level.
9. Organises and manages the loading and reloading of data from the National Population Database (NPD Population) into the Local Population Database (LPD Population) and the Regional Population Database (RPD Population).
10. Provides and maintains the application software used for maintaining national-level registers.
11. Maintains the Register of Unique Civil Numbers (UCN).
12. Maintains the National Classifier of Permanent and Current Addresses.
13. Provides data to natural and legal persons in accordance with the applicable legal provisions.
14. Carries out activities related to granting access to the National Population Database (NPD Population).
15. Implements measures for the protection of personal data contained in registers maintained at national and regional level.
16. Performs activities related to the preparation and conduct of elections, referendums, citizens’ initiatives and general assemblies.

The General Directorate “Civil Registration and Administrative Services” (GRAO) has territorial units located in the administrative centres of the regions into which the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria is divided.

The GRAO Territorial Units:
1. Provide methodological guidance and exercise control over activities related to civil registration.
2. Organise and are responsible for the daily receipt of update files from municipalities.
3. Consolidate and transmit daily information for updating the registers maintained at national level.
4. Perform visual verification of processed update documents.
5. Carry out activities related to the assignment and modification of the Unique Civil Number (UCN) and issue certificates confirming the correctness of a UCN upon request from municipal administrations.
6. Provide methodological support to, and exercise control over, the activities of municipal administrations related to the updating of the Local Population Database (LPD Population).
7. Maintain the Regional Population Databases (RPD Population) at regional level.
8. Receive, distribute and transmit information for updating the Local Population Database (LPD Population).
9. Carry out activities related to updating the National Classifier of Permanent and Current Addresses.
10. Prepare responses to correspondence received from municipalities, state authorities and institutions within the respective region on matters related to civil registration.
11. Perform activities related to the preparation and conduct of elections, referendums, citizens’ initiatives and general assemblies.