The number of foreign students studying at Bulgarian public and private higher education institutions rose to 17,889 in the 2025/2026 academic year, according to Bulgaria’s Ministry of Education and Science.

The Ministry noted that 7,034 students come from 26 EU countries, while 10,855 come from 99 non-EU countries, representing 125 countries in total. The number is 894 higher than in 2025, an increase of more than 5%, and is 24% higher than in 2017/2018, when there were 14,411 foreign students.

Medicine is by far the most popular field, with 7,861 foreign students studying medicine and another 1,694 studying dentistry. The government is implementing measures, including a new national programme, to attract more international students.