Thousands of Interior Ministry employees combine salary and pension

07.07.2026 | Bulgaria

Over 7,000 working pensioners are on the payroll of the Ministry of Interior. Some of them do not meet the requirements for the position, data from the National Social Security Institute show.

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More than 7,000 employees in the Ministry of Interior system receive both a salary and a pension. This is shown by an official report from the National Social Security Institute (NSSI), cited by "Sega".

The share of working pensioners exceeds 14% of the total staff of the interior ministry, which amounts to about 51,000 people. Of them, 5,175 are employed as police officers, firefighters, and investigators.

Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev defended the presence of this group of employees, describing them as "irreplaceable," without specifying which positions he was referring to.

At the same time, the data indicate that over 2,600 of them do not meet the established regulatory requirements, which, according to the current rules, implies incompatibility with the positions held.