Radio and Television Act (ZRT), Arts. 17a and 19d, Protection of Minors and Video-Sharing Platform Age Verification
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
In force since 22 December 2020.
An adult content age verification (AV) rule binding private bodies.
As of 6 September 2026.
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
A media service provider must not create or distribute programs that could harm a child's physical, psychological, moral or social development, per Article 17a(1). The Council for Electronic Media adopts a Code of Conduct with providers, including the public broadcasters BNT and BNR, prescribing measures such as scheduling, age-verification tools and encoding to assess, label and restrict access to harmful programs, per Article 17a(3) and (4).
Since the 2020 transposition of the amended AVMSD, a video-sharing platform provider must take appropriate measures, including age-verification systems, to protect children from user-generated videos and audio-visual commercial communications that could harm their development, alongside signalling, parental-control, and media-literacy measures, per Article 19d. A media service provider that violates Article 17a(1) is subject to a property sanction of BGN 15,000 to 30,000, doubled on a repeat violation.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureNo
Penalty structure
Article 126(4) sets a property sanction of BGN 15,000 to 30,000 for a media service provider's violation of Article 17a(1); Article 126(6) doubles the sanction on a repeat violation. No separate fixed penalty specific to a video-sharing platform provider's Article 19d obligations was located in the text reviewed.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- 6 September 2026
- Currency
- BGN
- Fixed cap
- 30,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Savet za elektronni medii (Council for Electronic Media), Bulgaria's independent regulator for media services and video-sharing platforms.
What it reaches
Obligation class
Age verification, Content labelling
When LexLint raises it
publishes_adult_contentoperates_social_platformserves_minors