"You don't need an Oscar to get a visa to the US." This is the slogan of the new information campaign of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) called Viza Academy. The face of the campaign is the Oscar-nominated actress Maria Bakalova, while the idea is to stimulate many people to apply for US visas in order to reduce the total number of refusals and thus Bulgaria to get on the US visa-free list.
In order to get into this list, the percentage of refused visas for Bulgarians has to go below 3%. In 2024, this percentage was twice as high - 6%. But the task is not as difficult as it sounds. According to the US State Department, in 2023, the number of B-tier tourist visas denied to Bulgarians was twice as high at 11.6%.
The MFA initiative is aimed at Bulgarians wishing to apply for U.S. B-1 and B-2 visas for business and tourism, and provides detailed information on the application process.
Bulgaria and Cyprus are the only EU member states that are not part of the US visa waiver programme. In November, it was announced that visas for Romanian citizens will be waived as of 2025, following a successful campaign that reduced refusals in 2024 to 2.6%.
Campaign for the common good
The goal of the Viza Academy campaign is to encourage Bulgarians to apply for visas to the US by helping them with information about the application process so that refusals decrease. Beyond the commercials, the basis is an online platform with tips on the types of visas, how to interview at the US embassy, the documents required, prices, the duration of the procedure and more. The logic of the campaign is that the more people apply the right way and are approved for visas to the US, the more the refusal rate will drop and thus Bulgaria will be able to enter the visa waiver program.
The Viza Academy campaign is an initiative of the MFA, which announced a public procurement worth BGN 333,000 in September 2024. It includes the development and implementation of a comprehensive communication strategy and campaign across all media channels on how Bulgarian citizens should apply for visas to the US. The main target audience of the campaign is people up to 40 years of age, as well as stakeholders relevant to the US visa application process and conditions, representatives of Bulgarian communities and visa applicants from abroad.
Two companies submitted bids - the communications agency APRA and the company Intermediate Station, owned by producers Andrei Arnaudov and Ivan Hristov, which has been offering full-service communications services for the past year. The five-member committee's overall score selected Intermediate Station as the contractor for the contract, with a total of 93.8 points out of 100, compared to 55.9 out of 100 for APRA.
The Viza Academy campaign and information platform were launched in mid-December, with results to be revealed next year. Typically, at the end of each year, the US State Department publishes official data on the visa refusal rate for each country, which is used to determine new Visa Waiver Program members.
The Romanian example
An informed visa application campaign is nothing new. Among the most recent examples is Romania, which launched the Qualify Romania in the Visa Waiver Program campaign in July of last year. It targeted people with expired visas to renew them, ensuring minimal refusals. This approach brought the rate down to 2.6% (from 8.8% a year earlier) and, as a result, Romanian citizens will no longer require visas to enter the United States starting in 2025.
"You don't need an Oscar to get a visa to the US." This is the slogan of the new information campaign of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) called Viza Academy. The face of the campaign is the Oscar-nominated actress Maria Bakalova, while the idea is to stimulate many people to apply for US visas in order to reduce the total number of refusals and thus Bulgaria to get on the US visa-free list.
In order to get into this list, the percentage of refused visas for Bulgarians has to go below 3%. In 2024, this percentage was twice as high - 6%. But the task is not as difficult as it sounds. According to the US State Department, in 2023, the number of B-tier tourist visas denied to Bulgarians was twice as high at 11.6%.
