ЕU Digital COVID certificates for fully vaccinated citizens to be valid for 270 days

As of, February 1, 2022 all the ЕU Digital COVID certificates for completed vaccination course will be valid 270 days from the date of the last dose. The change is due to Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/2301 of 21 December 21, 2021, which specifies the validity of certificates and introduces uniform rules for all EU countries. The change concerns the issued certificates for completed vaccination course, with both single-dose and two-dose COVID vaccines, which are approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Until now, the validity of the certificates was 365 days.

The already issued ЕU Digital COVID certificates for completed vaccination course will continue be valid in the EU with the new deadlines. They don’t need to be re-issued. Their validity will be monitored through the created for this purpose mobile applications with implemented business rules. The official Bulgarian validator is COVID CHECK BG.

So far, the system built by Information Services under a contract with Bulgarian Ministry of Health, has generated 1,970 million certificates for completed vaccination course with EMA-approved vaccines. Nearly 1.5 million of them are certificates for a two-dose vaccine.

The European Commission adopts new rules for designation boosters at Janssen single-dose vaccines. According to the new requirements, the booster dose will be marked in the digital certificate as "2/1". This requires reissuing of all the documents. Nearly 22,000 Janssen booster dose certificates have been generated so far. All the citizens who got a single-dose vaccine and after that got a booster dose may download the new ЕU Digital COVID certificates according to the new model at the National Health Information System (NHIS) Internet portal https://www.his.bg/bg/dgc as of February 1, 2022. They must enter the PIN, ID card number and National Reference Number (NRN) of one of the given doses or the previous certificate number.