site.btaHeavy Traffic at Bulgaria’s Kapitan Andreevo Border Crossing Amid Summer Return from Turkiye

Around 290 passenger cars are crossing the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint on the border with Turkiye every hour, with heavy traffic reported on the nine entry lanes into Bulgaria, the Border Police said here Sunday. 

A total of 6,979 cars passed through the checkpoint over the past 24 hours. Between 50 and 60 buses also crossed, processed in a separate lane.

The surge in traffic is linked to the mass return of workers from Turkiye heading back to Western European countries after their summer holidays. At peak times, nearly 10,000 passenger cars have been recorded passing through the checkpoint in a single day. Additional Border Police officers from the regional directorates in Ruse (on the Danube) and Smolyan (South Bulgaria) have been deployed to assist. The traffic peak is expected to continue until early September.

According to Customs Agency data, between 8:00 a.m. Saturday and 8:00 a.m. Sunday, a total of 2,703 freight trucks crossed the checkpoint in both directions.

Earlier this summer, Bulgaria’s Consul General in Edirne, Radoslava Kafedzhiyska, reported that Bulgarian and Turkish authorities had agreed on joint measures to address the challenges of heavy vehicle traffic and increased tourist flows during the summer season.