The Principality of Bulgaria established its navy soon after its creation, in 1879, to operate on the Danube river and the Black Sea, but the young country could spend only limited resources on warships.

The navy's greatest combat feat was a torpedo attack against an Ottoman cruiser during the First Balkan War that forced the ship to retreat.

In the aftermath of World War II, the People's Republic of Bulgaria was a part of the Eastern Bloc and the navy was reorganized and supplied with Soviet-made equipment.

After the fall of the Soviet Union and Bulgaria's communist regime, all Bulgarian armed forces fell in decline due to their reduced relevance, and the economic crisis of the 1990s limited the resources that could be set aside for their modernization.

Since the 1940s, the Bulgarian Navy has two main bases, each near one of the two major commercial port cities in the country - Varna and Burgas (by the village of Atia).

[9] The operation, lasting between 7 and 16 October 1941, was largely successful, as despite the loss of the Romanian auxiliary minelayer Regele Carol I to a Soviet mine,[10] the five minefields laid by the Romanian minelayers along the Bulgarian coast are credited with the sinking of four Soviet submarines: S-34, L-24, Shch-211 and Shch-210, although the latter could have also been sunk by German aircraft or depth-charged by the Bulgarian patrol boats Belomorets and Chernomorets.

The merchant marine, which was to mobilize in wartime in support of the regular navy was called Bulgarian Sea Fleet (Български морски флот, БМФ).

With the restoration of freedom from the Warsaw Pact entanglement, it became a member of NATO in 2004,[15] and after several years of reforms, it joined the European Union and the single market in 2007, despite EU concerns over government corruption.

Between 2011 and 2020 the naval "Longterm Investment Plan" should come into action, providing the sea arm of the Bulgarian military with modernised ships and new equipment.

The boats will be built by the Bulgarian MTG Dolphin shipyard in Varna and delivered in 2025 and 2026 with the 984M lev (approximately €503M) price also including training.

On 9 June 2017 during a training mission of artillery fire against surface targets as a part of the "Black Sea-2017" exercise of the Bulgarian Navy, a Panther helicopter crashed in the water, killing the commander and injuring the other two officers on board.

According to the Ministry of Defence and Navy officials his actions have directly contributed to the saving of the other two officers on board with only minor injuries, for his efforts he has been posthumously promoted to Major.