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Mark Lowen reports from the Romanian capital, Bucharest
All Bulgarian and Romanian citizens will be free to live and work in the UK after temporary controls in place since 2007 expire on Wednesday.
The UK has not released forecasts of migrant numbers but campaigners say up to 50,000 people a year could come.
Immigration minister Mark Harper said curbs on access to benefits would ensure those heading to the UK would contribute to the economy.
Romanian officials have said talk of an "invasion" is far-fetched.
Business leaders in London have said firms will benefit from having "access to a larger labour pool" and have warned that the debate about immigration has become "highly politicised".
Bulgarians and Romanians gained the right to visa-free travel to the UK in 2007, when their countries joined the EU.
But since then, they have been able to work in the UK only if they are self-employed, have a job offer, or are filling specialist posts for which no British worker can be found.
The UK government extended this transitional period, which was due to come to an end in 2012, by a further two years and have insisted that they cannot do so again without breaching their EU Treaty obligations.
However, more than 60 MPs are backing a campaign to extend the restrictions for a further five years, saying the British economy has not sufficiently recovered from the 2008 recession to cope with the change and that it will put pressure on public services and reduce job opportunities for British workers.
Similar work restrictions in place in eight other EU countries also come to an end at the start of 2014.
However, Migration Watch - which campaigns for tighter controls on immigration - has suggested that many of the two million Romanians and Bulgarians currently working in Spain and Italy could now be tempted to come to the UK by the higher wages on offer and access to in-work benefits such as tax credits.
'Lucrative destination'It says the UK remains the "most lucrative destination" for migrants across the EU, and estimates that 50,000 people from Romania and Bulgaria will move to the UK each year for five years.
Analysis
It's a special new year for Romanians and Bulgarians, finally gaining equal rights to work freely across the EU seven years after their accession.
Some, particularly Britain, fear large numbers will come, mindful that a decade ago the government expected 15,000 per year from Eastern Europe but a million and a half came.
No extra flights have been planned from Bucharest but one coach company has tripled services to London.
Many here talk of their hopes of a better life with higher salaries - but nobody knows quite how many will finally leave.
"There's a definite possibility that some will start to shift in this direction," Migration Watch's co-founder, Sir Andrew Green, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
He said the fresh influx threatened to blow government migration targets off course, raising concerns about border controls and bringing Britain's membership of the European Union into question.
The Bulgarian ambassador, however, has previously estimated that only about 8,000 migrants a year from Bulgaria would come to the UK.
The government is tightening the rules to ensure that migrants cannot claim out-of-work benefits for three months after arriving and will only qualify for support after six months if they have a genuine chance of employment.
Overseas visitors and migrants are also to face new charges for some NHS services in England.
"What they're not entitled to do is come to Britain and start taking out of the system before they've paid into it and that's the most important think that people are concerned about," Mr Harper, told the BBC.
He said the changes put into place would ensure that Bulgarian and Romanian migrants would be coming to the UK for the "right reasons, to work and contribute".
Professor John Salt, from University College London, said it was impossible to know what the figures would be but he told the BBC that advance flight bookings from Bulgaria to the UK were lower in the first quarter of 2014 than in 2013.
Positive impactFelicia Buruiana, a Romanian doctor who lives in Oxford and works in Stevenage, said she did not expect the UK would experience a flood of her compatriots.
"I'm quite sure the ones that wanted to come over already did so," she told the BBC.
She said the UK was seen as a tourism destination rather than a source of benefits, with other European countries likely to prove more of a draw for Romanians because of language differences.
"Certainly for people not knowing any foreign language, Spain or Italy or a Latin country would be more attractive," she added.
Dr Buruiana said British people needed to think about the positive impact of immigration.
"If you look at Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK, the vast majority are working and paying taxes."
'Racist remarks'The last Labour government was criticised for hugely under-estimating the levels of migration from Poland and seven other countries in eastern Europe when they joined the EU in 2004 - when no interim controls were imposed.
"Start Quote
End Quote Brandusa Predescu Romanian Foreign Ministry spokesmanNot all Romanians, young and old, are going to jump on a plane"
A Romanian government official accused sections of the British media of inflaming tensions ahead of the deadline.
"We see headlines that sometimes are really close to racist remarks, xenophobic remarks, and the target for now is the Romanian citizen that is supposedly invading Britain," spokeswoman Brandusa Predescu told BBC Radio 5 live.
The UK, she said, was "one of the most multi-cultural, open and tolerant societies in the world" and what she described as a campaign against incomers from her country was a "contradiction in terms and attitudes".
"People in Romania do read the British press," she added.
"There is not going to be an invasion... not all Romanians, young and old, are going to jump on a plane.
"The UK, for now, is not even the preferred destination for Romanians."
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