The problem of detecting the bifurcation set of polynomial mappings C m → C k , m 2, m k 1, has been solved in the case m = 2, k = 1 only. Its solution, which goes back to the 1970s, involves the non-constancy of the Euler characteristic of fibers. We provide here a complete answer to the general case m = k + 1 3 in terms of the Betti numbers of fibers and of a vanishing phenomenon discovered in the late 1990s in the real setting.