Average salary in Bulgaria 2026 and what loan it allows

The average salary in Sofia and by region

Sofia (the capital) is first with €1,943 gross, 8.9% more than a year earlier. Sofia Province follows with €1,363 and Varna with €1,360. The lowest average salary is in Blagoevgrad: €1,012.

Average gross monthly salary of employees under employment and civil-service relationships, Q2 2026, preliminary data of the National Statistical Institute (NSI), scale from 0 to €2,000. All 28 regions are in the table below and in the CSV file.

Salaries in the private sector are growing faster: by 11.5% over the year, against 4.8% in the public sector. The highest average salary by activity is in information and telecommunications (€3,079), the lowest in hotels and restaurants (€918).

What is the average net salary

On an employment contract of €1,444 gross, you take home €1,120.50. The employee pays 13.78% in personal social security contributions, or €199.00, with each contribution rounded separately, as on the payroll. That is 8.78% for pension insurance including the second pension, 1.4% for general sickness and maternity, 0.4% for unemployment and 3.2% as the health insurance contribution. Income tax of 10%, or €124.50, is withheld from the remainder.

In Sofia (capital), €1,943 gross leaves €1,507.72. Civil servants and people employed in the judicial system have different personal contributions from 1 August 2026, so for them the net figure is different. Work out the exact net for your contract in the salary calculator.

What loan the average salary allows

About €15,800 over 5 years if the monthly payment is one third of the net salary and you have no other loans. We calculate with the average interest rate of 14.81% on new bank consumer loans with a term of over 1 and up to 5 years in September 2026 (BNB). The monthly payment is about €374, and in Sofia the same calculation comes to about €21,210.

Gross: NSI, second quarter of 2026. Net, payment and loan: our calculation for an employment contract, with a payment of one third of net pay, 60 equal payments at an interest rate of 14.81% a year, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) average for new consumer loans with a term of over 1 and up to 5 years, September 2026, without fees. At an APR of 15.17% for the same term, which also includes fees, the amounts are about 0.8% smaller.

One third is our assumption. There is no legal limit on the payment for a consumer loan: the lender must assess whether you can pay (Art. 16 of the Consumer Credit Act) and decides for itself how much to lend you.

The average salary and yours

The average is the arithmetic mean: a few very high salaries pull it up. So for a loan, calculate with your own net salary. The bank looks at your income and the payments you already make, not at the average for the region.

Every current payment is deducted from the same one third. With an average salary and an existing payment of €150, about €224 a month remains for the new loan, that is, about €9,400 over 5 years instead of €15,800.

Applicants ask for much less than their salary allows. Across 36,056 CREDiPORT applications over the last three years, the usual amount requested is about two months' salary: see how much credit people ask for relative to their salary. How much your own income allows, work out in the How much can I borrow calculator.

Sources: NSI, “Employees and average wage, second quarter 2026”, 12 August 2026, and the publications of the territorial statistical offices for the provinces; NSI, release calendar; Social Insurance Code, Art. 6 and Art. 157; State Social Insurance Budget Act for 2026 and NHIF Budget Act for 2026 (State Gazette No. 68 of 28 July 2026); Personal Income Tax Act; BNB, interest rate statistics for September 2026 (27 October 2026); Consumer Credit Act, Art. 16. More data: salary and loan amount · interest rates on consumer loans · all data.