House prices: Bulgaria posts the EU's second-highest increase

Residential property in Bulgaria keeps getting more expensive much faster than the EU average. According to the house price index of the EU statistics office Eurostat (published on 1 October 2026), prices in the second quarter of 2026 were 15.5 percent higher than a year earlier. That was the second-highest increase in the EU, behind Portugal at 16.5 percent and ahead of Lithuania at 14.3 percent. Compared with the first quarter of 2026, prices in Bulgaria rose 4.5 percent – again, only Lithuania was higher, at 5.0 percent.

For comparison: across the EU, house prices rose 4.7 percent within a year according to Eurostat, and 4.0 percent in the euro area. In Germany, the increase was just 0.6 percent year on year and 0.3 percent quarter on quarter. Prices fell year on year only in Finland (down 2.7 percent), Luxembourg (down 2.2 percent) and France (down 0.8 percent). Prices in Bulgaria thus rose more than three times as fast as the EU average.

In a separate analysis, Eurostat compares the second quarter of 2026 with the 2025 annual average. On that measure, Bulgaria even tops the EU with an increase of 14.3 percent, just ahead of Portugal at 14.2 percent. Rents across the EU rose 3.0 percent within a year; this publication gives no figure for Bulgaria. Eurostat plans to release the next data, for the third quarter, on 11 January 2027.