Budget plan in Brussels: Bulgaria wants €800 million windfall levy
Sofia has submitted its first budget plan as a euro member: a 4.3 percent deficit in 2027, a one-off levy on windfall profits and debt rising to 47.1 billion euros.
Symbolic image · Photo: FrDr / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Bulgaria on Thursday submitted its draft budgetary plan for 2027 to the European Commission and the Eurogroup on schedule. It is the country's first such plan as a full member of the euro area, which it joined on 1 January 2026. The deficit is to fall to 4.3 percent of GDP in 2027, after an expected 5 percent or so this year. The 2026 budget had originally assumed 5.4 percent; the improvement is mainly due to revised Defence Ministry spending estimates.
On the revenue side, the government plans a one-off levy on windfall profits in selected sectors in 2027, indicatively worth 800 million euros. The ceiling on insurable income rises to 2,400 euros from January, expected to bring in around 265 million euros; higher minimum contribution thresholds are to add almost 197 million euros. State-owned companies are to pay an interim dividend of 50 percent of their half-year profit, and online gambling operators a minimum of 100,000 euros a month.
On the spending side, pensions are to rise by about 8 percent, public-sector pay by 5 percent and teachers' salaries by 7.5 percent. Public debt is set to grow from 40.6 billion euros at the end of 2026 to 47.1 billion euros at the end of 2027 – from about 31.1 to 33.3 percent of GDP. Sofia aims to end the excessive deficit procedure the EU opened in July by 2029, when the deficit is to be below 3 percent.