Bulgaria

Economy & income

Currency

• Euro (EUR, €) — adopted 1 Jan 2026, replaced the lev (BGN) at the fixed rate 1.95583 BGN/€
• ~€0.88 per USD ($1.14 per €) (Jul 2026)

GDP per capita

~$20,900 nominal (2025, IMF); ~$40,000 PPP (2025, IMF)

Average salary

• ~$1,155 net/mo (Numbeo, Jul 2026; €1,013)
• gross ~$1,485/mo (NSI Q3 2025, BGN 2,549 ≈ €1,303)

Median salary

~$1,075/mo (≈€945 / BGN 1,850; est. from NSI/Eurostat, 2025)

Minimum wage

• €620.20/mo (~$707) from 1 Jan 2026 — first ever set in euro, +12.6% YoY
• min hourly €3.74

Cost of living

• Low–Medium (low by EU standards) — ~39.7% cheaper than the US
• single person ~$700/mo excl. rent (Numbeo, Jul 2026)

Digital landscape

Population

6.74 million (Jan 2025)

Internet users

87.1% (~5.86M users)

Social media users

64.9% (~4.37M identities; adults 18+ 70.4%)

Mobile connections

9.25M connections = 137% of population

Devices

mobile ~58.4% / desktop ~40.9% / tablet ~0.7% (StatCounter, Jun 2026)

Ad spend

• ~$472M total ad market (2025, Statista)
• digital ~$226M (~48%, 2025 est.)

Top social platforms

YouTube ~4.37M, 64.9%

Facebook ~3.50M, 52.0%

Messenger ~2.85M, 42.3%

TikTok ~2.28M 18+, ~41% of adults

Instagram ~1.75M, 26.0%

LinkedIn ~1.50M, 22.3%

Messengers

• Viber (the dominant #1 messenger in Bulgaria)
• Facebook Messenger (~2.85M)
• WhatsApp (~1.2M)
• Telegram (~0.35M)

Payments & behaviour

Payment methods

• Debit/credit cards — Visa, Mastercard, Maestro (dominant online)
• Cash on Delivery (~55% of orders, declining)
• Bank transfer (instant SEPA post-euro)
• ePay.bg / EasyPay
• Revolut

E-wallets

• Revolut
• PayPal
• ePay.bg / EasyPay
• Apple Pay / Google Pay
• Bank apps (DSK Smart, Bulbank Mobile)

Cash on delivery

Still high — ~55% of e-commerce orders are paid cash-on-delivery, but the share is falling as card/digital payments grow, especially outside big cities.

E-commerce

Below EU average — 45.2% of people aged 16–74 bought online in 2025 (EU avg ~70%), but growing.

Notes

• Euro adoption (Jan 2026) enabled instant euro transfers and simpler cross-border sales
• younger shoppers are adopting BNPL and e-wallets. ~77% of adults hold a bank account.

Audience & culture

Languages

• Bulgarian (~85% mother tongue)
• Turkish (~9%)
• Romani (~4%)
• English (widely understood by urban youth)

Religion

• Eastern Orthodox Christian ~71.5% (2021 census, of respondents; ~97% of Christians are Orthodox)
• Muslim ~10.8%
• remainder other/none/undeclared

Median age

44.8 years (DataReportal, Jan 2025) — among the EU's oldest

Key seasons

• Christmas & New Year (Dec–Jan)
• Orthodox Easter (spring)
• Baba Marta / martenitsa (1 Mar)
• Black Sea summer season (Jun–Aug)
• 24 May Culture & Cyrillic Alphabet Day; name days

Cultural notes

• Head gestures are reversed (a nod means no, a shake means yes)
• pop-folk 'chalga' is culturally huge
• audience is price-sensitive and promo/deal-driven with strong trust in COD
• ageing, shrinking population.

Where to find creators

• Instagram
• YouTube
• TikTok
• Facebook

Media landscape

Creators & public figures

Top creators

Celebrities

Grigor Dimitrov ~1.3M Instagram

Pro tennis player (former world No. 3), Bulgaria's biggest sports star

Nina Dobrev ~27M Instagram

Actress (The Vampire Diaries), born in Sofia

Dimitar Berbatov ~0.95M Instagram

Football legend (Man Utd, Tottenham, Bulgaria captain)

Maria Bakalova ~0.42M Instagram

Oscar-nominated actress (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm)

Hristo Stoichkov ~0.33M Instagram

Football legend, 1994 Ballon d'Or winner

A

Azis ~0.85M Instagram

Pop-folk (chalga) superstar and LGBT icon

Affiliate & traffic

Hot verticals

• iGaming (grey/offshore — domestic ad ban)
• Nutra / health & beauty
• Finance & loans
• Dating
• E-commerce / COD goods
• Sweepstakes
• Mobile apps

Active networks

• Admitad
• Awin
• TradeDoubler
• ClickDealer
• Mobidea
• Dr.Cash (nutra)
• eMAG affiliate (local e-commerce)

Payouts

• Tier-2 payouts: gambling ~€40–120 CPA/FTD
• nutra COD ~€8–20
• dating ~€1–4 CPL
• finance ~€3–10 CPL.

Competition

• Moderate — small (~6.7M) market
• the ad market is dominated by two TV groups
• the gambling ad ban pushes iGaming toward affiliate/grey channels.

Seasonality

• Peaks in Q4 (Black Friday, Christmas)
• summer betting around major football tournaments and Black Sea travel
• Orthodox Easter.

Traffic sources

• Facebook & Instagram Ads
• Google / UAC
• TikTok Ads
• Push & native (RichAds, MGID, PropellerAds)
• YouTube
• Viber

Good to know

Capital

Sofia

Major cities

• Sofia (~1.2M)
• Plovdiv (~340K)
• Varna (~330K)
• Burgas (~200K)
• Ruse (~140K)
• Stara Zagora (~135K)

Time zones

Single zone — EET (UTC+2), EEST (UTC+3) during summer DST

Android vs iOS

77% 23%

Android 77% iOS 23%

Phone brands

• Samsung (~34.6%)
• Apple (~23.3%)
• Xiaomi (~15.0%)
• Motorola (~6.3%)
• Huawei (~4.1%)

Top e-commerce

• eMAG.bg
• OLX.bg
• Temu
• Amazon (cross-border)
• Fashion Days
• Technopolis

Peak activity

Weekday evenings ~19:00–23:00 EET (prime), lunch ~12:00–14:00; Sunday evenings strong.

Creative taboos

• Politics/corruption, ethnic minorities (Roma, Turkish), the North Macedonia naming dispute, the communist past, religion
• remember the reversed head-nod
• gambling ads are banned.

Also worth knowing

1. Euro switch (Jan 2026) — prices now in €; consumers are watching closely for rounding/price creep.
2. Viber (not WhatsApp) is the default messenger — a key marketing channel.
3. One of the EU's oldest and fastest-shrinking populations (median age 44.8).
4. The gambling ad ban turns iGaming into an affiliate/grey-traffic vertical.