Average salary in Bulgaria by district: average and district median, against Europe
Average gross wages for each of Bulgaria's 28 districts since 2020, with the median district, in euro, alongside the same figures for 16 European countries back to 1975. Compare nominal pay, purchasing-power-adjusted pay, and inflation-adjusted real pay side by side, built from National Statistical Institute and Eurostat series.
Open the wage explorer Free, no sign-up. The tool has a full English mode; province names stay in Bulgarian, because they are the data keys.How it works
Three steps from a district to a European comparison.
Pick a district or a country
Choose any of Bulgaria's 28 districts for the 2020-2026 series, or one of 16 European countries for the longer 1975-2025 comparison, nominal or purchasing-power-adjusted.
Read the average and the median of the districts side by side
The average of the districts is pulled upward by a few high-wage districts; the median district is not. Both are shown together, along with the quarterly breakdown behind each year's figure.
Switch the lens: nominal, PPS or real
Toggle between the euro amount on paper, the purchasing-power-standard figure that adjusts for local prices, and the inflation-adjusted value in constant 2025 prices.
Three ways to read the same wage
Each view answers a different question about the same number.
Built to avoid the comparisons that mislead
A wage number is only useful once you know exactly what it is measuring.
Average and median, side by side
The average of the districts is dragged upward by a few high-wage districts; the median is the district in the middle when all 28 are lined up. Both are shown so the gap between them is visible, not hidden.
28 districts against 16 countries
The district series runs 2020 to 2026, because the National Statistical Institute does not publish it further back; the European series runs 1975 to 2025 for the 16 countries this Eurostat dataset covers.
Euro throughout, one fixed rate
Every pre-2026 figure is converted at Bulgaria's statutory currency-board peg of 1.95583 leva to the euro, held since 1997, not a market rate that would make older years incomparable.
Nominal, PPS and real, kept separate
Purchasing-power-standard and inflation-adjusted real values correct for different things; the tool never blends them, and the real series uses 2025 as its base year throughout.
The average and the median of the districts are two different numbers
Picking the wrong one changes the story a wage figure tells.
| Average | Median | |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | The arithmetic mean of the average gross wages of the 28 districts | The district in the middle when all 28 are lined up |
| Pulled up by high-wage districts? | Yes, a few high-wage districts such as Sofia City pull it up | No, the middle district does not move with the extremes |
| 28 districts, 2026 (part year) | 1,122.5 EUR | 1,081.0 EUR |
| Best used for | Comparing the level of wages across years | Seeing where a typical district stands, apart from the few strongest |
The gap between the two, roughly 4% in 2026 so far, shows how far the strongest districts sit from the rest. Both figures describe districts, not individual workers; the median wage of individual workers is a different number and is not shown here. The tool shows both rather than picking one and hiding the other.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the wage data come from?
The district series comes from the National Statistical Institute's Labour_1.1.2.2_EUR table, covering 2020 to 2026 across Bulgaria's 28 districts. The European comparison comes from two Eurostat series: nama_10_lp_ulc / D1_SAL_PER for wages since 1975, and prc_hicp_aind for the inflation index used in the real, inflation-adjusted figures.
Why does the district data only go back to 2020 while the European data goes back to 1975?
Because that is what each source actually publishes. The National Statistical Institute's district-level series in this particular table starts in 2020; going further back would mean switching to a different, less comparable series. The Eurostat wage series used for the European comparison happens to extend back to 1975 for the countries it covers.
What is the difference between the nominal, PPS and real figures?
Nominal is the euro amount as reported. Purchasing-power standard (PPS) restates it to account for how far that money stretches in each country's local prices, using an EU-wide 2020 baseline. Real, inflation-adjusted figures restate the nominal euro amount into constant 2025 prices using the Eurostat HICP index. PPS and real corrections are never combined, because they adjust for two different things.
Is the Eurostat wage figure the same as take-home pay?
No. The Eurostat series used for the European comparison measures the employer's total labour cost per employee, which includes the employer's share of social security contributions, so it is larger than the amount that lands in a payslip. The district-level National Statistical Institute figures follow the same broader definition, not net pay.
Why is Bulgaria's real, inflation-adjusted series shorter than its nominal one?
The real series starts in 1997 rather than 1975 because Eurostat's harmonised inflation index (HICP) for Bulgaria does not exist for years before that, not because wages were zero. The nominal, non-adjusted euro figures are available for the full 1975-2025 range for the countries this dataset covers.
Can I see wages broken down by profession or job title?
No, and this is a genuine gap rather than an oversight: wage-by-profession data comes only from a four-yearly EU structural survey, and the last one published for Bulgaria in Eurostat's database dates to 2018. Until a newer wave is published, no reliable up-to-date breakdown by occupation exists to show.
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