Published: 2026-07-25
Parliament passed the 2026 budget on 24 July, 125 to 84, with five months left in the year. We test the contested claims against our own data: month-by-month cash execution, the text of every budget law since 2018, and the recorded votes. The 5.7% deficit is partly a choice — but about a third of what the official difference suggests, because the Fiscal Council never accepted that the earlier versions genuinely sat below 3%. And the calendar makes the ceiling hard to reach.
On 24 July 2026, after seven months of operating under a stopgap law, the National Assembly passed the 2026 State Budget Law at second reading — 125 votes in favour, 84 against.[^bta] By the roll-call record all 125 in favour are Progressive Bulgaria's; not a single MP from outside the majority backed the law. The framework survived unchanged from the June submission: a consolidated fiscal programme deficit of 5.7% of GDP, new debt of up to €10.1bn, and a minimum wage frozen at €620.20.
The argument that followed split immediately in two directions. The opposition spoke of a record deficit and of provisions stripped out of the law. The government spoke of inherited spending. This article does not line the quotes up against each other — it tests them against data we maintain ourselves: month-by-month cash execution of the budget since 2021, the text of every budget law since 2018, and the recorded vote of every MP since the 44th National Assembly.[^method] Where a figure is not yet final, it is marked as such.
| Indicator (2026) | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Deficit, consolidated (КФП) | 5.7% of GDP · €7,191.9M | → 3.8% (2027) → 3.0% (2028) |
| Deficit, ESA 2010 | 5.4% of GDP | the measure the procedure runs on |
| Revenue, consolidated | €49,615.3M | 39.6% of GDP |
| Expenditure, consolidated | €56,807.2M | 45.4% of GDP |
| Maximum new debt for 2026 | up to €10.1bn | incl. up to €3.261bn under SAFE |
| Maximum state debt | ≤ €37.7bn · 30.1% of GDP | → 35.2% (2028) |
| Fiscal reserve (31.12.2026) | ≥ €2.6bn | statutory floor |
| Minimum wage | €620.20 | state administration, from 1 August |
_The framework figures are the official parameters from submission and the 2026–2028 medium-term forecast; we will reconcile them against the promulgated law in the State Gazette. The 2026 values in the table below, marked "≈", come from same-day reporting and will be replaced with an exact parse._
Separate from that framework sits the central budget under Art. 1 — the figures the press quoted on the day of the vote, and the ones most often confused with the consolidated totals. Set against last year's law, which we have already parsed:
| Art. 1 (central budget) | 2025 law | 2026 law | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue, grants and donations | €28,207.1M | ≈ €28,460M | +0.9% |
| Expenditure | €15,749.8M | ≈ €17,600M | +11.7% |
| Net transfers | €15,071.1M | ≈ €16,890M | +12.1% |
| — to municipalities | €4,563.7M | ≈ €4,928M | +8.0% |
| — to the state pension fund | €6,224.2M | ≈ €6,745M | +8.4% |
| — to the health fund | €1,892.2M | ≈ €2,052M | +8.5% |
| Contribution to the EU budget | €1,033.1M | ≈ €1,280M | +23.9% |
| Balance | −€3,646.9M | ≈ −€7,310M | ×2 |
The 2025 column is parsed from our archive of budget laws; the 2026 column comes from same-day reporting and will be replaced once the promulgated text is parsed.[^bgonair]
The 2026 budget went through three versions. The first was submitted in November 2025 by the Zhelyazkov cabinet, with Temenuzhka Petkova as finance minister, and passed first reading 131 to 87 on 21 November 2025 — but never reached second reading. The second was repealed, and the country moved onto a stopgap law. The third — now law — was submitted in June 2026 by the Radev cabinet, with Galab Donev as deputy prime minister and finance minister.
The figures below are on the official consolidated (КФП) basis — the same one the Fiscal Council uses for the adopted budget, putting 2026 expenditure at €56.8bn.[^fc-opinion] The December rework cut revenue and expenditure by €1bn each, equally, leaving the absolute deficit unchanged.[^fiscal-preraboten]
| Consolidated framework | November (v1) | December (v2) | Adopted | Δ v1 → adopted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | €50,402M | €49,402M | €49,615M | −€787M |
| Expenditure | €54,052M | €53,052M | €56,807M | +€2,755M |
| Deficit | €3,650M | €3,650M | €7,192M | +€3,542M |
On this basis Petkova's figures reconcile almost to the million — but against the November version, not the December one. She described the difference as "€778M less revenue" and "€2.8bn more spending";[^faktor-gerb] the v1 → adopted comparison gives −€787M and +€2,755M, and the sum closes exactly on a €3,542M difference in the deficit. Her arithmetic is right.
So far it looks simple: the deficit doubles, and that is a choice rather than an inheritance. But there is a substantial qualification that makes the picture far less black and white.
The Fiscal Council never accepted that the earlier versions genuinely sat below 3%. Its own estimate of the real deficit was −€6,315.6M for the first version and −€5,931.4M for the second — roughly double the stated €3.65bn.[^fiscal-preraboten] On that assessment, the distance between the December version and the adopted budget is not €3.54bn but about €1.26bn.
In other words: the choice is real, but it is about a third of what the official difference suggests. The other two thirds are the gap between a stated and a realistically assessed deficit — under the previous cabinet.
There is a second explanation that rarely gets stated — and it is usually reported imprecisely. The November version contained two separate social-security measures at once: raising the maximum insurable income to €2,352 from 1 January 2026 and increasing the pension-fund contribution by 2 percentage points. It was that combination that brought people out in front of parliament on 26 November 2025, after which the budget was withdrawn and reworked.[^protesti]
The adopted budget keeps the first measure in a softer form and drops the second. The maximum insurable income rises to €2,300 — but from 1 August, not 1 January (a stated effect of €90.8M); the minimum insurable thresholds rise as well, and civil servants and the judiciary begin paying personal contributions — 80:20 from 1 August 2026, 60:40 from 2027, with compensation so that net pay is held.[^doo]
So framing this as "with contributions versus without" is misleading. Both versions widen the contribution base; the adopted one does it with a lower ceiling and five months later, and only the rate rise is gone. And here is what matters for the deficit: the difference in the ceiling is small. Our simulator prices the much larger step from €2,300 to €2,500 at roughly €70M, so the step from €2,300 to €2,352 is a fraction of that. We will add the exact estimate for €2,300 → €2,352 and for the dropped 2pp pension contribution once the adopted law is loaded into the simulator.
Which means dropping the unpopular social-security measures explains only a small part of the €3.6bn difference between the two budgets. The rest is on the spending side.
Here is the figure missing from the entire public argument. The budget was adopted on 24 July. Five months remain for the whole increase in spending to happen — including the capital programme, which Petkova puts at €2.3bn above the previous draft.
Here is what central-budget cash execution shows for the first five months of 2026, on the data we maintain:
| January–May | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | €9,713M | €9,905M (+2.0%) |
| Expenditure incl. transfers | €10,973M | €11,895M |
| Balance | −€1,260M | −€2,435M |
The 2023–2025 average share falling in the first five months is 36.4% of annual revenue and 37.1% of annual expenditure. If 2026 follows the same seasonality, the year closes at roughly €27.2bn of revenue and €32.1bn of spending — a deficit on the order of €4.9bn, or about 3.9% of GDP, not 5.7%.
That calculation carries one important caveat in the opposite direction: historical seasonality assumes a law in force all year, whereas seven months here ran under a stopgap with monthly ceilings. The second half will be unusually loaded — 2026 is also the last big year of the Recovery Plan, with a hard December deadline. But the counter-argument is just as strong: in 2025, with a law in force from March, central-budget spending came in €2,440M (−7.9%) below plan. With a law from August, under-execution should be larger, not smaller.
The most likely outcome is that 5.7% is a ceiling rather than a forecast — and that the real result will be set by how much of the capital programme can physically be paid out by 31 December. We will recompute this once the six-month cash-execution report is published in early August.
Petkova's central objection to the new budget is that "collection is heavily understated" — that revenue has been planned too low.[^faktor-gerb]
Our cash-execution archive answers this directly. Budget 2025 — passed under the Zhelyazkov cabinet, with Petkova as finance minister — planned central-budget revenue of €28,207M and executed €26,309M. A shortfall of €1,898M, or −6.7%.
| Art. 1 revenue | Plan | Executed | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | €20,866M | €20,342M | −2.5% |
| 2024 | €22,193M | €22,264M | +0.3% |
| 2025 | €28,207M | €26,309M | −6.7% |
The 2025 plan assumed 26.7% growth over 2024 actuals against nominal GDP growth of about 10.5% — an elasticity of roughly 2.5. The new budget asks for +8.2% over 2025 actuals against nominal growth of about 7.9% — an elasticity of about 1.0. On this measure the adopted budget is more conservative than its predecessor, not more aggressive.
The same shows in the €3.0bn gap in tax revenue between the November and adopted versions: that is a forecast being cut, not money being hidden.
Up to here the numbers defend the government. From here they stop. Revenue for January–May 2026 is growing at 2.0% year on year while the plan needs 8.2% — meaning June–December must bring in some €18.6bn against €16.6bn a year earlier, a rise of 11.8% across the second half. The revenue side is not inflated relative to last year, but it is inflated relative to what current collection shows.
The Fiscal Council itself — this budget’s sharpest critic — reaches the same conclusion on revenue. In its 6 July opinion it writes that under the current proposal "the deviation in the estimate for total revenue is minimal, which was not the case for 2025 and the subsequent initial proposal for the 2026 budget", attributing the 2025 gap to "unrealistic revenue projections that are disconnected from the economic fundamentals".[^fc-opinion] The institution demanding a radical reworking of the spending side vouches for the revenue side.
Three specific accusations circulated in the days around the vote. We checked all three against the texts of the budget laws since 2018 held in our archive.
The National Children's Hospital. Asen Vasilev said the children's-hospital provisions "were in every budget since 2022" and are missing for the first time.[^faktor-pp] The archive shows otherwise:
The provision appears in two budgets, not five, and in neither did it carry an appropriation. Which makes Petkova's note that "no funds are provided in Budget 2026" formally correct — but equally correct in 2024 and 2025, under governments both of them supported.
The subsidy to religious denominations. Petkova speaks of a 25% cut.[^faktor-gerb] Summaries of the adopted text put the per-believer rate falling from €20 to €7.70 — a cut of 61.5%.[^mediapool] These are not the same measure and imply very different totals. Here is the history from our archive (thousand BGN, "total" row):
| Year | Total | Orthodox Church | Muslim denomination |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 38,770.0 | 31,000.0 | 5,770.0 |
| 2023 | 39,925.5 | 31,000.0 | 6,387.0 |
| 2024 | 48,754.1 | 36,000.0 | 9,580.6 |
| 2025 | 78,004.1 | 61,000.0 | 12,774.0 |
The subsidy doubles between 2022 and 2025, jumping 60% in 2025 alone. Whether the cut returns the line to 2024 levels or below 2022 levels depends entirely on which of the two measures is actually written into the law. We will state the exact percentage once we have parsed the subsidy table from the promulgated law.
The municipal investment programme. Here the objection holds. Annex 3 to Art. 113 — the named list of projects — is gone.[^mediapool] The qualification is that the power itself is not new: under the 2025 law the regional development minister already signed the agreements with mayors. What is new is the removal of the public list against which that power was bounded. The difference between "a minister decides from a list" and "a minister decides" is real and worth naming precisely.
For us it has a direct consequence too: that annex is exactly what fills the breakdown of capital spending by project and region. No annex for 2026 means no breakdown for that year.
One of the most repeated arguments in the days around the vote is that the heavy budgets of recent years passed with wide majorities while this one passed narrowly. The recorded votes confirm it — and correct part of the story.
| Law | Second reading | In favour | Composition of the majority |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 budget | 27.07.2023 | 181 | GERB-SDS 56 · PP-DB 56 · Vazrazhdane 35 · DPS 29 · BSP 5 |
| 2024 budget | 21.12.2023 | 166 | GERB-SDS 50 · PP-DB 48 · Vazrazhdane 31 · DPS 25 · BSP 11 |
| 2025 budget | 20.03.2025 | 145 | GERB-SDS 64 · DPS-NN 27 · BSP-OL 18 · DPS-DPS 17 · ITN 16 |
| 2026 budget | 24.07.2026 | 125 | PB 125 · against: GERB-SDS 28 · DB 18 · PP 13 · DPS 13 · Vazrazhdane 12 |
Two things stand out. First: Vazrazhdane voted in favour of the 2023 and 2024 budgets at final second reading — 35 to 0 and 31 to 0. The claim that this group alone never supported those budgets does not match the data. Second: PP-DB did not support the 2025 budget — 1 for, 15 against, 17 abstaining. The "GERB, PP, DB and BSP" quartet is not a constant. And the budget just passed is the first of them to pass on a single bloc's votes alone — all 125 in favour are Progressive Bulgaria's, against a united front of every other group.
Underneath sits a more interesting regularity. The first reading is the political statement; the second reading is the law:
| Law | First reading | Second reading |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 budget | 156 : 71 | 181 : 13 |
| 2025 budget | 152 : 74 | 145 : 60 |
| 2026 budget | 145 : 79 (15.07.2026) | 125 : 84 (24.07.2026) |
On this budget the direction reverses. At first reading on 15 July, 145 MPs voted in favour — 128 from Progressive Bulgaria and 17 from DPS. At the second reading on 24 July the same 13 DPS members present voted against — a swing from +17 to −13 that by itself narrows the majority from 145 to 125. It is DPS's withdrawal between the two readings that turns a broad first vote into a narrow final one.
One number has been circulating for months — that Bulgarians have grown 50% poorer in five years. It deserves precision, because it contains two separate errors.
Cumulative HICP inflation for 2021–2025 on our series is 34.2%. And second: 34.2% inflation means a loss of purchasing power of 25.5%, not 34%, and certainly not 50% — these are reciprocal quantities, not the same number.
So where does the sense of 50% come from? From the shopping basket:
| Component | Cumulative 2021–2025 |
|---|---|
| Food | +55.7% |
| Energy | +38.7% |
| Services | +32.7% |
| Core inflation | +26.2% |
The 50% figure is true — for food, not for the general price level. The gap between 26% core and 56% food is what explains why the statistics and lived experience diverge so systematically.
| Who | Core claim | Check |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal Council | Demands "radical reworking"; debt reaching €51.1bn (35.7% of GDP) by end-2028; the wage-bill cut saves only €85M; revenue from formalising the grey economy is overstated; a fiscal effort of 2% of GDP is needed for 2026–2027 | Their ~€5.5bn a year debt accumulation matches our own calculation of a €5.8bn net increase in 2026[^fiscal] |
| Shteryo Nozharov | "Mathematically absurd"; €1.8–2bn must be cut; "debt explodes by €18bn" | The rise from €34.6bn (2025) to €50.5bn (2028) is €15.9bn; €18bn needs a different base[^nozharov] |
| Temenuzhka Petkova (GERB) | Record deficit; understated collection; provisions dropped | Her arithmetic against the December version is exact; the collection objection, however, is refuted by the execution of her own 2025 budget |
| Asen Vasilev (PP) | Provisions on the children's hospital, places of worship and municipal projects dropped; calls for a veto | Municipal projects — correct; children's hospital — not |
| KNSB (trade unions) | The budget brings no real gain in purchasing power; the minimum-wage mechanism should not go before a new one exists | — |
| AIKB / BCCI | AIKB opposes the rise in social contributions; BCCI notes the mechanisms are only frozen, not repealed | BCCI's qualification is accurate: the minimum-wage mechanism is suspended pending a new one, not abolished[^bsk] |
| European Commission | Forecasts a 4.1% of GDP deficit for 2026 against the government's 5.4% on the ESA measure | The Commission's debt figure (29.9% of GDP at end-2025) matches our series exactly |
It is worth noting where this is not a record. The worst ESA balance in our series since 2005 is −5.4% in 2014. The government's own ESA projection for 2026 is also −5.4% — matching the record rather than breaking it. The 5.7% figure is the cash measure. When "record deficit" is used, the basis matters.
This check requires the adopted law loaded into the simulator line by line — which becomes possible only once it is promulgated in the State Gazette. We will then run four claims through the actual engine: the annual versus cash effect of the €2,300 maximum insurable income; the wage-bill cut (€85M on the government's estimate); the debt trajectory 2026–2028 against the €37.7bn ceiling; and what returning to 3% would cost with five months left in the year. Until then we leave this section open — we will fill it in as soon as the law is loaded.
The Council of the EU has confirmed the excessive deficit procedure. Bulgaria must present effective measures to the European Commission by 15 October 2026.[^edp] A second test follows — the draft 2027 budget, which will be examined with the procedure already running and with a path back below 3% promised for 2028.
The picture in the numbers is a double one and cannot honestly be reduced to a single sentence. The 5.7% deficit is partly chosen: officially the previous framework stood at €3.65bn, but the Fiscal Council itself assessed it at close to €6bn — so the real choice made by this majority is on the order of €1.3bn, not €3.5bn. At the same time, the adopted budget's revenue forecast is more cautious than its predecessor's, and the criticism that collection is understated comes from a cabinet whose own budget missed its revenue by €1.9bn. And over all of it sits the calendar: a law passed in month seven leaves five months to spend what was planned for twelve.
[^bta]: "MPs give final approval for the minimum wage to stay at €620 and for new state debt of up to €10.1bn in 2026", BTA, 24.07.2026 — https://www.bta.bg/bg/news/bulgaria/1172997-deputatite-prieha-okonchatelno-minimalnata-zaplata-da-ostane-620-evro-i-da-bade-
[^bgonair]: "Parliament passed the 2026 budget with a planned deficit of 5.7% and a €620 minimum wage", Bgonair, 24.07.2026 — https://www.bgonair.bg/a/2-bulgaria/425458-ns-prie-byudzheta-za-2026-g-s-planiran-defitsit-ot-57-i-620-evro-minimalna-zaplata
[^econbg-versii]: "How the 2026 budget changed in its third version", economic.bg — https://www.economic.bg/bg/a/view/kak-se-promenja-budjetyt-za-2026-g-v-tretija-mu-variant
[^econbg-merki]: "Which measures from Temenuzhka Petkova's draft budget did Galab Donev copy?", economic.bg — https://www.economic.bg/bg/a/view/koi-merki-ot-proektobudjeta-na-temenujka-petkova-kopira-gylyb-donev
[^faktor-gerb]: "GERB: Progressive Bulgaria should apologise to Bulgarian citizens for Budget 2026" (Temenuzhka Petkova), Faktor, 23.07.2026 — https://faktor.bg/gerb-progresivna-balgariq-da-se-izvinqt-na-balgarskite-grajdani-za-byudjet-2026
[^faktor-pp]: "Asen Vasilev: This budget is a rout for business, a gift to the oligarchy" (PP), Faktor, 23.07.2026 — https://faktor.bg/asen-vasilev-yotova-da-naloji-veto-na-byudjeta-toy-e-pogrom-za-biznesa-podarak-za-oligarhiqta
[^protesti]: "The government withdraws Budget 2026 under pressure from the protests", Forbes Bulgaria, 27.11.2025 — https://forbesbulgaria.com/2025/11/27/upravlyavasthite-ottegliha-byudzhet-2026-pod-natiska-na-protestite/ ; on the content of the withdrawn measures (maximum insurable income of €2,352 from 1 January and +2pp on the pension fund) see also "What will change in the new version of budget 2026", Capital, 04.12.2025.
[^fc-opinion]: "Opinion on the Draft Law on the State Budget of the Republic of Bulgaria for 2026, the UMTBF 2026–2028, and the Spring Macroeconomic Forecast", Fiscal Council of Bulgaria, 6 July 2026, 42 pp. — https://www.fiscal-council.bg/bg/publikacii/opinion-on-the-draft-law-on-the-state-budget-of-the-republic-of-bulgaria-of-2026
[^fiscal-preraboten]: "A reworked Budget 2026: how the deficit rises when revenue and expenditure are cut equally", Fiscal Council of Bulgaria, December 2025 — https://www.fiscal-council.bg/bg/publikacii/preraboten-biudget-2026-kak-deficityt-se-vdiga-kogato-prihodi-i-razhodi-se-namalyavat-po-ravno
[^doo]: "Parliament passed the state social-security budget: higher contributions from August and new rules for civil servants", business.dir.bg, July 2026 — https://business.dir.bg/banki-i-finansi/ns-prie-byudzheta-na-doo-po-visoki-osigurovki-ot-avgust-i-novi-pravila-za-darzhavnite-sluzhiteli ; the 2026 social-security budget passed 131 in favour to 70 against — a different majority from the State Budget Law.
[^mediapool]: "Budget 2026 finally passed with a 5.7% excess deficit. What changes", Mediapool, 24.07.2026 — https://www.mediapool.bg/byudzhet-2026-e-okonchatelno-priet-sas-svrahdefitsit-ot-57-kakvo-se-promenya-obnovena-news385807.html
[^fiscal]: "The Fiscal Council insists on a radical reworking of Budget 2026", Investor.bg, July 2026 — https://www.investor.bg/a/540-danatsi-i-byudzhet/433256-fiskalniyat-savet-nastoyava-za-radikalno-prerabotvane-na-byudzhet-2026
[^nozharov]: Commentary by Assoc. Prof. Shteryo Nozharov on Budget 2026, Focus — https://www.focus-news.net/novini/Bylgaria/Doc-Shteryo-Nozharov-Bulgariya-tryabva-da-sukrati-blizo-2-mlrd-evro-ot-Byudzhet-2026-2992755
[^bsk]: "Budget 2026: unions and business want bolder reforms", Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry — https://bia-bg.com/news/view/36173
[^edp]: "The Council of the EU confirmed the excessive deficit procedure", Actualno.com, 2026 — https://www.actualno.com/finance/udar-po-budjet-2026-bylgarija-ima-6-meseca-da-izbegne-globa-syvetyt-na-es-potvyrdi-procedurata-po-svryhdeficit-news_2612472.html
[^method]: Sources for our own data: cash execution — data.egov.bg (monthly Ministry of Finance reports); budget-law texts — the State Gazette (dv.parliament.bg); roll-call votes — parliament.bg. Figures for 2025 and earlier are parsed from our archive of budget laws; 2026 figures are provisional until the law is promulgated.