Bulgaria Plans to Double Property Tax Assessments by 2029, Starting With 30 Percent in 2027

Bulgaria's ruling coalition is preparing to raise the tax assessments used to value residential property for the first time in nearly two decades, beginning with a 30 percent uplift in 2027 and building to roughly a doubling by the end of 2029. Stefan Belchev, an MP for Progressive Bulgaria, disclosed the plan to Bulgarian National Television, saying that "as far as I know, for next year these tax assessments will be updated by 30 percent."

What changed

The tax assessment, or данъчна оценка, is the administrative value the state assigns to a property. It is not the market price, and in Bulgaria it has drifted far below it because the coefficients behind the calculation have been anchored to 2007 levels for nineteen years.

The plan reported on 11 and 12 September is staged across three budget years rather than a single revaluation. Belchev's figure for the first wave is 30 percent in 2027, with increases of roughly 35 percent in each of the following two years. The legal publication Paragraf reported the first wave at 20 percent rather than 30, followed by 35 percent in 2028 and 35 percent in 2029, a cumulative rise of 118.7 percent. The outlets agree on the shape and on the end point, which is an approximate doubling of assessed values by the close of 2029. The 2027 figure itself is not yet settled and no draft text has been published.

Belchev framed the reset as overdue rather than punitive. "Since 2007, tax assessments have been anchored at 2007," he said. "Since then, at least inflation has risen several times, so for me there is nothing more normal than an update."

The mechanism

The instrument is the Law on Local Taxes and Fees, the Закон за местните данъци и такси, which sets both the annual property tax and the tax charged on acquisition. Neither headline rate is being changed. What moves is the base the rates apply to.

Municipalities set the annual property tax anywhere between 0.1 and 4.5 per mille of the tax assessment, with the base halved for a declared primary residence. The acquisition tax charged on a transfer runs from 0.1 to 3 percent, again set by each municipal council and again calculated on the assessment where that assessment exceeds the contract price. The assessment also underpins inheritance tax, gift tax, notarial fees and entry fees at the property register. Since 2026 the values are expressed in euro following Bulgaria's currency changeover.

The measure is attached to the 2027 budget cycle and is being advanced as a revenue item against Bulgaria's deficit position. An earlier report in July, when the idea was circulating as a 20 to 30 percent adjustment proposed by MP Yavor Gechev, put the drafting of the legislative framework in October and November 2026. That timetable would place a bill and its new valuation coefficients in front of parliament alongside the budget this autumn.

What it means for a foreign buyer

Two costs move, and they move differently.

The annual holding cost rises in proportion to the assessment unless the municipality cuts its rate. Councils can hold the recurring burden flat, including the household waste fee, by lowering rates as the base rises. Whether any given council does so is decided locally each year, so a buyer cannot assume it.

The acquisition cost is the harder problem. Transfer tax is charged on the assessment wherever the assessment sits above the declared contract price, so lifting assessments raises the floor under the taxable value of a purchase, and Paragraf noted that the scope for municipal compensation is narrower on transactions than on the annual tax. The effect concentrates on the cheaper end of the market, the rural houses and older coastal apartments where assessments have historically sat close to or above the price actually paid, and that is precisely the segment drawing most foreign buying in Bulgaria. A purchase closed before the first wave takes effect is taxed on today's base.

Context

Bulgaria places no nationality restriction on foreign ownership of buildings and apartments. Land is the exception. Article 22 of the Constitution and Article 29 of the Property Act allow foreigners to acquire land only under a ratified international treaty or by inheritance, with EU and EEA citizens released from that limit once the transitional periods in Bulgaria's accession treaty expired. Third-country buyers who want land, including the plot under a village house, normally hold it through a Bulgarian company, and agricultural and forest land carries tighter conditions again under the Farmlands Act. An apartment carries no structure requirement, which is why Bulgaria's transaction costs rather than its ownership rules are what most foreign purchasers plan around.

Those costs are currently low by regional standards, and that is the point of the revaluation. Bulgaria's neighbours have been moving in the same direction: Romania's residential permit pipeline contracted sharply through the first seven months of 2026, Hungary has drafted a wealth tax that puts real estate inside the base, and Latvia has closed its 250,000 euro property route to residence permits.

Nothing has been enacted. The figures above come from statements by a governing MP and from reporting on the package in preparation, not from published draft legislation, and the first-wave percentage is still in dispute between outlets. The text to watch is the amendment to the Law on Local Taxes and Fees expected with the 2027 budget.

Sources

- Bulgarian Authorities Plan 100% Increase in Property Tax Assessments, Novinite, 12 September 2026

- Управляващите подготвят увеличение на данъчните оценки с 30% от 2027 г., Economic.bg, 11 September 2026

- Данъчните оценки на имотите ще се вдигат на три вълни, двойно до 2029 г., Paragraf, 11 September 2026

- Bulgaria May Increase Property Tax Assessments by 20–30%, Open4Business, 25 July 2026

- Bulgaria: Limitations to Foreigners, European Land Registry Association