Bulgaria net salary calculator 2026 — gross to net

The figure above is your net monthly salary — what reaches your account after mandatory deductions. It does not include voluntary pension top-ups, union dues, garnishments, or the year-end tax reconciliation that can adjust the total slightly. The employer-cost line shows what your job costs your company, which is your gross plus the employer's own contributions.

What changed for 2026

For 2026 the Bulgarian take-home formula is unchanged from 2025: employees still pay 13.78% in social and health contributions and a flat 10% income tax. A proposed two-percentage-point pension-contribution increase in the draft budget was withdrawn after union and employer opposition, so net pay rules stayed the same.

The headline change everyone braced for never happened. The draft 2026 budget floated raising the pension contribution by two points, but the increase was dropped after the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (КНСБ) and employers pushed back. Several popular calculators still compute with the rejected higher rate and overstate your deductions — this one uses the rates actually in force.

Two things genuinely did change. From 1 January 2026 Bulgaria adopted the euro, so every threshold is now stated in euro at the fixed rate of 1.95583 leva per euro — that is why the tool shows both currencies. And the maximum insurable income — the ceiling on which contributions are charged — has risen. After a first reading on 10 July 2026, on 22 July 2026 the National Assembly gave final second-reading adoption to the 2026 State Social Insurance Budget (ЗБДОО за 2026 г.), and from 1 August 2026 the maximum insurable income has risen from 2,111.64 € to 2,300 € — finally adopted by Parliament and confirmed by the National Revenue Agency (НАП), with the cap set to remain frozen through 2028. That settles the figure the calculator uses: choose the August–December period to see it applied. The change raises contributions only for high earners above the cap — at the 13.78% employee rate the maximum monthly employee contribution has moved from 290.98 € at the 2,111.64 € cap to 316.94 € at the 2,300 € cap.

That 2028 freeze was the plan under the adopted 2026 budget law — but it may not survive contact with 2027. On 27 August 2026 Bulgaria's Ministry of Finance issued formal 2027 budget-preparation guidelines to line ministries, the routine first step of the annual budget procedure, not a finished bill (BTA, 27 August 2026; corroborated by Capital.bg and Economic.bg). Those guidelines point the opposite way from the freeze above: the Ministry's planning figures project the maximum insurable income rising from the current €2,300 to €2,400 in 2027, €2,500 in 2028 and €2,600 in 2029, and the minimum wage rising from €620.20 to roughly €660 in 2027 (the ceiling on that estimate varies by outlet, running from about €667 to €672, since a new wage-setting mechanism agreed by the government and social partners on 17 August 2026 is replacing the old ad-hoc annual negotiation and no single 2027 figure is fixed yet). Separately, a medium-term framework reported since May 2025 and repeated in 2026 coverage (Cross.bg; corroborated by money.bg and Economic.bg) projects the Pensions Fund contribution rate — split between employer and employee under Bulgarian law, not a rise in the employee share alone — increasing by 1 percentage point in 2027 and a further 2 points in 2028, citing demographic pressure on the pension system. It is the same kind of proposal that was floated for 2026 and then withdrawn, so treat it with the same caution. None of this is law: as of 8 September 2026 the government has not adopted a draft 2027 budget bill and Parliament has not voted on one, so every figure in this paragraph is a Ministry of Finance planning projection, not an enacted rate — the 2026 numbers this calculator uses (13.78% employee contributions, the €2,300 cap since 1 August, and the €620.20 minimum wage) remain the only ones in force.

Bulgaria 2026 payroll rates and thresholds

A standard Bulgarian employee pays 13.78% of insurable income in social and health contributions — split across pension, supplementary pension, sickness, unemployment and health funds — plus a flat 10% income tax on the remainder. The employer adds a further 18.52% on top of gross pay.

The table below breaks down every fund for a standard third-category contract (Кодекс за социално осигуряване, чл. 6). The employee column is what comes off your pay; the employer column is paid on top of your salary by your company.

Two thresholds frame the result. The statutory minimum wage from 1 January 2026 is 620.20 € a month (1,213 BGN), which is also the contribution floor for full-time staff. The maximum monthly insurable income — the ceiling on which contributions are charged — is 2,111.64 € until 31 July 2026 and 2,300 € since 1 August 2026, under the finally adopted 2026 State Social Insurance Budget (ЗБДОО за 2026 г.). Earnings above the cap are still taxed at 10%, but they carry no further contributions, per the National Revenue Agency (НАП).

How we calculate net salary

Net salary is gross pay minus 13.78% in employee contributions (charged on income up to the monthly cap), minus a 10% income tax on what remains. The tax is applied to gross pay reduced by those contributions — not to the full gross — under ЗДДФЛ чл. 42.

The order matters. First, contributions are charged on your insurable income, which is your gross capped at the maximum insurable base. Then the 10% tax applies to gross minus those contributions, not to your gross directly (ЗДДФЛ чл. 42, ал. 2). That two-step sequence is why your effective tax rate is below 10% of gross.

A worked example on the minimum wage: a gross of 620.20 € incurs 85.46 € in contributions (13.78% × 620.20). The tax base is 620.20 − 85.46 = 534.74 €, and 10% of that is 53.47 €. Take-home pay is 620.20 − 85.46 − 53.47 = 481.27 €. For a 1,000 € gross the same steps give 137.80 € in contributions, 86.22 € in tax and 775.98 € net — the scenario shown in the calculator's offline summary.

If you claim the child tax relief, the monthly reduction to your tax base depends on how many minor children you have: 255.65 € for one child, 511.29 € for two children, and 766.94 € for three or more children. That third figure is a fixed ceiling, not a per-child rate, so it does not keep growing for a fourth, fifth or later child. These 2026 monthly amounts come from § 3 of the 2026 State Budget Act's transitional provisions (Bulgarian: Закон за държавния бюджет за 2026 г., § 3 от Преходните и заключителните разпоредби, ДВ бр. 69 от 31.07.2026 г.), applied through the monthly tax-base reduction in ЗДДФЛ чл. 42, ал. 3, together with the general relief rule in ЗДДФЛ чл. 22в — confirmed by the National Revenue Agency (НАП). New for 2026, you can apply this reduction monthly through your employer rather than waiting for the year-end return. A larger, annual-only version of the relief also exists: filing the year-end return lets you deduct 3,067.75 € for one child, 6,135.50 € for two children or 9,203.25 € for three or more children from the sum of your annual tax bases under ЗДДФЛ чл. 17, under the same § 3 of the budget act. The calculator above models the monthly route through your employer, which most employees use. Open the advanced options to add your children and see the effect.