Where to live in Bulgaria
We track 3 cities in Bulgaria: Plovdiv, Sofia and Varna. Average temperatures run from 12°C to 15°C. We estimate a couple needs €2,581 to €2,707 a month to live centrally. Bulgaria sits in our low to medium tax tier. For citizens from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
12 questions, about 4 minutes, no account needed. Taking the quiz is free, and so is seeing your #1 city. Full results for both of you are a one-time US$12 (€12 in Europe).
- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Languages
- Bulgarian
- Some English
- Safety
- 68/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 64/100
- country-level estimate
- Internet
- ~80 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
Estimated from World Bank indicators and calibrated to the scales of our reference tables: safety from the country-level homicide rate per 100,000 people (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5, 2023) and Worldwide Governance Indicators Political Stability and Absence of Violence estimate (GOV_WGI_PV.EST, 2025), healthcare from the life expectancy at birth (SP.DYN.LE00.IN, 2024) and current health spending per person in US dollars (SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD, 2023) and cost of living from the price level of GDP relative to the United States, from GDP per person in US dollars and at purchasing power parity (NY.GDP.PCAP.CD/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD, 2025). Source: The World Bank (World Development Indicators, Worldwide Governance Indicators), CC BY 4.0.
Limited data for Bulgaria. Figures for safety, healthcare and cost of living in Bulgaria are country-level estimates from World Bank indicators, each named with its year. We have no social openness figures for Bulgaria, so the quiz scores that factor conservatively and this page leaves it out.
The 3 cities we track
Source: City size from GeoNames, temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages), rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals), coast distance from Natural Earth. Cost is our model estimate for a couple living centrally, from the World Bank price level.
Taxes
Bulgaria sits in our low to medium tax tier: moderate personal income tax. The tier applies to every city here, and couples who cap tax below it will not see these cities in their results.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Residency and visas
Possible, with conditions, for people from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland. Realistic long-term routes are skilled employment or an EU Blue Card, opening a representative office of a foreign company, a retiree/sufficient-means residence permit, family reunification, or the investor golden visa granting permanent residency.
Citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland have freedom-of-movement or simplified residency rights here.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Bulgaria:
- Income: about $721 a month (Bulgaria retiree/sufficient-means continuous-residence permit, means at least the minimum monthly wage EUR 620.20/mo (BGN 1,213; lower minimum-pension alternative ~EUR 322/mo also accepted); euro adopted Jan 2026, converted at EUR/USD 1.1633; as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $596k (Bulgaria golden visa (immediate permanent residency), EUR 512,000 lump sum in a licensed AIF/ETF fund; converted at EUR/USD 1.1633; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 93 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 105 need a visa in advance.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).