Bulgaria's public debt stood at 28.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of the second quarter of 2026, Eurostat said today. Only four EU countries have debt below 30% of GDP. Three have less than Bulgaria: Estonia (26.1%), Denmark (27.1%) and Luxembourg (28.2%).
Bulgaria's debt is 0.1 percentage points higher than at the end of March. It is up 2.4 points from June last year, the same rise as in Austria.
Debt is rising across Europe. In the eurozone it is 88.8% of GDP, up from 88.4% at the end of the first quarter and 87.3% a year earlier. In the EU as a whole it is 82.9%, against 82.5% in the first three months of the year and 81.4% a year ago.
Greece has the highest debt at 140.8%, followed by Italy with 139.9%, France with 119.1%, Belgium with 110.2% and Spain with 101.4%. In each of them, debt is bigger than the value of what the economy produces in a year.
During the quarter, debt rose in 15 countries and fell in 10. It did not change in the Netherlands and Spain. Poland had the biggest rise at 3 points, followed by Latvia (+1.9), Lithuania (+1.6), France (+1.4), Italy and Malta (+1.3 each) and Estonia (+1.1). The sharpest falls were in Cyprus (-3), Greece (-2.7), Hungary (-2), Ireland (-1.8), Croatia (-1.6) and Slovakia (-1).
Compared with the second quarter of 2025, debt rose in 18 countries and fell in 11. The sharpest rises were in Poland (+6.7), Lithuania (+4.9), Belgium (+3.8), France (+3.7), Luxembourg (+3.6), Estonia (+3) and Romania (+2.5). The biggest falls were in Greece (-11.2), Cyprus (-9.5), Slovenia (-4.5) and Portugal (-3.4).
Governments borrow mostly by selling bonds and other securities. These make up 83.9% of debt in the EU and 84.5% in the eurozone. Loans account for 13.8% in the EU and 13.1% in the eurozone, while currency and deposits make up 2.4% in both areas. Loans between EU countries equal 1.3% of GDP in the eurozone and 1.1% in the EU.
Eurostat also published figures for all of 2025. At the end of the year, EU debt was 81.5% of GDP, up from 80.3% a year earlier. In the eurozone it was 87.7%, against 86.6%.
Bulgaria's debt was 29.9% then, behind Estonia (24%), Luxembourg (26%) and Denmark (27.2%). Ireland (34.8%), Sweden (35.1%) and Lithuania (39.3%) came next. In 12 countries debt is above 60% of GDP, and it is highest in Greece (145.4%), Italy (136.7%), France (115.7%), Belgium (108.1%) and Spain (100.5%).
Government spending in the eurozone in 2025 was 49.8% of GDP, while revenue was 46.8%. For the whole EU, spending was 49.4% and revenue 46.3%. Both shares are higher than in 2024.