Businesses in Bulgaria paid the lowest price for natural gas in the European Union in the first half of 2026, at €0.0438 per kilowatt hour, the EU statistics agency Eurostat said today, 4 November. The price is 10.8% lower than a year earlier, in the first half of 2025.
Households also pay less. Their gas is 14.5% cheaper than in the first six months of 2025, the biggest drop in the EU. Greece (11.3%) and Spain (10%) come next.
For businesses, Belgium comes just after Bulgaria at €0.0439 per kilowatt hour. The EU average is €0.0616, so Bulgarian firms pay about 28.9% less per kilowatt hour than the EU average.
Gas costs businesses most in Sweden, at €0.1118 per kilowatt hour, or 81% above the EU average. Finland is next at €0.0945, then the Netherlands at €0.0839. Sweden is also the only country where the price for business rose, by 3.1%. In the other 24 of the 25 countries with data, gas for firms got cheaper.
Prices fell most in Belgium and France, by 13.1% each. Lithuania follows with 12.5% and Hungary with 11.6%. Bulgaria, at 10.8%, is in the top five.
Across the EU, gas for business is 6.7% cheaper than a year ago, but 1.8% dearer than in the second half of 2025. Prices are now far below the peaks of the energy crisis. The highest EU average so far, €0.0867 per kilowatt hour, came in the second half of 2022.
Taxes and charges take a bigger share of firms' bills. Eurostat says they made up 17.5% of the final price in the EU in the first half of 2026, against 15.9% in the previous half-year and 16.4% a year earlier.
Households in Bulgaria pay €0.0654 per kilowatt hour. The EU average is €0.1103, the lowest in four years. Bulgarian families pay about 40.7% less for gas than the EU average.
Despite the biggest fall, Bulgaria is not one of the three countries with the cheapest gas for households. Prices are lowest in Hungary at €0.0330 per kilowatt hour, Croatia at €0.0502 and Romania at €0.0594. Families in Sweden pay the most, at €0.2201.
State help did not drive the fall in Bulgaria. Eurostat says compensation and price support for natural gas ended there by 1 July 2023, and no subsidies affected prices in 2025.