The New Year's Eve in Bulgaria will pass under unusual conditions due to the temporary shutdown of POS terminals and ATMs on the night of December 31st to January 1st. The reason is a planned technical interruption related to the readjustment of the banking systems to switch from the lev to the euro as the official currency. This is reported by national media, citing banking experts and official information from institutions.
During the transition to the euro, it is planned that neither POS terminals nor ATMs will work for several hours, so that the banks can make the necessary settings and guarantee the correct accounting of the operations in the new currency. According to cited expert assessments, the interruption will be within about two to two and a half hours, and during this period it will not be possible to use bank cards either for withdrawing money or for payment in commercial establishments.
As the media remind, the decision for the technical interruptions is directly related to the official introduction of the euro in Bulgaria on January 1, 2026. The Council of Ministers has already declared December 31, 2025 and January 2, 2026 as one-time non-working days precisely in order to provide enough time for readjustment and testing of the systems, both in the financial and non-financial sector. Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova emphasized that without such a transitional period, the risk of technical errors and delays in payments would be significantly higher.
The technological operation of readjusting the systems to work with the euro will affect all major channels for card payments. According to information from BNT and other national media, the interruption will cover both ATMs and POS devices in commercial establishments, hotels, restaurants and other establishments, which means that in a certain time range payments will only be able to be made in cash.
Hoteliers and restaurateurs, for whom New Year's Eve is one of the strongest periods of the year, are especially worried about the situation. Representatives of the industry, cited by regional and national media, warn that due to the impossibility of accepting card payments, some establishments are considering not working on New Year's Eve. Others are planning to reduce capacity or change the organization of work in order to deal with cash payments only.
The chairman of the Lovech association of restaurateurs, hoteliers and drink sellers, Petko Ignatov, commented that for part of the business, the uncertainty around card payments is becoming another serious risk against the background of increasing costs and higher prices for New Year's programs. In his words, some entrepreneurs prefer not to open at all on New Year's Eve, instead of taking the risk of dissatisfied customers and chaos in payments. He adds that in the smaller family hotels, a transition to a working model closer to apartments or rented apartments is already being discussed in order to limit the constant expenses.
Hoteliers and restaurateurs claim that they inform their customers in a timely manner about the upcoming restriction on card payments. According to them, visitors are warned that on the evening of December 31st, at certain times, they will not be able to pay with cards and must have enough cash. The industry calls on guests to prepare in advance to avoid tension and misunderstandings in the peak hours around midnight.
Banking experts assure that despite the temporary interruption, citizens' bank accounts and cards do not require any preliminary actions. The process of recalculating funds from leva to euro will be fully automated and will be carried out at the fixed exchange rate, and in rounding, the law provides that this will be in favor of the client. It will not be necessary to issue new bank cards, as the existing ones will continue to work after the introduction of the euro.
Specialists in banking technologies are categorical that the system is prepared for the transition to the euro and no problems with the stability of the financial sector are expected. Temporary difficulties and greater load are possible in the first hours after the transition, but according to expert assessments, this will not jeopardize the security of payments. The authorities emphasize that it is precisely the planned holidays and the short shutdown of electronic payment channels that are part of a measure for a controlled and safe transition to the new currency.
In practice, for people this means that on New Year's Eve, in the hours around the transition to 2026, payments will have to be made mainly in cash. Banking experts and traders' organizations recommend that citizens stock up on enough cash if they plan to celebrate outside – in restaurants, hotels or entertainment establishments. It is expected that after the completion of the technical activities, the operation of ATMs and POS terminals will be restored normally, already with the accounting of the operations in euro.