Bulgarian customers of payment firm IBanFirst send dollars abroad more often than the European average. The dollar was the currency in 67% of their international payments in 2025, against 56% for European clients on average, a company analysis shows.

The figures come from the "International Payments Speed Barometer 2026". The analysis covers more than 252,000 payments by the company's clients in Europe in 2025, sent through SWIFT, the international bank transfer system.

Among Bulgarian clients, the share of payments in euros rose from 14% to 22%, while the share in leva fell from 12% to 4%. IBanFirst says firms began preparing for the euro before Bulgaria officially adopted it in January 2026. After dollars and euros, payments were most often made in leva and Chinese yuan.

Dollar transfers to China make up 29% of Bulgarian clients' international payments. The other main routes are dollars to Hong Kong (8%), euros to Turkey (5%), dollars to Turkey (3%), euros to Serbia and India (3% each) and dollars to the US (2%).

These routes follow Bulgaria's main foreign trade markets. Final data from the National Statistical Institute show that imports of goods from non-EU countries rose 8.1% in 2025 from 2024. By value, Bulgaria imports most from Turkey, China, Serbia and the US.

Hong Kong ranks second by share of payments, but official goods statistics do not list it among Bulgaria's biggest trading partners. The company says money does not always follow real trade. Hong Kong is a financial, trade and payment hub in Asia and may be part of the payment route even when the deal is with another market in the region.

Payments in United Arab Emirates dirhams reached a 1% share in 2025, up from 0.03% a year earlier. Over the same period, Bulgarian exports to the UAE rose 31.4% to €200m. The Emirates' growing role last year as a trade and financial hub between Europe, Asia and the Middle East coincides with this rise.

IBanFirst says the reliance on the dollar comes from a financial system built over decades. No other network of interbank dollar links around the financial centres in the US and Europe has a real rival, the euro included. About half of SWIFT payments worldwide are in dollars.

Payments from Bulgaria pass through 1.5 intermediary banks on average, against 1.8 for Europe, but fewer banks do not guarantee faster delivery. Only 9% of dollar transfers from Bulgaria to China arrive within 2 hours, against 12% on average for Europe on the same route. For dollars to the US the share is 65%, although the average number of intermediary banks on the two routes is almost the same.

The analysis says payments to China are slow for structural reasons: time zones, processing times at local banks, banking infrastructure and regulatory rules. A dollar transfer from Europe to China usually passes through US correspondent banks the same working day and reaches the Chinese bank before its local working day begins.

According to SWIFT, 80% of the processing time for a payment goes on waiting for the receiving bank to confirm the money. In Europe, 73% of completed payments in 2025 were settled within 24 hours, against 72% in 2024.

Payments have the best chance of being processed the same day if they are sent from Monday to Wednesday before 11:00 (10:00 Central European Time). The best window is 9:00 to 10:00 (8:00 to 9:00 Central European Time).