Bulgaria sneaks gambling tax hike into amended 2026 budget
The new tax rate will apply to gross gaming revenue across various gambling verticals from January 2026.
Bulgaria.- A gambling tax hike has been tagged on to amendments to Bulgaria’s budget for the coming year as the government seeks to address a fiscal shortfall of €3.86bn. From January 2026, the tax rate that operators pay on gross gaming revenue from online gambling, sports betting, random event wagering and lotteries will rise from 20 to 25 per cent.
The adjustment follows a trend seen across Europe. Earlier in the year, neighbouring Romania announced a gambling tax rise from 21 to 27 per cent of GGR. Further afield, France and the Netherlands both imposed tax rises and the the Netherlands has a further rise to 37.8 per cent slated for January 2026. It’s also widely expected the the British chancellor will announce a gambling tax hike in the Autumn Budget later this month.
See also: EU complaint lodged over unnotified legislative changes for gambling in Croatia
Bulgaria’s move comes as it prepares to join the Eurozone from January 1. Modernisation of the country’s gambling regulation and related financial controls were among the issues that came up during talks about the nation’s entry to the single currency.
Earlier in the year, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Healthcare proposed new rules for online gambling in Bulgaria related to loss limits and session time limits. The changes will require operators to limit players’ gaming sessions to a maximum of four hours at a time for over 24s and two hours for under 24s. Players would need to make a request if they want an extension, and they would also be able to request a reduction in their time limit.
In all cases, players would have to sit out for a 15-minute cooling-off period before being able to log in again, at which point operators would have a duty to deliver safer gambling messages and information about Bulgaria’s national self-exclusion register, for which the minimum gambling self exclusion period was recently increased from 30 to 365 days.
