On 23 September 2026 Bulgaria's Ministry of Finance published its draft amendments to the Local Taxes and Fees Act (ZMDT) for public consultation. This is the text the market had been waiting for: until now there were only announced percentages; now there are the actual tables that will drive property tax valuations in 2027, 2028 and 2029.
This article updates our piece of 17 September — Bulgaria's property tax valuations rise in three steps to 2029. Working from the publicly announced "30% + 35% + 35%", we calculated then that, if each step compounded on the last, the total would reach roughly 137%. The draft says otherwise, and we correct that estimate below.
Figures are checked against the draft itself, its explanatory memorandum and the impact assessment published on the government's public consultation portal, as of October 2026. Nothing has been adopted yet.
The clearest evidence sits in the transitional rule on the waste collection fee (§ 10 of the draft). It sets a coefficient for each year: 1.3 for 2027, 1.65 for 2028 and 2 for 2029. The same ratios run through every one of the new base-value tables.
In other words, the steps do not multiply. Each is added to today's base:
| Year | Versus today's valuation | A €60,000 valuation becomes |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | +30% | €78,000 |
| 2028 | +65% | €99,000 |
| 2029 | +100% | €120,000 |
By 2029 a tax valuation will be roughly double today's, not 2.37 times higher as we had worked out from the verbal announcements. On the same €60,000 example, that is €120,000 rather than €142,155. Some outlets have also quoted "about 118%"; the numbers in the draft do not support that figure either.
The draft only touches the base values in Annex 2 of the ZMDT. It introduces no new valuation methodology, no new zoning and no change to the city coefficients.
Buildings. The base value per square metre for apartments, houses and non-residential buildings rises according to a table for each of the three years, by construction type. For an apartment in a solid masonry or concrete building (type M1): €7.31/m² in 2027, €9.28 in 2028 and €11.25 from 2029 onwards. The memorandum notes that the base value for buildings and urban land has not changed since 1997.
Urban land. The base value becomes €0.53/m² for 2027, €0.67 for 2028 and €0.81 from 2029.
Improvements. This is where the pools, paving and walls that made the headlines come in:
| Improvement | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 onwards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Durable luxury paving, per m² | €23.26 | €29.53 | €35.79 |
| Solid fences and retaining walls, per m² | €5.32 | €6.75 | €8.18 |
| Sports courts with a durable surface, per m² | €9.97 | €12.65 | €15.34 |
| Pools permanently fixed to the ground, per m³ | €15.29 | €19.40 | €23.52 |
These figures sound dramatic but are small in absolute terms. A 50 m³ pool will add about €1,176 to a valuation from 2029. It is the base value of the building itself, not the pool, that moves the bill.
Farmland. Base values by land category also rise in three steps. For example, category III arable land without irrigation: €0.098/m² (€98 per decare) in 2027, €0.124 in 2028 and €0.150 from 2029. Irrigated land is multiplied by 1.20.
This was one of the open questions in our previous article, and the draft answers it explicitly.
Where a municipal council uses the tax valuation as the base for the waste collection fee, the valuation is divided by that year's coefficient (1.3 / 1.65 / 2) for fee purposes. The waste fee therefore stays where it would have been without the reform. The memorandum says so directly: the new valuation "will not apply for the purposes of determining the waste collection fee".
One caveat: this does not freeze the waste fee. Its level is still set by each municipal council. Only the effect of higher valuations is neutralised.
Because valuations are being recalculated, the draft gives municipalities more time in the first year:
The two instalment dates — 30 June and 31 October — are unchanged.
Annual property tax is tax valuation × rate. Each municipal council sets the rate within a band of 0.1 to 4.5 per mille, and a main residence pays half.
If the rate stays the same, the higher valuation passes straight through: +30% in 2027 and double the tax from 2029, compared with today. In absolute terms the rise for an ordinary home is modest — when the 2027 budget was presented, the example given was roughly €15 a year more in 2027 for a standard 75 m² apartment.
The impact assessment expects municipalities to collect an extra €73.4m in 2027, €172.1m in 2028 and €270.8m in 2029. Whether councils trim rates to soften the effect is their call, and that call is being made now, in October and November, when local tax ordinances for 2027 are adopted.
How property tax and the waste fee work, who pays and which reliefs apply: see our guide Property tax and the waste fee in Bulgaria.
The valuation is also the base for one-off taxes.
If you would like us to work out what the change means for a specific property or an upcoming transaction, call us or drop by our office. We will sit down with the documents and do the numbers together.
