On 10 September 2026 Cushman & Wakefield | Forton published its analysis of the Bulgarian retail market for the second quarter. The figure that made the headlines is a ratio: malls now hold 51% of the country's modern retail space, and retail parks 49%.
The gap is around 45,000 sq m — less than two average retail parks. Analysts expect it to disappear by the end of the third quarter, meaning by the end of September.
This is our third report on commercial property this year, following the Sofia office market and industrial and warehouse space. The figures were verified in September 2026 and are indicative.
| Indicator (end of June 2026) | Malls | Retail parks |
|---|---|---|
| Number of schemes | 26 | 74 |
| Share of total space | 51% (≈ 811,000 sq m) | 49% (≈ 766,000 sq m) |
| Vacancy | 3.6% in Sofia malls | 1.9% |
| Prime rent | €48.50/sq m/month (Sofia) | €13.00/sq m/month |
| Yield | 7.5% | 7.25% |
Total modern retail stock in Bulgaria stands at 1.58 million sq m. At the end of the first quarter it was 1.56 million sq m, equivalent to roughly 242 sq m per 1,000 inhabitants.
Note the relationship between the two columns: 74 schemes against 26, for almost identical total floorspace. The average retail park is about a third the size of the average mall. That is not a weakness of the format — it is the format.
In the first half of 2026, 69,000 sq m of new retail space was completed — 47% more than in the same period of 2025. The second quarter added 16,700 sq m, including finishing works at Pirgos Park in Burgas, the extension of Holiday Park Shumen, Retail Park Mixx Centre in Kazanlak and Fantastico No. 48 in Sofia.
One qualification matters more than the numbers themselves: in both quarters, every square metre completed was in a retail park. Not one square metre of new mall.
Construction continues. At the end of June, 11 retail parks were under way across 8 cities, totalling 131,000 sq m, with a further 166,000 sq m at the planning stage.
Demand is keeping pace. The second quarter saw 82 new stores open across 34,200 sq m, against 74 stores and 33,600 sq m a year earlier. The split is telling:
More than three quarters of new store space chose the open format.
By sector, fashion leads with 23% of newly occupied space, followed by food retailers at 17% and electronics and appliance stores at 10%. Entertainment is moving too: cinema operator Kino Arena opened a screen at DS Park Dobrich and is preparing an expansion at Serdika Centre in Sofia.
The reason is arithmetic rather than fashion, and it has three lines.
Rent. €13 per sq m per month in a retail park against €48.50 in a prime Sofia mall. For a 300 sq m unit that is the difference between roughly €3,900 and roughly €14,550 a month (our calculation on asking rents, excluding service charge and VAT). For a chain planning twenty stores, that difference decides whether the plan exists at all.
Build time. A retail park is a single-storey structure with parking in front of the doors. It goes up considerably faster and cheaper than a multi-level mall with escalators, an atrium and air-conditioned common areas — and with construction costs rising 9.6% year on year, simple construction is a competitive advantage.
Geography. A mall needs a large city. A retail park works in Kazanlak, Vratsa, Simitli and Radnevo. In 2026 the new schemes opened precisely there — in towns that until then had no modern retail space at all.
Consumer behaviour reinforces all of it: park in front of the store, go in for a specific purchase, leave in fifteen minutes. Malls sell time spent; retail parks sell convenience.
The picture is not one-sided. Prime rents in Sofia's malls are rising — from €48.00 to €48.50 per sq m in a single quarter. Mall yields have held at 7.5% for a sixth consecutive quarter, which points to steady rather than troubled investor demand.
The investment market is voting with money as well. Three transactions worth around €30 million closed in the second quarter, including Varna Mall. The largest announced deal, however, is the acquisition of Galleria Burgas by Hyprop Investments for €122 million — cleared by Bulgaria's Commission for Protection of Competition in July, and set to double the South African investor's Bulgarian retail portfolio.
In other words: institutional capital is still buying well-located malls. The shift is in new construction, not in how existing assets are valued.
Vacancy in Sofia's malls edged up from 3.1% in the first quarter to 3.6% in the second. That is worth watching, but at levels below 4% it does not yet support a conclusion.
1.9% vacancy in retail parks. Around 14,400 sq m of empty space nationwide, spread across 74 schemes — an average of under 200 sq m per park.
It is the same signal we saw in Sofia's warehouse market: demand is running ahead of supply. Stanimira Pashova, chief executive of Cushman & Wakefield | Forton, put it this way: the limited volume of vacant space, particularly in this segment, shows that demand is outpacing supply, and the dynamic is expected to hold through the second half of the year.
All of this is happening against accelerating inflation — annual HICP rose from 2.8% in March to 5.3% in June on the energy shock from the Strait of Hormuz crisis — in an economy that posted the EU's fourth-strongest GDP growth in the first quarter (+3.1% year on year). Retail space is not yet responding to inflation by contracting.
1. If you are looking for retail space, format now sets the price more than the city does. The difference between €13 and €48.50 per sq m is a difference between two formats, not two locations. The first question when looking for a shop today is "mall or park", not "which district".
2. If you own a shop on a high street or in a smaller town, a retail park opening nearby is an event worth tracking. It changes footfall across the whole area — sometimes in your property's favour, if it sits on the route to the park, and sometimes against it. That effect is measured after the first few months, not assumed in advance.
3. Smaller towns are now part of the modern retail market. Kazanlak, Vratsa, Radnevo, Simitli — places that appeared in no retail statistics five years ago now have schemes. For owners of land along the approach roads to such towns, that is a new and real group of buyers.
Letting and selling retail units is part of our daily work, not a separate service. For a tenant that means we start from the arithmetic — what turnover per square metre the business needs, what rent that supports, and which format fits — rather than from a list of available units. For the owner of a shop or a plot we run the two comparisons that almost never agree: what the property yields at today's rent, and what it is worth if footfall shifts because something new opens nearby.
If you are looking for retail space, or you own some and want to know what it is genuinely worth today, call us or drop into the office. We will look at the specific property and the specific area rather than at national averages.
Cushman & Wakefield | Forton data for the second quarter of 2026, published on 10 September 2026 and verified in September 2026. Rents are asking levels and indicative; agreed terms depend on the size, term and location of the specific unit.
