This blog has so far looked almost entirely at the residential market. Offices are the other half of the picture — and in 2026 they are moving to a different logic than apartments.
The figures below come from consultancy Cushman & Wakefield | Forton for the first half of 2026 and were verified in September 2026.
Gross office take-up in Sofia reached 88,984 sq m in H1 2026 — 7.6% below the same period of 2025.
That sounds like a decline until you place it in context: it is the second-highest half-year in more than 13 years. Sofia's total office stock now stands at 2.36 million sq m.
In other words, the market is not shrinking. It is normalising after two exceptionally strong periods.
Central Sofia remains short of quality space, and that scarcity is what sustains the higher levels there. Outside the centre, buildings compete noticeably harder.
The most telling change is in the shape of demand, not its volume.
H1 2026 contained no single letting above 5,000 sq m — the first time since the start of 2024, when every quarter included at least two such contracts. Average deal size fell to 630 sq m, while the total number of transactions rose.
Renewals climbed in parallel: from roughly 40% of activity in H1 2025 to 51% in H1 2026. Relocations and expansions fell back.
The explanation is practical. Many companies invested heavily in refitting their offices after 2020 and would rather stay than pay for a second fit-out somewhere else.
IT remains the largest single driver at around 40% of space taken. But the sector is less active than usual: its share of signed contracts is 9 percentage points lower than in H1 2025.
Professional services follow at roughly 7% and industrial occupiers at around 5%. The remaining third is spread across a wide range of industries.
That spread is good news. Demand resting on one sector is fragile; demand spread across ten is durable.
| Sub-market | Take-up, H1 2026 |
|---|---|
| Suburban areas (around the airport and the southern arc of the ring road) | 39,600 sq m |
| Tsarigradsko Shose, Bulgaria Blvd, Nikola Vaptsarov | 35,200 sq m |
| Wider centre and central business district | 14,200 sq m |
Suburban locations lead by a clear margin. The central business district lags not for lack of demand, but for lack of available quality space.
Here is the development that will shape the next few months.
Across the whole of H1, effectively two schemes completed — Oxia in Q1 and AYA in Q2, together about 13,800 sq m of Class A. Space under construction has fallen to 203,000 sq m, but roughly 85,000 sq m of it is expected to complete before the end of 2026.
For comparison:
| Period | New office completions |
|---|---|
| 2021 (the last peak) | over 155,000 sq m |
| Preceding years | between 14,000 and 58,000 sq m |
| 2025 | around 27,000 sq m |
| H2 2026 (expected) | around 85,000 sq m |
If those projects deliver on schedule, the second half of 2026 will bring the largest volume of new supply in four years. Expected completions include the office component of Sky Fort, M Tower, and schemes along Todor Aleksandrov Blvd.
So a market with essentially flat vacancy is about to absorb roughly 85,000 sq m at once. Even with healthy take-up, that means more choice for tenants through the first half of 2027 — particularly outside the central zones.
Alongside conventional leasing, the flexible office segment is developing. It still accounts for just under 4% of Sofia's total office stock — roughly the European average — but the customer profile is changing.
The segment used to be driven by start-ups, freelancers and small teams. Increasingly it is used by large corporate occupiers: for interim headquarters, project offices, regional teams, or a staged entry into a new market without a long-term commitment. Dedicated corporate suites for teams of 30-plus are now part of the offer.
For an office building owner this is an additional option rather than a competitor — adding flexible space widens the pool of possible tenants.
Preliminary figures put Sofia commercial property transactions at €143.6 million in H1 2026. That is the second-highest volume since 2021, though down 24.1% year on year.
Office buildings were the most traded asset with 6 deals, followed by warehouse and production facilities (5), hotels (3), retail (3) and mixed-use (1). Foreign investors accounted for around 30% of the volume; the rest was Bulgarian capital.
One important caveat: the statistics exclude two announced but not yet completed transactions — the Tower A office building and Galleria Burgas. With those included, the full-year picture will look rather different.
For tenants. A negotiating window opens over the next six to twelve months, but not everywhere. Outside the centre, new supply will create real choice. In the central business district supply stays tight and rents stay firm. If your lease expires in 2027, now is the time to start looking.
For owners of older buildings. Around 85,000 sq m of new Class A space is entering a market with 11.6% vacancy. Class B buildings with dated technical installations will feel it first. The cost of upgrading them, however, is not falling — as we set out in our analysis of construction costs, the headline index is up 9.6% year on year.
For investors. Offices remain the most traded segment and Bulgarian capital remains dominant. The difference from the residential market we covered in our H1 report is that office pricing is set by the rental stream rather than by expectations of capital growth. That makes the segment duller and more predictable — which, for some investors, is precisely the appeal.
When we search for an office on behalf of a corporate client, we start with the things the listing does not show: the real common-area ratio against usable space, the condition of the building services and who pays to maintain them, the lease term and its indexation clauses, the parking allocation and how it is governed, and the construction schedule of neighbouring plots that will be noisy for the next two years.
When we let a client's own office space, we look at the same points from the other side — what can be improved cheaply so the building does not end up competing head-on with new Class A stock.
Sofia's office market in H1 2026 is stable but more fragmented: fewer large deals, more transactions overall, more renewals. Vacancy is 11.64% and rents are unchanged. The change comes in the second half, when roughly 85,000 sq m of new space reaches the market at once.
If you are looking for an office, negotiating a renewal, or weighing an investment in office space, call us or drop by the office. We will look at the specific building and tell you what the data says about its sub-market.
Cushman & Wakefield | Forton data for H1 2026, verified September 2026. Rents are asking levels and indicative; agreed terms vary by building, lease length and floor area.
