Bulgaria recorded a decline in exports to European Union countries in 2025, while imports from the bloc continued to rise, according to data from the National Statistical Institute (NSI). Over the year, Bulgarian exports to EU member states fell by 3.8% compared to 2024, reaching a total value of 27.55 billion euros. The country’s trade within the EU remains concentrated among a handful of major partners. Germany, Romania, Italy, Greece and France together accounted for nearly two-thirds of all Bulgarian exports to the Union, representing 63.8% of the total.
At the same time, imports of goods from EU countries moved in the opposite direction. In 2025, Bulgaria purchased goods worth 30.95 billion euros from the bloc, marking an increase of 4.5% compared with the previous year. Germany again ranked as the largest supplier, followed by Romania, Greece, Italy and Poland, which together formed the core group of EU partners providing goods to the Bulgarian market.
Trade with countries outside the European Union also showed diverging trends at the beginning of 2026. In January, Bulgarian exports to so-called third countries declined by 9% compared with the same month of 2025. The value of these exports stood at 1.0126 billion euros. Bulgaria’s main external markets during that period included Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, Serbia, the Republic of North Macedonia, Ukraine and Algeria. Taken together, these countries represented 47.4% of the country’s exports to destinations outside the EU.
Imports from third countries, however, expanded during the same month. In January 2026, Bulgaria imported goods worth 2.0445 billion euros from non-EU partners, an increase of 5.3% compared with January of the previous year. The largest volumes of goods came from Turkey and China, followed by Brazil and Ukraine, which were also among the leading suppliers to the Bulgarian market during that period. (Novinite)