Budget 2026: Tax hike for gambling operators

After banks helped the Ministry of Finance (MF) fill the budget gap this year, the ministry has chosen another sector to help patch up the deficit in 2026. This sector is gambling, which will pay higher license fees for organizing games, according to Economic.bg in the Updated Medium-Term Budget Forecast for the period 2026 – 2028.

It states that with amendments to the Gambling Act, the variable part of the two-component state fee payable for maintaining a license for lotteries, raffles, toto, bingo, keno, and others will be increased as of January 1, 2026.

Currently, the two-part license maintenance fee consists of a one-time fee of BGN 300,000 and a variable part of 20% on the difference between the value of bets received and winnings paid out. For games for which participation fees and commissions are collected, this 20% is imposed on their value accordingly.

For online betting, the one-time fee is BGN 400,000, and the variable part is again 20% on the difference between the bets received and the winnings paid out.

Now, instead of 20%, gambling operators are being asked to pay 25% on the difference. The 5 percentage point increase is expected to contribute an additional €32 million in revenue to the treasury.

The planned increase in the fees payable by gambling operators is aimed at generating additional revenue for the state budget and thus providing additional funds for social and economic expenditure, which is in the public interest," the Ministry of Finance said.

It is interesting, however, that the effect of the measure in 2027-2028 has not been calculated.

A recycled idea

Temenuzhka Petkova's idea is actually an old one, left over from the discussions on the 2025 state budget by the caretaker government of former Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev.

As Economic.bg wrote, even then there was talk of increasing the variable part in question – from 20% to 30% – but the idea was subsequently dropped, along with the idea of taxing the excess profits of the banking sector, which made almost BGN 4 billion in profits in 2024. The abandonment of the two measures was at the expense of the tax amnesty proposed at the time for the repayment of declared and undeclared taxes.

Subsequently, both tax amnesties were scrapped after the current government of Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov proposed its own version of the budget for the current year. In it, the taxation of banks' excess profits was transformed into an advance payment of "profit" tax in the amount of BGN 500 million.

Translated with DeepL.