The minimum wage in Bulgaria is the lowest, but it buys more

Unsurprisingly, the minimum wage in Bulgaria is the lowest among EU countries where such a wage exists. Since the beginning of this year, the minimum wage for an 8-hour work contract is €620 gross. And although it has jumped by nearly 13% on an annual basis, it remains far from EU levels – Latvia is closest with €780, according to Eurostat data.

However, when the purchasing power of minimum wages is measured by country, it turns out that in Bulgaria it will be possible to buy more goods and services in January 2026 than in the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Estonia.

Eurostat uses the purchasing power parity (PPP) indicator for the minimum wage, according to which the nominal Bulgarian €620 corresponds to an average of over €1,000 PPP. This is the first time this year that the country has crossed this psychological threshold, Eurostat notes.

Minimum wage

As of January 1, 2026, 22 countries in the European Union have a fixed national minimum wage – all except Denmark, Italy, Austria, Finland, and Sweden.

In eight of these countries, the minimum wage is below €1,000 per month: Bulgaria (€620), Latvia (€780), Romania (€795), Hungary (€838), Estonia (€886), Slovakia (€915), the Czech Republic (€924), and Malta (€994).

In another 8 countries, minimum wages range between €1,000 and €1,500 per month – Greece (€1,027), Croatia (€1,050), Portugal (€1,073), Cyprus (€1,088), Poland (€1,139), Lithuania (€1,153), Slovenia (€1,278), and Spain (€1,381).

In the remaining six countries, the minimum wage is above €1,500 per month: France (€1,823), Belgium (€2,112), the Netherlands (€2,295), Germany (€2,343), Ireland (€2,391) and Luxembourg (€2,704).

Purchasing power of the minimum wage

The data show that, after eliminating price differences, the highest minimum wage in the European Union is 4.4 times higher than the lowest. However, the differences between countries are significantly smaller when price level differences are taken into account.

When expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP), minimum wages in countries with lower price levels appear higher than those in countries with higher prices.

After adjusting for price differences, minimum wages range from €886 PPP per month in Estonia to €2,157 PPP in Germany, meaning that the highest minimum wage in PPP terms is 2.4 times higher than the lowest.

In terms of purchasing power parity, EU countries with a national minimum wage can be classified into three different groups:

• minimum wages above €1,500 PPS per month: Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, France, Poland, and Spain;
• minimum wages between €1,000 and €1,500 PPS per month: Slovenia, Lithuania, Croatia, Romania, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic;
• minimum wages below €1,000 PPS per month: Latvia and Estonia.

Compared to January 2025, three countries have now changed groups – minimum wages in Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic are now above €1,000 PPS per month.

Translated with DeepL.