Country guide
Pay transparency in Bulgaria
What the EU Pay Transparency Directive means for employers in Bulgaria, based on its national transposition — status, thresholds, the joint-assessment trigger, and where to file.
Bulgaria has not transposed the Directive (deadline missed). The transposition instrument is a draft Act amending the Anti-Discrimination Act (Закон за изменение и допълнение на Закона за защита от дискриминация), with consequential Labour Code amendments — not a standalone pay-transparency law. The text read is 'Проект на акт' v1.0 of 19.05.2026; public consultation ran 19 May – 18 June 2026 (strategy.bg 12386-K); MTSP published its response table on 11 August 2026 (104 proposals accepted, 213 rejected). Not tabled in the National Assembly as of 1 September 2026. The draft's own commencement clause is already historic: § 13 sets entry into force at 7 June 2026 — the Directive's transposition deadline, written into a text published on 19 May 2026 — so the date the Act appoints for itself passed BEFORE the consultation on it closed on 18 June 2026, and the 7 June 2027 and 7 June 2031 phase-in dates keyed to that clause cannot commence as drafted and must be re-dated on tabling. The draft designates the Commission for Protection against Discrimination (КЗД) — not the Labour Inspectorate — as the body receiving, publishing and analysing pay reports; sets a fixed 7 June annual filing date on the previous calendar year; and collapses the Directive's three reporting bands into two (250+ annual, 100–249 triennial) while keying its phase-in at 150+ from 7 June 2027 and 100–149 from 7 June 2031. Draft is provisional pending tabling and enactment.
Bulgaria has a transposition bill in progress but has not yet enacted it. The figures below reflect the directive's defaults and the draft as it stands, and may change before the law is final.
Reporting duties apply by employer size: 150 to 249 employees, from 2027 · Every three years (anticipated); 250 or more employees, from 2027 · Annual (anticipated); 100 to 249 employees, from 2031 · Every three years (anticipated). The directive's 5% trigger for a joint pay assessment applies until national law sets its own.
Figures are reported to the competent authority rather than published openly. Either way, the underlying work is the same: establish work of equal value through gender-neutral job evaluation, produce the statutory pay-gap report in the national format, and run a joint assessment where the gap is too wide.
Obligations at a glance
| Reporting threshold |
|
|---|---|
| Joint pay assessment | — |
| Public publication | Reported to the authority only |
| Competent authority | Комисия за защита от дискриминация (КЗД) |
Frequently asked
Is the EU Pay Transparency Directive in force in Bulgaria?
Bulgaria has a transposition bill in progress but has not yet enacted it. The figures below reflect the directive's defaults and the draft as it stands, and may change before the law is final.
Which employers have to report in Bulgaria?
Reporting duties apply by employer size: 150 to 249 employees, from 2027 · Every three years (anticipated); 250 or more employees, from 2027 · Annual (anticipated); 100 to 249 employees, from 2031 · Every three years (anticipated).
What triggers a joint pay assessment in Bulgaria?
The directive's 5% trigger for a joint pay assessment applies until national law sets its own.
This guide summarises publicly available information for orientation only. It is not legal advice — confirm every figure against Bulgaria's own transposition text before relying on it.