The South Central region has overtaken the North-West as the area with the highest poverty risk in Bulgaria for 2024, according to the latest figures published by Eurostat. The data shows that 21.7 percent of Bulgaria’s population is considered at risk of poverty this year, marking an increase of 1.1 percentage points compared to 2023. This is the highest share recorded among all EU member states. Last year, Bulgaria ranked fourth, behind Estonia, Latvia and Romania.

Across the EU as a whole, 16.2 percent of people – or roughly 72.1 million citizens – were at risk of poverty in 2024. The proportion remains unchanged from the previous year, highlighting persistent inequalities within the bloc.

Eurostat’s regional comparison underscores the scale of disparities within Bulgaria. The South Central region, which includes the districts of Kardzhali, Pazardzhik, Plovdiv, Smolyan and Haskovo, posts the highest rate at 28.8 percent. Until now, the North-West had held this position for eight years in a row and, although its situation has improved relative to other regions, it still remains among the most vulnerable.

At the other end of the spectrum, the South-West region – covering Sofia, the surrounding Sofia district, Pernik, Kyustendil and Blagoevgrad – once again records the lowest poverty risk at 13.8 percent. For a second consecutive year, no Bulgarian region appears among the EU’s ten most at-risk areas.

Eurostat’s broader EU-level comparison shows that the highest shares of people at risk of poverty are found in French Guiana at 53.3 percent, followed by Melilla in Spain at 41.4 percent and Italy’s Calabria region at 37.2 percent. The lowest levels in the Union are reported in Romania’s Bucharest-Ilfov region, where the figure stands at 3.7 percent, in East Flanders in Belgium at 5.4 percent and in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen in Italy, where the risk is 5.9 percent.

Source: Eurostat