Having faced months of protests by underpaid healthcare workers, Bulgaria’s government is moving to raise salaries for young doctors and nurses, even as public finances come under strain.
The government will allocate €260 million to cash-strapped hospitals, which must meet the new minimum salaries of €1,550 for nurses and €1,860 for doctors (without specialisation) for 2026.
The current collective agreement has set minimum starting salaries at €1,000 for doctors, €750 for nurses, and €460 for hospital aides. Still, some hospitals have not managed to reach these benchmarks, citing a lack of revenue.
Low number of nurses
The Bulgarian healthcare system faces a severe structural problem – a shortage of nurses. It has more doctors than nurses, putting enormous pressure on its hospitals.
The shortage of nurses is particularly acute in smaller hospitals outside the capital, Sofia, where a single nurse is often on duty to care for dozens of patients. The staffing crisis stems from extremely low wages, which also affect the quality of healthcare in smaller towns.
The new minimum wages will be mandatory for all healthcare institutions in the country. These salary standards will also apply to hospital pharmacists, chemists, physicists, biologists and psychologists. The minimum thresholds for healthcare professionals will apply not only to nurses but also to midwives, laboratory technicians, and physiotherapists.
Societal pressure increases budget
The financial injection into the healthcare system aims to end the protests of young doctors and healthcare professionals, which began in the spring of this year. With the pay rises, Bulgaria’s healthcare budget will exceed a record €5.5 billion in 2026 – nearly 5% of GDP.
The new minimum wages for Bulgarian doctors and nurses are expected to slow the outflow of medical professionals to Western Europe. Still, they are unlikely to stop it completely, as even with the increase, salaries will remain significantly lower than in wealthier parts of the EU.
Before the decision to raise salaries in the tax-funded public healthcare system, the government had escalated tensions with young doctors and medical students to the breaking point.
In September, Health Minister Silvi Kirilov declared that he could do nothing to raise salaries, stating that the country’s healthcare system “does not rely on young doctors”. His remarks triggered two loud protests in Sofia on 7 and 15 October. The protesters blocked a central intersection in the capital, vowing not to stop demonstrating until a decision was taken to raise the wages of the lowest-paid healthcare workers.
In June, Toshko Yordanov, an MP from the populist party “There Is Such a People” – which also nominated the health minister – stated that Bulgaria would rather “import doctors from other countries who will happily work for $500, as much as the state can afford.”
Later, Boyko Borissov, leader of GERB (EPP), the main party in the ruling coalition, commented that there would be money for young doctors “when Bulgarians stop spending their holidays in Greece and start spending their money in Bulgaria instead.”
The largest share of next year’s healthcare budget, €2.3 billion, is allocated to hospitals. The government forecasts a record number of hospitalisations: 2.4 million a year, 300,000 more than the previous year, despite a shrinking population of 6.4 million.
The state will also spend a record €1.3 billion on medicines, €150 million more than in 2025.
[VA, BM]
