Blog · The housing stock
The most homes in Europe — and living in cramped ones.
Divide all the homes in Bulgaria by all the people, and the country has more dwellings per person than any other in Europe. Yet one Bulgarian in three lives in an overcrowded home. The two sound incompatible, but they are not. Here is what the numbers say.
Data: National Statistical Institute — housing stock at 31.12.2025, Census 2021, completed dwellings · Eurostat, 2025 · Deloitte Property Index 2025Homes per 1,000 people in Bulgaria
The most in Europe; average across Deloitte’s countries — 450
Of homes are unoccupied
Census 2021: 1,657,741 homes
Of Bulgarians live in an overcrowded home
EU average — 16.8%
Of children live in an overcrowded home
EU average — 25.3%
First in Europe
How many homes are there, really?
At the end of 2025 Bulgaria had 4,360,805 dwellings, according to the National Statistical Institute. The population at the start of 2026 was 6,423,207. That makes 679 homes per 1,000 people.
Deloitte compares this indicator every year, and Bulgaria has come first two years running:
| Country | Homes per 1,000 people |
|---|---|
| Bulgaria | 672 |
| France | 556 |
| Belgium | 490 |
| Average of the 17 countries with data | 450 |
| United Kingdom | 375 |
| Greece | 288 |
Deloitte Property Index 2025, 2024 data. The newer figure of 679 is calculated from statistics institute and Eurostat data for the end of 2025.
In other words, if homes were spread evenly, every three Bulgarians would have two homes between them. But they are not spread evenly.
The empty homes
Where are all these homes?
The 2021 census gives the answer: 1,657,741 homes, or 38.9% of the total, are unoccupied. Nearly 4 in 10 homes in Bulgaria stand empty.
Most of the empty homes are where people have left or come only in summer:
| District | Unoccupied homes |
|---|---|
| Vidin | 55.4% |
| Burgas | 53.7% |
| Pernik | 53.6% |
| Plovdiv | 31.1% |
| Sofia (capital) | 30.3% |
Census 2021, National Statistical Institute. Districts with the highest and lowest shares of unoccupied homes.
The reasons differ. In Vidin and in the villages, people have moved away and the houses have stayed. In Burgas many homes are holiday homes on the coast, used a few weeks a year. About a third of the housing stock is in villages, and there only 22.9% of homes are connected to public sewerage. These homes exist in the statistics, but not on the market where people look for a home.
Even in Sofia, though, almost one home in three is unoccupied. The reasons there are different — inherited homes, homes awaiting renovation, or homes bought as an investment. The statistics do not separate them, but they are not on the market either.
And yet we live in cramped homes
One Bulgarian in three lives in an overcrowded home.
Eurostat considers a home overcrowded when it does not have enough rooms: one for the household, one for each couple, one for each adult and one for every two children. By this measure Bulgaria is among the worst in the EU:
| Country | Overcrowded homes, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Romania | 40.4% |
| Bulgaria | 32.5% |
| Croatia | 31.8% |
| Poland | 30.9% |
| Greece | 28.3% |
| EU average | 16.8% |
| Czech Republic | 16.7% |
| Germany | 11.7% |
| France | 10.8% |
Eurostat, share of the population living in an overcrowded home (ilc_lvho05a), 2025.
It is worst where demand is too: in cities, 40% of people live in an overcrowded home, against an EU average of 20.4%. Among young people aged 25 to 29 the share is 43.5%. And among children — 53%. One child in two in Bulgaria lives in a home without enough rooms.
The opposite indicator confirms it. Eurostat also tracks how many people live in a home with more rooms than they need. In the EU it is 33.4%, in Bulgaria only 15.8%.
There is good news too: in 2015, 41.4% of Bulgarians lived in overcrowded homes. In ten years the share has fallen by almost 9 points.
New construction
Record building — and it makes sense.
With so many homes, why build? Because the empty ones are in the wrong places and of the wrong kind. People are looking for a home in the big cities, with one more room, in a building that will not need insulating in five years.
| Year | New homes completed |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 7,806 |
| 2019 | 12,105 |
| 2022 | 19,847 |
| 2023 | 22,649 |
| 2024 | 20,998 |
| 2025 | 37,571 |
National Statistical Institute, newly built dwellings put into use.
In 2025, 37,571 new homes were completed — more than in any year since at least 2010. That is almost 6 homes per 1,000 people. For comparison, in Deloitte’s 2024 data the most active builders were Turkey (6.85), Israel (5.62) and Poland (5.33).
What it means for you
There are homes. The right home is missing.
A large number of homes does not mean a surplus. It means there are homes that do not meet people’s needs — in villages, on the coast, small or old. For a buyer in Sofia, Plovdiv or Varna, that makes nothing easier. Demand is concentrated in the same cities and the same type of home.
If you are among those living in a cramped home, the answer is usually not a different home but one more room. And that is exactly where the loan maths matters most: at today’s 2.42% over 30 years, every extra €10,000 of loan adds about €39 to the monthly payment.
- National Statistical Institute — housing stock at 31.12.2025 and newly built dwellings put into use (in Bulgarian)
- National Statistical Institute — Census 2021: dwellings at 7 September 2021 — unoccupied homes, sewerage, average size (in Bulgarian)
- Eurostat — population at 1 January 2026, overcrowding rate (ilc_lvho05a), by degree of urbanisation (ilc_lvho05d) and under-occupation rate (ilc_lvho50a), 2025
- Deloitte Property Index 2025 — housing stock and completed homes per 1,000 people, 2024
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. The figures on unoccupied homes come from the latest census (2021) — the statistics institute does not report them every year.
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