Greece and Bulgaria now share the bottom of the EU living-standards ranking

New data on wages, purchasing power and the cost of living show that Greece has fallen to the same level as Bulgaria, the country long described as the European Union’s poorest member. In 2025 both recorded GDP per capita of 68 percent of the EU average when measured in purchasing power standards, according to Eurostat. That is 32 percent below the bloc average of about €41,600.

The finding, reported by EUalive’s IBNA, underlines a decade-long erosion of Greece’s relative position. In 2019 Greece still sat third from last, ahead of Croatia and Bulgaria, at the same 68 percent index. By 2025 it had slipped to joint last as other Balkan EU members improved. Croatia and Romania now stand at 78 percent of the EU average; Slovenia is at 91 percent and Cyprus at 98 percent. Greece’s index did not fall; everyone else moved up faster. IBNA article

Nominal wages in Greece remain higher than in Bulgaria. Once prices are taken into account, the advantage shrinks or disappears. Greek workers have in some calculations already fallen behind Bulgarian workers in purchasing power per hour worked. Everyday costs — food, energy, services and especially housing — absorb a large share of household budgets in both countries, but the squeeze is felt differently.

Property ownership changes the picture

Income statistics do not capture household wealth held in real estate. On that measure Bulgaria looks stronger. About 86 percent of Bulgarians live in a home they own, well above the EU average of 68 percent. The rate has barely changed for twenty years and places Bulgaria among the highest-ownership countries in the Union, behind only Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

High ownership is typical of much of Eastern and Southern Europe after post-communist privatisation. It means a large part of family wealth is tied up in houses and apartments rather than in bank deposits or shares. Ownership does not guarantee high-quality housing, and regional gaps inside Bulgaria are wide. Even so, it is a form of security that official wage and GDP rankings miss.

Greece’s recovery after the debt crisis produced real growth and improved fiscal numbers. Those gains have not translated into a higher relative standard of living. Bulgaria, starting from a much lower base, has closed the purchasing-power gap while keeping public debt far lower and unemployment lower. The two countries now occupy the same rung at the bottom of the EU table — one through stagnation in relative terms, the other through catch-up.

The comparison is not a simple claim that Bulgarians are “richer.” It is a reminder that living standards are more than headline GDP, and that household balance sheets, especially property, matter as much as monthly pay.

One visible sign of rising living standards among Bulgarians is the scale of travel and property buying in Greece. Hundreds of thousands cross the border each summer — more than 260,000 in July 2025 alone, and nearly three million arrivals in 2024 according to Bank of Greece figures. Many no longer come only as tourists: thousands have bought holiday homes along the northern Greek coast, especially around Kavala, Halkidiki and the Olympic Riviera. By the end of 2024, more than 3,200 Bulgarian citizens had declared property in Greece, up sharply from a few hundred five years earlier. Local agents in some seaside villages say Bulgarians now account for half of second-home buyers.

The article by EUalive’s partner IBNA can be found here.

Caption: A corner of a Kaufland hypermarket in the Bulgarian city of Pleven [Kaufland]