Bulgaria introduced the euro on 1 January 2026. The accession of Bulgaria to the euro area was formally approved by the Council of the European Union on 8 July 2025. The euro area now has 21 Member States. The Eurosystem comprises the European Central Bank (ECB) and the central banks of those countries that have already adopted the euro as their currency. The last country to join before that was Croatia in 2023. 

Euro replaces Bulgarian lev

As of now, Bulgaria’s more than 6 million inhabitants can use the euro to make payments. Visitors from other euro area countries will no longer have to exchange their euro in advance for Bulgaria’s former national currency, the lev. The euro and the lev can be used side by side until the end of January 2026. From 1 February 2026, the lev will no longer be legal tender. 

Lev banknotes can be exchanged free of charge at Bundesbank counters until 2 March 2026 at the fixed conversion rate of 1.95583 lev to the euro. There will be a cap of 2,000 lev per person per day for such transactions.

Bulgarian euro coins depict historical, religious and cultural landmarks of the country. The €1 coin depicts, for example, John of Rila (Ivan Rilski), the most important saint of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, to which around 70 % of the country’s population belongs. The €2 coin features the monk and historian Paisius of Hilendar.

Membership of the Eurosystem

Bulgaria’s accession to the euro area means that the Bulgarian National Bank (Bulgarska Narodna Banka, BNB) has joined the Eurosystem. Its governor Dimitar Radev now has a seat on the Governing Council of the ECB, where he will henceforth be involved in the making of Eurosystem monetary policy. 

The BNB is now also a full member of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). It has already been in close cooperation with the European Central Bank (ECB) since October 2020. 

New capital key

The national central banks of all EU Member States are the sole shareholders of the ECB. The capital key is calculated based on the size of the Member State, measured in terms of that country’s population and gross domestic product. Only the central banks of euro area countries have to pay their capital share in full, however. Bulgaria’s accession to the euro area will thus also alter the capital key according to which the euro area national central banks contribute to the ECB’s capital. This share determines, for instance, how profits and losses from monetary policy operations are allocated among the NCBs. Bulgaria’s weighted capital share within the Eurosystem corresponds to around 1.2 %.