Bulgaria recorded the largest government budget deficit in the European Union as a share of gross domestic product during the first quarter of 2026, according to new seasonally adjusted data published by Eurostat.
The country’s consolidated government budget deficit reached 7.6% of GDP between January and March, placing Bulgaria at the top of the EU ranking. It was followed by Hungary with a deficit of 6.6% of GDP, Poland at 5.9%, and France at 5.1%.
Eurostat’s figures also show that Bulgaria experienced the sharpest deterioration compared with the previous quarter. The country’s budget balance worsened by 5.1 percentage points, marking the largest negative quarterly change among all member states included in the statistics.
Across the euro area and the European Union as a whole, the seasonally adjusted government deficit stood at 3.1% of GDP during the first quarter.
That represented a slight improvement compared with the final quarter of 2025, when the deficit measured 3.2% in the eurozone and 3.4% across the EU.
