Household electricity and district heating prices to stay unchanged until July 2027

Household electricity and district heating prices in Bulgaria will remain unchanged until 1 July 2027, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said at the start of a regular cabinet meeting on Wednesday 28 October, BTA reported.

Radev welcomed the announcement by the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC) on the previous day that prices would not change during the coming heating season, despite a sharp rise in international natural gas prices. He said the government would ensure that the Energy System Security Fund had enough liquidity to finance the mechanisms that protect consumers from price increases.

At a meeting with the state gas supplier Bulgargaz, EWRC chair Plamen Mladenovski said the regulator had other tools besides the gas price to keep electricity and heating prices down. More than 60% of the costs of heating utilities are related to the price of natural gas, he said, but the commission would use all its regulatory mechanisms to avoid an increase from 1 January. Reserves were available and an increase was not necessary at this moment, he added.

Radev also spoke about food prices, saying that Bulgaria has a free-market economy and the government cannot dictate prices. Effective regulation required a legal framework for price transparency, traceability in how prices are formed and action against unfair commercial practices, he said. The government had started systematic checks on pricing, unfair practices and food quality, rather than one-off inspections, with the aim of bringing retail mark-ups in line with those in other developed European countries.

For households, the decision means no change in regulated bills through the winter and spring. For businesses, which buy electricity on the free market, the decision does not apply directly, but it shows how the state plans to use the security fund to absorb higher energy costs. How the fund will be topped up is likely to be discussed with the 2027 budget.