Bulgaria’s aging housing stock remains one of the main factors behind the country’s high vulnerability to energy poverty. While across Europe newer and renovated buildings are helping reduce the number of households struggling to heat their homes or pay energy bills, many Bulgarian households continue to live in older, inefficient properties.
Energy poverty in Europe is increasingly linked not only to household income, but also to the condition of the buildings people live in. Eurostat data show a clear connection between energy efficiency and living costs: the newer and better insulated a home is, the lower the chance that residents will face difficulties maintaining a comfortable temperature or covering their utility expenses.
For Bulgaria, this issue is particularly significant. The country has one of the oldest housing stocks in the European Union, with many buildings suffering from poor energy performance. As a result, energy efficiency is not simply a part of Europe’s environmental agenda, but also a question directly connected to living standards, social protection and household budgets.
Across the EU, progress in improving housing efficiency has slowed. In 2025, 23.9% of EU residents lived in homes that had undergone energy efficiency improvements during the previous five years. This represents a decline from 2023, when the share was 25.8%.
The pace of renovation differs greatly between member states. In 11 EU countries, the proportion of people living in recently improved homes has increased, while in 15 countries it has fallen.
The Netherlands leads the ranking, with 60.5% of its population living in homes that have benefited from energy efficiency improvements in the past five years. Denmark follows with 34%, while France and Slovenia both report a share of 33.3%.
At the other end of the scale are Italy, where only 2.6% of residents reported recent energy improvements, followed by Malta with 7.8% and Greece with 9.5%.
The differences between countries show that energy efficiency depends not only on available technology, but also on long-term government policies, investment levels and the ability of households to participate in renovation programs.
For Bulgaria, the challenge is not only related to new construction, but mainly to the millions of older homes built decades ago that require major upgrades.
Eurostat data also highlight a strong link between poverty and access to renovated housing. People at risk of poverty or social exclusion are less likely to live in homes that have recently improved energy efficiency.
In 2025, only 17.4% of people in this group across the EU reported living in renovated homes, compared with 25.6% among the rest of the population.
This creates a difficult cycle: households with the fewest financial resources are often concentrated in the least efficient buildings, while those same homes require the largest investments to improve.
Energy poverty is therefore not only a result of low income. It is also shaped by the quality of the housing environment.
The difference between vulnerable and other households can be significant even in wealthy countries. In the Netherlands, for example, the gap reaches 18 percentage points, with recent improvements reported by 45.3% of people at risk of poverty compared with 63.3% among the rest of the population.
Another important factor is whether people own or rent their homes. Across the EU, homeowners are much more likely to invest in energy efficiency improvements than tenants.
In 2025, 26.9% of homeowners reported improvements made in the previous five years, while the share among renters was only 16.7%.
The explanation is largely connected to incentives. Property owners directly benefit from renovation, while renters often have limited influence over decisions about improving the building they live in.
This issue is especially relevant for Bulgaria, where home ownership is among the highest in the EU, but a large share of privately owned properties are old, deteriorating and expensive to heat. Owning a home does not automatically guarantee energy security if the building itself consumes excessive amounts of energy.
Housing type also plays a role. In 2025, 30.5% of EU residents living in houses reported energy efficiency improvements, compared with only 16.6% of those living in apartments.
Individual homes are often easier to renovate because owners can independently decide on measures such as insulation, heating system upgrades, roof repairs or facade improvements. In apartment buildings, however, renovations usually require coordination between many owners, making the process more complicated.
This is a major challenge for Bulgaria, where a large proportion of citizens live in panel and multi-family residential buildings constructed during the second half of the 20th century.
The strongest link identified by Eurostat is between the age of a building and the risk of energy poverty. In 2025, only 4.8% of people living in homes built after 2011 reported difficulties keeping their homes warm enough. For buildings constructed between 2001 and 2010, the share was 7.2%.
The risk increases as buildings become older. Among residents of homes built between 1981 and 2000, the share rises to 8.9%, while it reaches 9.8% for buildings from 1961-1980 and 10.1% for homes built before 1960.
The difference becomes even more pronounced among people at risk of poverty or social exclusion. For this group, heating difficulties affect 15.8% of those living in homes built after 2011, while the figure rises to between 23.9% and 24.3% for older buildings.
The data show that even households with similar incomes can face very different risks depending on the quality and age of their homes.
A similar trend is visible when looking at overdue utility payments. In 2025, the lowest share of households with late bills was recorded among residents of homes built after 2011, at 5.2%.
The percentage was 6.2% for buildings from 2001-2010, 6.7% for homes built between 1981 and 2000, 6.9% for properties constructed before 1960, and 7.9% for buildings from 1961-1980.
Among people facing poverty or social exclusion, households in newer homes again reported the lowest levels of delayed payments, at 16.6%. For older housing categories, the share ranged between 19.1% and 20.7%.
The European data point to one clear conclusion: tackling energy poverty starts with improving buildings. For Bulgaria, energy efficiency is not only a climate-related issue but also a social one.
An old, poorly insulated home forces households to spend more money for the same level of comfort. When residents cannot afford renovation, they remain trapped in a cycle of high costs and low efficiency.
New buildings demonstrate the benefits of better construction: lower energy expenses, reduced risk of energy poverty and improved living conditions. But Bulgaria’s main challenge remains the modernization of its vast stock of older homes where most people still live.
Because in an inefficient building, energy poverty does not begin with the heating bill. It begins much earlier, with the condition of the walls, windows and the year the building was constructed.