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Business

Mass relocation of Greek businesses to Bulgaria
May 06, 2025 11:59 GMT

Mass relocation of Greek businesses to Bulgaria

Eurozone’s weakest member, Greece, is facing a flight of capital as companies are fleeing to Bulgaria where costs there are competitively lower.

 

Bulgaria, EU’s poorest country, has a tax on businesses and individuals set at 10% while corporate tax in Greece is as high as 26%.

 

Another advantage for employers in Bulgaria is that they can offer workers a lower minimum wage.

 

Hotel owner Christos Mavridopoulos talks about Greek entrepreneurs moving their business to Bulgaria: ‘Those who can leave do leave, new companies every day. Mostly they are desperate people. They don’t know exactly why they come here, or what their next move will be. They just want to get away from what’s happening today in Greece.

 

Not only companies flee Greece but employees also. David Podosian, a Greek mechanic, says that: ‘Unemployment, more or less, made me leave Ptolemaida and seek a living and work in another country. Here, I earn 700 lev (358 euros). It’s more than enough. This is a much better life than the one I would have in Ptolemaida.’

 

To top everything, shoppers prefer crossing the border to Bulgaria for its low prices rather than purchasing their needed items from local businesses in Greece.

 

Dimitris Giannakis, representative of the Chamber of Commerce, stated that: ‘In the last five years, nearly 5,000 companies have been disappeared from the registry. Most have moved off to Bulgaria.’

 

Although he had made an appeal for Greece for a special economic zone with lower taxes, EU laws and regulations make that impossible to apply.