Bulgaria’s population will shrink below 5mn people by 2075, the statistics office, NSI, said in a population forecast until 2090 based on the number of births and deaths, as well as on immigration and emigration figures, released on November 14.

NSI says there are three scenarios based on the expectations for socio-economic development of the country.

The realistic scenario is based on the EU regulations for demographic and socio-economic development of its member states. According to this scenario, in 2075 Bulgaria’s population will fall to 4.97mn from 6.44mn at the end of 2022.

Moreover, the share of population aged 65 and above will reach 25.5% from current 23.9%. This forecast also projects that the coefficient of age-related dependence will be 69.1, meaning that there will be 69 persons aged below 15 or above 64 per every 100 active people.

The other two scenarios were developed based on more favourable and more unfavourable socio-economic processes in the country.

In case of the more unfavourable development, by 2090 the population will shrink below 4.8mn people, while in case of favourable development it could stay slightly above 5.1mn.

Bulgaria’s last census, held in 2021, showed that the population had decreased to the historically low number of 6,520,314 people and is progressively ageing. This was the biggest contraction recorded ever between two censuses – by 844,000 people, or by 11.5% compared to 2011. The 2011 census showed that Bulgaria’s population stood at 7.36mn, while a decade earlier it was 7.92mn.

The natural growth of Bulgaria’s population was -448,000 people, which contributed 53% to the total decrease. The remaining 47% of the decrease was the Bulgarians who have left the country in the past ten years.