site.btaBulgaria’s Social Protection, Healthcare Spending Lag behind Rest of EU

The average level of social protection and healthcare spending among EU countries, measured as a share of GDP, stood at 8.1% in 2022. The figure reflects a decrease of 0.4 percentage points compared to the level of these expenditures in 2021, according to the findings of the latest initial data from the European statistics agency Eurostat. Bulgaria recorded the lowest share of social protection and health spending relative to its GDP last year (4.2%).

Among the 24 EU member states for which data is available, social protection and health spending was highest in France (10% of the country's GDP).

Almost all EU countries recorded a decline in their social protection and health spending in 2022 on an annual basis. The most significant decrease in EU health spending was recorded in Bulgaria (-1.1 percentage points). The only EU countries that recorded an increase in health spending as a share of GDP in 2022 were Luxembourg (+0.3 pp) and Slovenia (+0.1 pp).