From 9 August 2026 you price in euro only, because the mandatory dual lev and euro display that began on 1 January 2026 ends on 8 August 2026, as The Sofia Globe reported on 6 August 2026. Lev prices stay allowed, but only as optional information.
Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026 at the fixed rate of 1.95583 leva to one euro, and since that day every price shown to a customer has had to appear in both currencies. That obligation ended on 8 August 2026. From 9 August, businesses price in euro, and any lev figure you choose to keep becomes optional and purely informational. The Sofia Globe reported the end of the mandatory dual display period on 6 August 2026. We are marketers rather than lawyers or accountants, so confirm the exact wording of the ordinance and your receipt obligations with your accountant before you send anything to print.
What changes on 9 August?
Since 9 August 2026 the euro has been the only currency you are required to display, because the mandatory dual lev and euro display that began with euro adoption on 1 January 2026 ended on 8 August 2026, as The Sofia Globe reported on 6 August 2026. The fixed conversion rate does not change: it remains 1.95583 leva to one euro, the rate Bulgaria joined at. What changes is the obligation, not the arithmetic. If your menu, your shelf label or your website currently shows two numbers because the law asked for two numbers, from 9 August it only has to show one.
Do I have to remove lev prices?
No. After 9 August 2026 a lev price is optional and informational only, so you may keep it, drop it or keep it in some places and not others. The practical question is whether it helps your customer. Plenty of Bulgarian customers still think in leva, and for a bakery serving the same neighbourhood every morning a small secondary lev figure is a courtesy rather than clutter. If you keep it, keep it consistent and clearly secondary, one lev figure per price, in a smaller size, always converted at 1.95583 so nobody can accuse you of quietly rounding in your own favour.
What must I update this week?
Menus, shelf and price labels, your website, your Google Business Profile, your delivery platform listings and your social bios, and that is the full list of the places customers actually read a price. The ones businesses forget are the ones they do not own: the price fields and menu attached to a Google Business Profile, the item prices inside delivery apps, the price in a pinned Instagram post or a link in bio page, and the PDF menu somebody uploaded eighteen months ago that still ranks in search. Write the list down, tick it off, and check each one on a phone rather than a laptop, because that is where the mismatch shows up first.
How do I reprice without customers thinking I am gouging?
Pick honest, clean euro price points and say plainly why, because a straight conversion produces numbers no customer reads as a price: 9.99 leva at 1.95583 is 5.1078 euro, and 19.99 leva is 10.2207 euro. Nobody prints 5.11. So the decision is which way you move and how open you are about it. Moving 5.1078 up to 5.50 euro is an increase of just over 7 percent, which is a real price rise and your regulars will notice it, so either absorb it and price at 5.00, or take the 5.50 and put one honest line on the menu saying prices were converted at the fixed rate and rounded, with the reason. Silence is what reads as gouging. A sentence that explains the rounding, ideally on the menu itself and repeated in a social post the week you change, costs nothing and removes the argument before it starts.
Can I use the forced reprint as a brand refresh?
Yes, and this is the part worth your attention, because you are paying a printer this month whether you think about it or not. If the menus, the labels and the boards are being reset anyway, the marginal cost of making them work harder is the thinking, not the printing. That means menu engineering rather than retyping: knowing the gross profit on every dish, moving the high margin items to where eyes actually land, cutting the dishes that sell rarely and cost you prep time, and setting price points that hold at a clean euro number instead of being dragged there by a conversion. It also means the print itself finally matching the rest of your brand, which is design work we do, and for food and drink businesses the dish level costing sits inside our F and B Partnership. If you only do one thing beyond changing the numbers, cost your top ten sellers before the new menu goes to print.
Sources
- The Sofia Globe, 6 August 2026: mandatory dual display of prices in leva and euro in Bulgaria ends on 8 August 2026, after which lev display is optional and informational.
- Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026 at the fixed conversion rate of 1.95583 leva to one euro.