The second price tag: finishing and furnishing a Sofia apartment costs €36,000 to €77,000
Most new builds sell „по БДС“: the advertised price buys a concrete shell with screed floors and plastered walls. Here is the itemised budget for turning 65 m² of shell into a furnished home.
The day you finally get the keys, the apartment echoes. Grey screed underfoot, one wire hanging where the ceiling light should be, a pipe stub where the brochure showed a rain shower. This is „по БДС“, the way most new Sofia homes are handed over, and it is the moment the second budget begins. The first budget is written in the notary act. The second has no contract, no ceiling and a talent for growing in the dark.
We put numbers on it. For the most common purchase in the city, a one-bedroom of 60 to 70 square metres, we priced every line a buyer actually pays, from the waterproofing under the bathroom tiles to the curtain rails, at three honest levels of ambition.
- Lean but livable: €28,000–43,500. Laminate floors, basic bathroom, ready-made furniture, strict discipline.
- Good modern standard: €46,000–76,700, with most projects landing near €56,000–66,500. Decent custom kitchen, built-in wardrobes, a proper lighting plan.
- Premium: €87,000–153,000+. Designer project, custom everything; can exceed the price of the shell itself.
- The biggest cost drivers are the bathroom, the kitchen and custom storage, and the most underestimated lines are delivery, assembly and the 10–15% contingency.
The bathroom always wins
Strip the romance off a renovation and what remains is ten invoices. The largest of them, per square metre, belongs to the smallest room: waterproofing, tiles, glass and the plumber’s third visit make the bathroom a €7,000 affair in a normal project and a €25,000 one if you fall in love with stone. Floors and walls follow quietly behind. Every figure below also assumes the developer handed over level screed and straight walls, an assumption Sofia buyers learn to price in.
| Finishing works | Lean | Standard | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bathroom complete (waterproofing, tiles, sanitaryware, glass) | 4,100–7,200 | 7,200–12,800 | 12,800–25,600 |
| Floors: laminate / SPC / parquet + skirting | 2,000–3,600 | 3,600–6,100 | 7,700–15,300 |
| Walls and ceilings: putty, sanding, paint | 2,600–4,600 | 4,600–7,700 | 8,200–14,300 |
| Electrical: sockets, switches, panel changes | 1,000–2,000 | 2,000–3,600 | 4,100–7,200 |
| Plumbing for bathroom and kitchen | 770–1,800 | 1,800–3,100 | 3,100–5,100 |
| Interior doors | 1,000–2,000 | 2,000–3,600 | 4,100–7,700 |
| Lighting fixtures + installation | 770–1,800 | 2,000–4,100 | 5,100–12,800 |
| Air conditioning / HVAC | 1,300–2,600 | 2,600–4,600 | 5,100–9,200 |
| Site prep, cleanup, small fixes, terrace | 1,500–3,000 | 3,000–5,900 | 6,100–11,300 |
| Finishing subtotal | 15,300–28,600 | 28,900–51,400 | 56,200–108,400 |
All figures EUR, labour + materials, 2026 Sofia pricing. Even a new apartment gets expensive when walls are uneven, screed needs leveling or bathroom drainage needs correcting: developer delivery quality is the wildcard.
The kitchen is a decision, the wardrobes are a fact
Furniture showrooms seduce with sofas, but the budget is decided in the kitchen. A ready-made line with freestanding appliances can stay near €4,000; custom cabinetry, a stone countertop and integrated appliances cross €15,000 without ever feeling extravagant. Wardrobes are the opposite kind of number. Nobody dreams about them, every hallway demands them, and built-in storage routinely ends up costing more than the bed, the mattress and the sofa put together.
| Furnishing | Lean | Standard | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen furniture | 2,000–4,100 | 5,100–10,200 | 12,800–30,700 |
| Kitchen appliances | 2,000–3,600 | 4,100–7,700 | 9,200–20,500 |
| Living room furniture | 1,500–3,100 | 3,600–7,700 | 10,200–25,600 |
| Bedroom: bed, mattress, wardrobe | 1,500–3,600 | 4,100–9,200 | 10,200–25,600 |
| Hallway and storage wardrobes | 770–2,000 | 2,600–6,100 | 7,700–17,900 |
| Curtains, blinds, carpets, decor | 770–2,000 | 2,600–6,100 | 7,700–20,500 |
| Washing machine, TV, small appliances | 1,500–3,100 | 3,600–6,100 | 7,700–17,900 |
| Furnishing subtotal | 10,200–21,500 | 25,600–53,200 | 65,400–158,500 |
The lines that appear on no mood board
Then come the rows nobody photographs. Delivery trucks that charge extra for a third floor without an elevator. Assembly, by the hour. The designer you were sure you could do without, hired at 11 p.m. after the third tile decision. Together they add €3,600–10,200 to a lean project and €12,300–26,600 to a standard one. The contingency deserves its own sentence: with an apartment bought before Act 16, the 10–15% you set aside is the one line in the file guaranteed to be spent. Power connections arrive late, screed wants leveling, a socket sits exactly where the headboard must go, and materials get dearer between the preliminary contract and the final coat of paint. Lock the bathroom and kitchen budgets early; everything else can wait its turn.
The honest price per square metre
This is why a „cheap“ off-plan €/m² misleads. A shell advertised at €2,500 per square metre leaves this article at €3,100–3,400, furnished and breathing; an investor’s advertised 4.4% gross yield shrinks to about 3.5% effective before the first tenant rings the new doorbell. The full rent-versus-buy arithmetic, payback years included, lives in the rental-yield analysis.
Buy, by all means; Sofia’s mortgage maths can still reward the patient. Just walk into the notary’s office with two budgets, because the apartment you are signing for does not exist yet, and the home you are imagining costs tens of thousands more than the listing says.
Methodology & caveats
- Scope: a 60–70 m² (calculated at 65 m²) new-build one-bedroom delivered „шпакловка и замазка“ (plaster and screed), Sofia or another large Bulgarian city, 2026 pricing.
- Built from itemised 2026 contractor quotes and retail pricing per category (bathroom, flooring, electrical, kitchen, appliances, wardrobes, lighting, AC, delivery), with a 10–15% contingency. Ranges reflect material quality and custom vs ready-made choices.
- Excludes: the purchase price, VAT, notary and agency fees, mortgage costs, parking, building fees and temporary accommodation during the works.
- Ranges, not quotes. Developer delivery quality is the single biggest source of variance; corrections to poor screed, uneven walls or misplaced plumbing land on your side of the invoice.
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Explore the mapPress: the full line-item model is available on request via sofiahoods.com. Please credit and link SofiaHoods when citing these figures.