In the third week of the election campaign, the funds directed to participants increase. The extent to which the candidates' messages reach voters, as well as the opportunities for their presence in the public space, depends on funding. Therefore, the transparency of donations and their origin are key to increasing trust in elections and limiting suspicions of potential dependencies.
With this publication, the Institute for the Development of the Public Environment continues monitoring the financing of the campaign for the parliamentary elections on April 19, 2026. Our team tracked how donations developed during the three weeks of the election race, which formations attracted the most financial support and what trends are emerging.
About the rules for donations
Parties and coalitions can finance their campaigns with their own funds, candidates' funds and donations from individuals.
Donations and funds from candidates have no ceiling, but all amounts received by participants must be declared within 7 days. They are published in the public register maintained by the National Audit Office, which contains full financial information about the parties' election campaigns. All donors and candidates who have provided amounts above the minimum wage - 620.20 euros - submit a declaration of the origin of the funds. Donations worth more than 511.29 euros are checked by the Court of Auditors for compliance with the income of the person concerned. The same rules apply to funding provided by candidates.
Donation data
As of April 10, 2026, the formations have attracted a total of 1,217,354 euros from supporters and candidates.
Eight formations have received donations from individuals and funds from candidates on their lists. More details on the two types of party income are presented below:
The coalition around the former president Rumen Radev - Progressive Bulgaria continues to collect the most donations both in number and amount. Almost two-thirds of the funds raised are for her – 779,834 euros (or over 64% of all income from donations and candidates declared so far). The coalition has already received 532 donations from supporters (compared to 354 seven days ago). In the first week of the campaign, the coalition candidates had not contributed to its financing. However, as of April 10, they had already made 58 donations.
It continues to be impressive that the largest number of donations from individuals – 233, are in the amount of 500 euros. Another 97 are in the amount of 600 euros each. Thus, it turns out that the donors have allocated amounts just below the thresholds for mandatory verification by the responsible institutions and for declaring the origin of these funds.
More information about which formations have announced the receipt of donations and funds to the candidates can be seen in the following graph:
During this period, it is striking that the Movement for Rights and Freedoms has 5 donations from sympathizers. Four of them are monetary and are for significant amounts - one donation for 120,000 euros and one for 100,000 euros and 2 donations for 40,000 euros. Before the split in the MRF, the formation's campaigns usually did not benefit from donations, but relied mainly on state subsidies.
Over the years, there have been other cases in which political formations and candidates activated the donation culture of Bulgarian citizens. The first such case was former MEP Nikolay Barekov. In October 2014, he raised over 1 million leva. Before the April 2021 elections, Tsvetan Tsvetanov announced that the Republicans for Bulgaria formation had received a large single donation of $1 million for its campaign. However, it was never declared. In the November 2021 parliamentary elections, We Continue the Change managed to raise 1.324 million leva.
A special case is also Rumen Radev's first campaign for president. In 2016, the initiative committee “Radev – Yotova“ raised 723,172 leva (369,752 euros) in donations. Even then, it turned out that part of the amount was formed from multiple donations just below the minimum wage, so that they were not subject to verification. Journalistic investigations at the time showed that some of the donations were from people living close to the poverty line. The data shows that donations below the verification thresholds are once again a feature of fundraising for the coalition of the former president in the current election race.
More on the control of donations
The data on donations and public interest in them observed so far confirm that financing remains a key issue in election campaigns. It also raises a number of questions related to its transparency and control, so as to interrupt recurring vicious patterns of revenue generation.
The need for more effective mechanisms for ongoing control, clearer deadlines for collecting donations in campaigns and better coordination between institutions is clear. The National Audit Office should be able to carry out ongoing, timely checks regarding the origin of funds from donations, rather than mainly subsequent ones. This requires better mechanisms for interaction and exchange of information with the National Revenue Agency and the National Social Insurance Institute. It is important for the state to also guarantee the possibility of checking income from abroad.
Timely and full publicity of financial flows may be the basis for restoring confidence in the election process. The IRPS will continue to monitor the issue of the income of the formations in the campaign. We will be able to present the full picture after the publication of the final party reports.