Georgia yields 7.25% gross against Bulgaria's 4.27% — the three points you give up for an EU address

Measured by the same survey for the third quarter of 2026, the average gross rental yield in Georgia is 7.25% and in Bulgaria 4.27%. That is a gap of just under three percentage points on gross income, before any cost is taken out. Georgia's own figure has drifted slightly down over the year, from 7.42% in the first quarter, so the comparison is not being flattered by a spike. A buyer choosing between the two is not weighing a close call on income; they are deciding how much yield an EU jurisdiction is worth to them.

Sofia, the capital and the deepest market, returns 3.84% — the weakest of the Bulgarian cities surveyed. The strongest is Burgas on the Black Sea at 4.72%, with Stara Zagora at 4.44%, Plovdiv at 4.32%, Varna at 4.29% and Shumen at 3.99%. Not one of them reaches Georgia's national average. On the Georgian side the two main markets are close to each other: Tbilisi at 7.23% and Batumi at 7.28%. The pattern is that Bulgaria's best coastal yield still sits roughly two and a half points below Georgia's weaker of two cities.

A three-point premium is not free money, and it is worth being plain about what sits behind it. Bulgaria is inside the European Union, which brings a settled regulatory environment, deeper mortgage finance for resident buyers and a legal framework that non-EU markets cannot replicate. Georgia offers a lower entry price, a simpler tax regime and faster transactions, against thinner institutional depth and a currency most foreign buyers do not earn in. Neither set of numbers tells you which risk you should take; they tell you what you are being paid to take it.

Both figures are gross, meaning before tax, agency fees, management, repairs, ground charges and void periods. The same source notes that net yields typically land around one and a half to two percentage points below the gross number. Applied evenly, that leaves Georgia somewhere in the five to six percent range and Bulgaria in the low twos to high twos — which widens the relative gap rather than narrowing it, because a fixed deduction bites harder on the smaller figure. Any comparison built on gross yields alone will overstate the Bulgarian case more than the Georgian one.