The National Bank of Bulgaria’s Governing Council has decided that, from 1 January 2026, it will cease compiling and publishing the LEONIA Plus index and will stop announcing the base interest rate (OLP) under Article 35 of the Law on the National Bank of Bulgaria, reflecting the introduction of the euro as the national currency and the end of non-cash lev-denominated transactions and operations. LEONIA Plus has been published each working day since 1 July 2017 as a weighted average of interest rates on unsecured overnight deposits in Bulgarian lev in Bulgaria’s interbank market and is used to calculate the OLP. Under the methodology being отменена, the OLP is the arithmetic average of LEONIA Plus values for the working days of the previous calendar month for which the index is published, with the OLP set at zero where the average is negative; both the LEONIA Plus calculation methodology and the OLP determination methodology will be repealed from 1 January 2026. The final LEONIA Plus value will be published on 30 December 2025, while the final OLP will be announced on 1 December 2025 and will apply until the end of that calendar month. The release also notes that, where LEONIA Plus is used in pricing financial contracts and instruments, it should be replaced in line with creditors’ written benchmark cessation action plans under the EU Benchmark Regulation and the requirements of Article 44 of Bulgaria’s euro introduction law, and that a different reference index should apply from 1 January 2026 for calculating statutory interest based on the OLP, under a procedure to be set by the Council of Ministers.

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