ICT usage in households and by individuals - 2025

The main results of the survey on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) usage in households and by individuals in 2025 showed that:

• 92.8% of the households in Bulgaria had internet access at home;
• 86.5% of the individuals aged between 16 and 74 years used the internet every day or at least once a week;
• 51.2% bought goods or services for private use over the internet;
• 35.9% used the global network for interaction with public authorities or public services;
• 22.5% used generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Internet access

The trend of annual growth of the relative share of households with internet access continued and in 2025, 92.8% of the households in Bulgaria had access to the global network at home. Of the households living in urban areas, 94.9% had internet access and for those resided in rural areas the relative share was 86.2%. The digital connectivity gap between urban and rural areas decreased, and in 2025 it was 8.7 percentage points, compared to 21.5 percentage points in 2016.

The highest relative share of households with internet access was found in Yugozapaden region (95.9%), followed by Severoiztochen region and Yuzhen tsentralen region - 92.7% and 92.3%, respectively. The lowest relative share of households with online connectivity was observed in Severozapaden region - 87.3%.

Use of the internet by individuals aged between 16 and 74 years

In 2025, 86.5% of the individuals aged between 16 and 74 years used the internet every day or at least once a week at any location (home, work or other places). The relative share increased by 4.6 percentage points compared to the previous year. The share of people who had never surfed the internet decreased to 7.0%.

The most active users of the internet were the students (99.3%) and young people in the age groups 16 - 24 and 25 - 34 years, 98.2% and 96.9%, respectively, as well as the individuals with tertiary education - 96.6%. More and more elderly people took advantage of the opportunities provided by the global network and in 2025, the relative share of individuals aged 65 - 74 who surfed regularly, was 59.7%.

The most preferred device to access the internet was the mobile phone (incl. smartphone) which was used by 85.5% of the people, followed by the laptop - 34.5%.

The internet was used mostly for communication by the individuals as 75.6% of them carried out phone or video calls (using applications such as Viber, WhatsApp, Skype, FaceTime, Messenger, Snapchat, Zoom, MS Teams, Webex), while least people took part in online consultation or voted to define civic or political issues - 6.6%.

In 2025, 22.5% of the people used generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, BgGPT, etc. to create text, images, code, videos and other data. The most active users were the young people in the age group 16 - 24 years (50.0%) and those aged 25 - 34 years - 36.4%, while only 3.3% of the elderly people aged 65 - 74 years took advantage of AI. Among the people with higher education, the relative share was 41.2%.

The majority of people used generative AI for private purposes (20.2%), 8.4% used it for professional (work) purposes, and 5.2% consulted AI for formal education.

The main reason for not using generative AI tools was lack of need (45.5%), 9.3% of the individuals did not know how to use them, and 6.3% did not know that such applications existed.

E-government

In 2025, 35.9%^[1] of the individuals used the global network for interaction with public authorities or public services. Compared to the previous year, the relative share increased by 4.1 percentage points.

People with tertiary education used e-government services more often (65.9%), compared to only 8.7% of people with basic education and lower. By age, the highest relative share of individuals who interacted with public authorities or public services was observed in the age group 35 - 44 (49.8%), and the lowest among those aged 65 - 74 (11.8%). Females were more active than males in the use of online services offered by the public authorities or public services - 36.8% and 35.0%, respectively.

^[1] The relative share were calculated on the basis of individuals who interacted with public authorities or public services over the internet in the last 12 months before the interview.

Bulgarian citizens most often used e-government for the following purposes:

• accessing personal information stored by public authorities or public services - 19.0%;
• downloading any official forms - 16.6%;
• obtaining information - 15.6%;
• submitting tax declaration via the website of NRA - 15.2%.

Least people made complaints or claims online, or requested benefits or entitlements - 1.9% each.

Electronic commerce (e-commerce)

In 2025, every second Bulgarian (51.2%^[1]) bought goods or services for private use over the internet, and compared to the previous year the relative share increased by 1.4 percentage points. Females were more active in online shopping than males - 53.4% and 49.0%, respectively. The most active buyers of goods or services over the internet were the people in the age group 25 - 34 years (70.8%) and those aged 16 - 24 years - 67.7%. The least active online shoppers were the individuals aged between 65 and 74 years - 17.7%.

^[1] The relative share refers to individuals who bought or ordered goods or services in the last 12 months before the interview.

The highest relative share of online shoppers was found in Yugozapaden region and in Severoiztochen region - 62.0% and 55.0%, respectively, while the lowest relative share was observed in Yugoiztochen region (37.7%). Significant disparity in the use of e-commerce was observed by place of residence, with 55.0% of individuals living in urban areas who shopped online, compared to 40.4% of those resided in rural areas.

Internet shoppers most frequently bought:

• physical goods - 95.4%^[1];
• accommodation (from hotels, travel agencies, tour operators) - 39.3%;
• transport services (e.g. local bus, train, flight tickets, taxi ride) - 33.6%;
• tickets to cultural or other events - 32.7%;
• subscriptions to the internet or mobile phone connections - 25.0%;
• films, series or sports streaming service - 23.1%.

^[1] The relative shares were calculated on the basis of individuals who bought goods or services in the last three months before the interview.

Digital skills

In 2025, 38.3% of the individuals had basic or above basic digital skills^[1]. The highest relative share was found among the people aged between 25 and 34 years (56.6%) and among the young between 16 and 24 years - 52.8%. Digital literacy was lowest among the population in the age group 65 - 74 years, as nearly half of them (49.8%) had no digital skills.

Individuals who indicated they found information that they considered untrue or doubtful on internet news sites or social media, were 45.5%. From them, 42.4% checked the truthfulness of the information found on the internet through:

• checking the sources or finding other information on the internet - 76.6%^[2];
• discussing the information offline with other persons or using sources not on the internet - 49.9%;
• following or taking part in a discussion on the internet regarding the information - 44.4%.

Almost every third person (29.6%) encountered messages on the internet that they considered to be hostile or degrading towards groups of people or individuals. These messages were mainly targeted at people’s political or social views (68.0%)^[3], sexual orientation (52.6%) or racial and ethnic origin - 49.1%.

Privacy and protection of personal data on the internet

In 2025, 54.4% of the individuals carried out activities to manage access to their personal data on the internet, such as:

• reading privacy policy statements before providing personal data - 35.6%;
• restricting or refusing access to information about geographical location - 26.7%;
• limiting access to profile or content on social networking sites or shared online storage - 22.9%;
• refusing the use of personal data for advertising purposes - 22.4%.

Concerns that their online activities were being recorded to provide them with tailored ads, had 47.0% of the people, 10.3% used software that limit the ability to track their activities on the internet, and 16.6% changed the settings of their internet browser to limit the number of cookies that were stored on their devices.

^[1] Digital skills indicator is based on certain activities performed by individuals on the internet or related to the use of software or digital tools. For more information, see the Methodological notes.

^[2] The relative shares were calculated on the basis of individuals who checked the truthfulness of the information found on the internet.

^[3] The relative shares were calculated on the basis of individuals who encountered hostile or degrading messages online.

Use of the internet by individuals aged between 75 and 89 years

In 2025, 24.9% of the individuals aged between 75 and 89 years used the internet every day or at least once a week. The share of people who had never surfed the internet was 59.7%. The main reason was the lack of need (the internet is not useful, interesting, etc.) - 52.6%, 22.8% stated that the use of internet was too difficult, and 5.8% of the elderly people had physical or mental challenges to use the internet.

The people aged 75 - 89 years mainly accessed the internet via a mobile phone or smartphone (23.9%), 3.3% used a laptop, and 3.1% - desktop computer.

The online activities that people in this age group most often performed were:

• making calls (including video calls) over the internet (using applications such as Viber, WhatsApp, Skype, FaceTime, Messenger, Snapchat, Zoom, MS Teams, Webex) - 19.8%;
• reading online news sites, newspapers, news magazines - 16.6%;
• using instant messaging (via Viber, WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat, Skype, Discord, Telegram) - 14.0%;
• seeking health-related information - 12.1%;
• participating in social networks (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok etc.) - 10.5%.

Methodological notes

The survey on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) usage in households and by individuals is a part of the European statistical programme and has been carried out annually in Bulgaria according to the Commission implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2182. The survey was jointly financed by the NSI and the European Commission under a signed agreement between the two institutions. The main purpose of the survey was to obtain reliable and comparable data, which reflect the dissemination and usage of ICT at national and European level.

The statistical units are households and individuals. The target population consists of all private households and their members in the age group 16 to 74 years. From 2025 onwards, individuals aged between 75 and 89 years are also included in the survey. In the period April - June 2025, 4 258 randomly selected households and 8 421 individuals were surveyed. The survey was conducted by face-to-face interview, carried out by NSI staff. The 2025 questionnaire comprised several modules, which collect information about availability and use of the internet in households and by individuals, e-government, e-commerce, e-ID, digital skills, privacy and protection of personal data on the internet, as well as questions related to the socio-demographic characteristics of the households and individuals. The data collected during the survey refer to three periods: to the moment of the survey, to the last three months before the survey or the last 12 months before the survey.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a tool that can create new content, such as text, images, programing code, video, or other data, based on available information and patterns it has learned from existing examples.

Digital skills indicator measures people's digital literacy and competence, and it is based on selected activities related to internet and software use performed by individuals in five specific areas: information and data literacy; communication and collaboration; problem solving; digital content creation and safety skills. According to the variety and complexity of activities performed, several levels of skills are computed - no skills, low, basic and above basic digital skills.

More information and data from surveys on Information and Communications Technologies usage in households and by individuals can be found at NSI’s website, section ‘Information society’ and in Information System ‘Infostat’.