Twenty-five days into the new year, Bulgaria's National Revenue Agency (NRA) announces that healthcare contributions for those who are not insured on other grounds, in most cases through their work, would go up to 7.20 leva per month as of January 1 2008.

The increase would be for those who are unemployed, those without social security or without social help among others, an NRA media statement said.

In the Law on budget for state social security, the minimum income against which social security contributions would have to be paid was set at 240 leva, up from 220 leva in 2007. According to the law, those who are not insured on other grounds would have to pay social security contributions over no less than half of the minimum monthly income for so-called "self-insured" against which social security contributions were calculated, the media statement said.
In 2008, the minimum monthly income for insurance contributions for the so-called "self-insured" was 240 leva, while the maximum was 2000 leva.

In other words, the minimum healthcare contribution for 2008 for unemployed and those without social help, would be 6 per cent over a minimum monthly income of 120 leva, or 7.20 leva.