Flights from the UK to Sofia: Airlines, Airports and Fares

Sofia sits a little over three hours from the UK, and the cheapest one-way seat I found on 2 November 2026 cost £14.99 from Liverpool. Six airlines fly here direct from 10 UK airports between them, though only Stansted, Luton and Heathrow have flights all year. This is who flies from where, how long it takes, what the fares look like and how I get from the plane into the centre.

Which airlines fly direct from the UK to Sofia

Ryanair has the most UK routes to Sofia, with five airports. Wizz Air flies from Luton, British Airways and Bulgaria Air fly from Heathrow, and easyJet and TUI add seasonal routes on top. The fares below are the cheapest one-way seats in each month that I saw on Ryanair's site on 2 November 2026, for travel between November 2026 and March 2027.

Winter only means Ryanair's calendar had fares from November to March and none from April to October 2027. On top of the table, easyJet flies to Sofia from Gatwick and Manchester in season, and TUI runs seasonal flights from Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle. Sofia is also the usual airport for Bansko in the Pirin mountains, so expect ski bags on the winter flights. Nothing flies direct from Glasgow, Cardiff or Belfast. In winter that means Edinburgh for Scotland and Bristol for South Wales, and from Northern Ireland, or from anywhere outside winter, it's a change in London.

London to Sofia flights

London has four airports with Sofia flights, and which one suits you depends mostly on where in London you live.

Stansted is my default. Ryanair flies Stansted to Sofia several times a day in 3h 5m, and the one-way fares I saw for dates from November 2026 to March 2027 sat between £21.99 and £25.99. It's also the only Ryanair route from the UK with fares in every month of the coming year. On the way back, the Sofia departures I saw left at 6am, 8.20pm or 10.25pm depending on the day, and an evening flight home buys you a full last day in town. Ryanair's London to Sofia fare calendar shows the cheapest seat in each month for the next 12, from £21.99 up to £61.99, which makes it easy to spot a cheap weekend.

Luton is Wizz Air's London base for Sofia. The flight is direct and averages 3h 10m, and Wizz Air's London to Sofia page lists February as its low season and August as its high season. At the Sofia end, Wizz Air mainly uses the smaller Terminal 1.

Heathrow has British Airways and Bulgaria Air, both direct and both about three hours in the air. These are the full-service options, and I'd look at them first if you live in west London or you're connecting from a BA flight elsewhere in the UK.

Gatwick only has seasonal flights, with easyJet and TUI, so check the dates before you build a trip around it.

Manchester to Sofia flights

Manchester has no year-round direct flight to Sofia. easyJet flies Manchester to Sofia in season, and TUI's seasonal flights leave from Manchester too.

In winter, the other direct option is Ryanair from Liverpool John Lennon. It's the slowest of the English Ryanair routes at 3h 20m, and also the cheapest I found: £14.99 one way on Monday 16 November and £15.99 on Monday 7 December. Like the other regional routes, it runs in winter only. From spring to autumn there's no direct flight anywhere in the North West, so it's the train to Stansted, Luton or Heathrow, or a connecting flight from Manchester. I'd price both before booking, with the train fare counted in.

Flights from Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh and Newcastle

Outside London, Ryanair does most of the flying, and every one of these routes is direct. Ryanair's Birmingham, Bristol and Edinburgh flights are winter only too, with one flight on each operating day. Birmingham's cheapest seat was £18.99 one way on Saturday 28 November, and TUI adds seasonal flights from there too. Bristol came in at £16.99 on Saturday 7 November and £15.86 on Friday 4 December, and in winter it's also the closest Sofia flight for Cardiff and most of the South West.

Edinburgh is the longest of the routes at 3h 30m, and most of the departures I saw left at 6.05am. Its fares climbed from £24.99 on Monday 9 November to £29.99 on Monday 18 January and £37.97 at the end of February, and the cheapest December seat was £42.99 on New Year's Eve. Newcastle has TUI only, and only in season.

How long is the flight from the UK to Sofia

The flight from the UK to Sofia takes between 3h 5m (Stansted) and 3h 30m (Edinburgh). Bulgaria is two hours ahead of the UK all year round, because both countries change their clocks on the same weekends in March and October. On the clock, a flight to Sofia eats about five hours of your day, and the flight home costs you barely more than an hour.

Edinburgh's 6.05am departure lands at about 11.35am Sofia time, early enough to drop your bag, have lunch and spend the first afternoon of a weekend in Sofia in the centre. That's my favourite way to stretch two nights into nearly three days. Heading home, the 10.25pm from Sofia to Stansted takes 3h 20m and touches down at about 11.45pm UK time.

Cheap flights to Sofia: when to book and what fares look like

Cheap flights to Sofia are easiest to find in late autumn. The Ryanair fares I saw were lowest in November and early December, at £14.99 to £18.99 from Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham. February was the dearest month on the regional routes, with the cheapest seat at £30.63 from Liverpool, £38.42 from Bristol and £43.07 from Birmingham, while Stansted held at £24.99.

I worked these out in euros at £1 = €1.20, the rate on 2 November 2026:

February is the low season on Wizz Air's Luton calendar, even though it's the dearest month on Ryanair's regional routes, and it lands you in one of the coldest, smoggiest stretches of the year, when Sofia in winter means snow on Vitosha and grey days in town. Spring and early autumn sit between Wizz Air's low and high seasons and give you the city at its best, with May highs of about 21°C and September highs of about 23°C, which is why I'd pick those months as the best time to visit Sofia. Once you've landed, your money goes a long way: Sofia prices run to about €2 to €3.50 for a pint and €0.80 for a metro ride.

Sofia Airport: Terminal 1 or Terminal 2

Sofia Airport (SOF), officially Vasil Levski Sofia Airport, is about 10 km east of the centre. It has two terminals a short shuttle ride apart, and which one you land at decides how you get into town.

Terminal 2 is the bigger, newer building and handles most airlines, Ryanair and Bulgaria Air included. The M4 metro station sits right next to it, and the walk from arrivals to the platform has no stairs.

Terminal 1 is the older, smaller building for low-cost and charter flights, and Wizz Air and easyJet are its main airlines.

The SIM shops in arrivals sit straight after baggage claim and charge more than the operators' own stores in town, so I'd only buy there if you need data for the ride in.

Getting from Sofia Airport into the centre

Getting from Sofia Airport to the city centre is quickest on the metro from Terminal 2, and from Terminal 1 it's bus 84.

The metro is how I do it nine times out of ten. Tap a contactless bank card or phone at the barrier, and the €0.80 fare counts as a Ticket 30 plus, which gives you 30 minutes of free transfers onto trams and buses. Contactless travel caps at €2 a day, so your first afternoon of hopping on and off can't cost more than that. Get off at Serdika for the old centre, or change there onto line M2 towards Obelya for Central Railway Station, 2 stops on. For a longer stay, the Sofia metro sells a 72-hour card for €7.60 that covers night transport too.

Bus 84 is the one for Terminal 1. It leaves from outside both terminals about every 12 minutes, costs the same €0.80, and takes about 45 minutes on weekdays and 35 at weekends.

A flight landing after about 11pm, plus passport control, usually means the last train has gone, and after that it's night bus N4 from either terminal through central Sofia, or a taxi. Book at the official taxi desk in the arrivals hall, wave off anyone who walks up offering a ride, and check the meter is running. OK Supertrans, one of the big Sofia firms, charges €1.50 to start and €0.75 a kilometre by day, and €1.70 and €0.85 from 10pm to 6am, so a fare far beyond €14 for the ride into town is the classic taxi scam in Sofia.

Passport control and arriving as a UK traveller

British passport holders don't need a visa for Bulgaria. You can stay up to 90 days in any 180-day period, and those days count across all of the Schengen area, which Bulgaria joined in full on 1 January 2025. Your passport has to have been issued less than 10 years before the day you arrive and still be valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave.

The EU's Entry/Exit System now registers non-EU travellers at the border, so expect fingerprints and a photo the first time through; the record lasts 3 years. Anyone carrying €10,000 or more in cash has to declare it, and meat, milk and anything made from them can't come into the EU, so finish the ham sandwich on the plane.

Bulgaria swapped the lev for the euro on 1 January 2026, and shops stopped taking leva after 31 January, so money in Bulgaria now means euros and a contactless card, the same as in Spain or France. UK networks aren't covered by EU roaming rules, so check your own network's daily charge before you land, and compare it with a local Bulgaria SIM card or eSIM: Yettel's tourist eSIM costs €10.23 for 25 GB over 30 days.