Moving to Hungary

A low-cost, low-tax entry point to the Schengen area that has just made most work-based stays deliberately temporary.

Hungary occupies an unusual position in Europe. Living costs and taxes are among the lowest in the European Union, Budapest holds a large concentration of English-language corporate employment, and the country sits inside both the Schengen area and the single market. For someone comparing Central European bases, those facts do most of the work.

The legal framework, however, changed fundamentally. Act XC of 2023 on the general rules for the entry and stay of third-country nationals took effect on 1 January 2024 and replaced the previous system of residence titles with a narrower, more tightly defined set. The stated intention was to separate stays that are meant to be temporary from the small number that are meant to lead anywhere, and the drafting follows through on it: several of the new work-based permits carry an explicit statutory maximum and no bridge to settlement.

What remains open is still substantial — an employment residence permit, the EU Blue Card, the Hungarian Card and National Card for certain occupations and nationalities, a White Card for remote workers, a guest investor programme launched in 2024, and a large state-funded scholarship system for students. What has narrowed is the assumption, common in older guides, that any of these naturally matures into permanent residence. For many categories it now does not.

Region	Central Europe
Capital	Budapest
Population	roughly 9.6 million
Foreign-born residents	around 6% of residents
Official language(s)	Hungarian
Currency	Hungarian forint (HUF)

Why people move to Hungary

• Living costs and rents are among the lowest in the European Union, particularly outside Budapest.
• Personal income tax is a flat rate of roughly 15%, one of the simplest and lowest regimes in Europe.
• Budapest hosts a large cluster of shared service centres that recruit in English and other European languages rather than Hungarian.
• Residence in Hungary carries Schengen travel rights and, in most categories, access to the social insurance health system.
• English-taught university programmes, especially in medicine and dentistry, are long established and comparatively affordable.
• People with a Hungarian ancestor may qualify for simplified naturalisation without residing in the country.

What to know before you commit

• The 2024 overhaul narrowed the routes from temporary stay to permanent residence, and several permits now lead nowhere by design.
• The guest worker residence permit is explicitly temporary, tightly employer-bound, and cannot be counted toward settlement.
• Hungarian is difficult for most learners, and the citizenship examination is conducted in Hungarian with no exemption on language grounds for ordinary applicants.
• The forint has been weak and volatile, so salaries quoted in forint lose value against euro-denominated costs.
• Public healthcare is underfunded and waiting times are long enough that private clinics are widely used as a matter of routine.
• Local salaries outside the Budapest corporate cluster are low by Western European standards, and English-only roles thin out sharply in the countryside.

The eight guides

Official sources

• National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing
• Consular Services of Hungary
• Hungarian Government portal

Checked against these pages in September 2026. Fees and processing times change without notice — confirm before you act.