Hungary expects a wealth-tax bill in October

Hungary’s government is expected to put a wealth-tax bill before parliament in October 2026. What exists today is a government resolution ordering the legislation to be prepared, published on 14 May 2026, together with statements by ministers and reporting by specialist and professional sources about what the legislation will contain. The bill has not been submitted and no draft text has been published. The commencement date is not fixed either: EY records 1 January 2027 as an intention that “remains subject to confirmation”, and Andersen, writing in July, gives no commencement date at all and says only that the timing of preparation suggests the rules could fit the 2027 budget framework.

What has actually been ordered

The instrument is resolution 1147/2026. (V. 14.) Korm. határozat. The gazette’s own site could not be opened when this article was researched — the certificate presented for magyarkozlony.hu covers a different hostname — so what follows is taken from two independent Hungarian specialist reports that give the same decree number, the same gazette issue, Magyar Közlöny 2026/47 of 14 May 2026, and the same operative content. This newspaper has not read the primary text.

On those reports, the resolution does not impose a tax. It directs the finance minister to prepare legislation on the conditions of wealth taxation, against a deadline of 5 June 2026. It also deals with a second and separate tax matter, which this article does not cover.

So one instrument is in force and it is an instruction to draft. No statute has been enacted imposing this tax, and none therefore fixes its rate, its base, its threshold or its territorial scope. That is the enacted position, and it is what everything below is measured against.

The figures in circulation come from government statements and from reporting of them, not from a text. Kavosz, reporting a government briefing of 11 June 2026, has Prime Minister Magyar Péter saying the government will introduce an annual 1 per cent wealth tax on the portion of wealth above one billion forint, for those holding wealth above that figure; the English here translates the Hungarian that Kavosz published, and this newspaper neither attended the briefing nor reviewed a record of it. EY put the same rate against a threshold it valued at EUR 2.81 million, and described an intended base covering real estate, bank accounts, brokerage and investment accounts, cash, securities and company participations, with certain vehicles and high-value personal assets possibly included. EY itself flags the details as unsettled.

The wealth tax was a commitment of the Tisza party, which took office after the April 2026 election.

The wording has not settled

On 2 September 2026, Telex published an interview with Ruff Bálint, the minister leading the Prime Minister’s Office. On the tax system, the paper reported him as saying that there will be a wealth tax, which in practice means the taxation of income above one billion forint.

That is Telex’s indirect report rather than a quotation, and income is not what a wealth tax charges. One reported sentence cannot show that the government has changed its plan, and it cannot show that it has not. What it does show is that the design of the charge cannot be settled from ministerial description — a reason to wait for the bill rather than to price the outcome.

EY’s June note records the same instability from the professional side: the government acknowledges the complexity of valuing assets, the filing mechanics are unresolved, and a charge on those who relocate abroad is under consideration.

Why the permit does not decide residence

Hungary’s guest investor residence permit is granted on one of two qualifying routes — a share of at least EUR 250,000 in a real-estate fund registered by the Hungarian National Bank, or a donation of at least EUR 1 million to a higher education institution maintained by a public trust. The National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing states that the permit’s validity “is maximised in 10 years, and it may be extended for up to another 10 years”. It rests on Act XC of 2023.

None of that decides tax residence, and the two are easily run together. Individual residence is governed by Section 3(2) of Act CXVII of 1995 on Personal Income Tax, and the text Hungary’s own tax administration supplies to the OECD sets out the tests in order. A third-country national is resident where they fall under the Act on the Admission and Residence of Third-Country Nationals and hold permanent residence status, or are stateless. Failing that, residence follows where the individual’s only permanent residence is in Hungary; failing that, the centre of vital interests, which the statute defines as the country to which the person “is primarily tied by bonds of family and business relations”; and failing that, habitual residence.

The first of those tests turns on permanent residence status. The immigration authority describes the guest investor route as a residence permit with a stated maximum validity, extendable, and nothing read for this article classifies it as permanent residence status. On the sources here, holding the permit therefore does not bring its holder inside that test. Whether they are a Hungarian tax resident at all is decided by the tests that follow, and those turn on facts: where their only permanent residence is and whether it is in Hungary, where their family and business ties sit, where they habitually live. Those facts may or may not point to Hungary.

Tax residence is also not the same thing as owing Hungarian tax at all. A non-resident can owe Hungarian income tax on Hungarian-source income.

The 183-day count sits in a different limb of the same section, written for people exercising the European right of free movement. A third-country national reaches a day count only through the habitual-residence test at the end of the sequence.

The authority’s own factsheet sets out no minimum stay for the permit. That is not the same as a statutory guarantee that none exists elsewhere in Act XC of 2023, and it should be checked against the Act before anyone relies on it.

What is still open

The territorial reach is unsettled, and so are the taxpayer definition, the asset classes, the valuation method, the filing mechanics and the commencement date. Discussion reported in the Hungarian professional press has included both domestic and foreign real estate in the base, which suggests the proposed base may reach foreign real estate. It does not establish that every class of asset held abroad would be reached, and it does not establish that residence rather than the location of the asset would be the governing connection. Under the income tax, residents are taxed on worldwide income and non-residents only on Hungarian-source income, but that pattern cannot be read across to an annual charge on capital that has no text.

What to watch

The bill text, when it is submitted, and specifically three clauses: who is defined as the taxpayer, whether the base is confined to Hungarian-situs assets, and how assets are to be valued and declared. Andersen expects the final parliamentary vote in November, so a submitted text would not be settled law on the day it appears, and nothing in it binds anyone until legislation is enacted and applies.

Until then the supported position for a guest investor permit holder is a narrow one: the permit alone does not make them a Hungarian tax resident. Whether residence, Hungarian assets, or some other connection will create a liability is a question no submitted or published text yet answers.