{"id":27364,"date":"2026-10-26T07:27:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T07:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=27364"},"modified":"2026-10-26T07:27:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T07:27:25","slug":"hungary-2027-draft-budget-9-percent-income-tax-minimum-wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2026\/10\/26\/hungary-2027-draft-budget-9-percent-income-tax-minimum-wage\/","title":{"rendered":"How Hungary plans to pay for its 2027 budget, from savings to a new wealth tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<section aria-labelledby=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-inrtzyj-hlesdml-zofjqh\" class=\"auk-zvimcvi-inrtzyj\" lang=\"en\">\n<h2 id=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-inrtzyj-hlesdml-zofjqh\">In brief<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The draft 2027 budget targets a deficit of 4.9% of GDP and growth of 2.4%.<\/li>\n<li>Minimum wage earners would pay a 9% personal income tax rate, which Magyar says leaves them HUF 20,000 a month better off.<\/li>\n<li>Savings of HUF 1.465 tln and new taxes on large firms, wealth and advertising are meant to fund the spending.<\/li>\n<li>Parliament is due to receive the draft at the end of October.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<p>Hungary\u2019s Tisza government has put its first budget before Parliament, and Prime Minister P\u00e9ter Magyar presented it on Monday as a budget of \u201cjustice and development\u201d, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/dailynewshungary.com\/budget-magyar-tax-cuts-allowance-pension\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Daily News Hungary<\/a>. Its headline measure sets the personal income tax rate for minimum wage earners at 9%. Magyar says this leaves those workers HUF 240,000 richer over a year. Employees earning below HUF 680,000 a month would also see their tax bill fall, <a href=\"https:\/\/bbj.hu\/politics\/domestic\/government\/hungary-plans-9-income-tax-for-minimum-wage-earners-in-2027-budget\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Budapest Business Journal<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n<p>Finance Minister Andr\u00e1s K\u00e1rm\u00e1n presented the details alongside Magyar at a joint press conference. According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/bbj.hu\/politics\/domestic\/government\/hungarys-2027-budget-combines-tax-relief-spending-rises-and-cost-cuts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Budapest Business Journal<\/a>, the draft was due to go to the Fiscal Council on Tuesday and to Parliament at the end of October.<\/p>\n<h2>Who gains, and by how much<\/h2>\n<p>Households are the main beneficiaries, and the measures reach from young families to pensioners and public employees.<\/p>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Measure<\/th>\n<th>What the draft provides<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Family allowances<\/td>\n<td>Doubled from 2027, covering 1.6 million children at about HUF 300 bln; a two-child household gains HUF 319,200 a year<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Mothers\u2019 PIT exemption<\/td>\n<td>Ceiling of HUF 1 mln in gross monthly earnings; mothers of one child qualify until 30, of two until 40, with no age limit for three or more<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Pensions<\/td>\n<td>Minimum pension raised to HUF 120,000 a month, plus the first week of a 14th-month pension; extra spending of HUF 368 bln, leaving out inflation-linked increases<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>SZ\u00c9P card for pensioners<\/td>\n<td>Phased in by 2030 for those receiving under HUF 500,000 a month; HUF 90 bln allocated in 2027<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Public sector pay<\/td>\n<td>HUF 677 bln for 603,000 people, including an average 17% rise for health care workers and 21.5% net for teachers\u2019 aides<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Health care<\/td>\n<td>HUF 4.604 tln, HUF 510 bln more than in 2026, with HUF 25 bln for hospital air conditioning<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Municipalities<\/td>\n<td>An extra HUF 176 bln, of which HUF 84 bln goes to Budapest, chiefly for public transport<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2>How the government plans to pay<\/h2>\n<p>K\u00e1rm\u00e1n set out total savings of HUF 1.465 tln. The larger part, HUF 1.018 tln, comes from undoing decisions of the previous government, such as overpriced concessions and inefficient support contracts. A further HUF 447 bln would come from cutting spending by at least a tenth at ministries and state-owned companies.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-imzntj-gogcn\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Large Neo-Gothic building with a red central dome and spires, seen across a river under a partly cloudy blue sky.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/large-neo-gothic-building-with-red-central-dome-and-spires.jpg\" \/><figcaption>A monumental Neo-Gothic building with a red dome and spires stands on a stone embankment beside a river. <span class=\"auk-gogcn-ertkm\" data-provider=\"pexels\">Photo: Incze S\u00e1ndor Zolt\u00e1n \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/orszaghaz-by-danube-16356273\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On the revenue side, several levies are planned:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Companies with annual revenue above HUF 180 bln would see their effective tax rate climb from below 9% to around 11%, and the innovation tax would move from 0.2% to 0.5%. Together these yield HUF 260 bln.<\/li>\n<li>A new wealth tax is expected to raise HUF 200 bln a year, and the advertising tax would go from 0% to 3.75%, bringing HUF 14 bln.<\/li>\n<li>Income tax changes and lower VAT on firewood and prescription medicines would cut revenue by HUF 264 bln, whereas tax changes that shift the burden would add HUF 579 bln.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>K\u00e1rm\u00e1n said the wealth tax and heavier taxation of large companies would produce a \u201cfairer distribution of the public burden.\u201d The government would also roll back mandatory markup caps on selected food and non-food products. K\u00e1rm\u00e1n described them as a market distortion and noted that food prices fell 1.3% over twelve months. Magyar contended that the former Fidesz-KDNP government favoured multinationals and foreign-owned banks, an argument that is his own. The political dispute over the levy is covered in an earlier piece on <a href=\"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2026\/10\/17\/hungary-wealth-tax-corruption-probes-2032-euro-target\/\">Hungary\u2019s wealth tax fight<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Growth and deficit targets to 2030<\/h2>\n<p>According to K\u00e1rm\u00e1n, HUF 1.616 tln of investment supported by EU money would help restart an economy that stagnated for four years. He pointed to EUR 16.4 bln of EU development funding, and the railway programme receives HUF 331 bln in 2027. Magyar said the budget would improve the position of \u201cpractically every Hungarian\u201d, while conceding that one year is not enough to solve every economic problem left by the previous government. The government\u2019s projections run as follows:<\/p>\n<ol class=\"auk-ofbnbzso\">\n<li><time>2026<\/time> GDP growth of about 1.7%.<\/li>\n<li><time>2027<\/time> Growth of 2.4%, with the deficit at 4.9% of GDP.<\/li>\n<li><time>2028<\/time> Growth of 2.6%, with the deficit at 4%.<\/li>\n<li><time>2029<\/time> Growth of 3%, with the deficit at 3.4%.<\/li>\n<li><time>2030<\/time> Growth of 3.1%, with the deficit at 2.8%.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Debt service is projected to dip to 3.8% of GDP in 2027 from 3.9% in 2026. Magyar said ministries operate under no formal hiring freeze, although staff departures are holding down payroll costs. He also took aim at average pay at certain state-owned companies, which he called \u201cunbelievably high\u201d. Presenting a pact to domestic businesses, he said its guiding rule was \u201cThou shalt not steal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"media-credit auk-gogcn-ertkm\" data-provider=\"pexels\"><small>Photo: Tibor Szabo \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/forint-banknotes-in-close-up-16956699\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Le budget 2027 propos\u00e9 \u00e0 Budapest ram\u00e8ne \u00e0 9 % l\u2019imp\u00f4t sur le revenu des salari\u00e9s au SMIC et renforce les aides aux familles, selon le ministre des Finances.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":27366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1253,1252,1156,1254,1255,1208,1211],"class_list":["post-27364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-andras-karman","tag-budget-2027","tag-hungary","tag-income-tax","tag-pensions","tag-peter-magyar","tag-wealth-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27372,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27364\/revisions\/27372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}