Filing your tax returns in Hungary in 2025

Deadlines for your 2024 tax returns

• January 31: receiving the M30 document from your employer or any other payer
• February 17: receiving documents verifying eligibility for tax benefits from your employer
• March 15: drafts become available online
• March 17: deadline for requesting a hard copy of your tax returns
• April 30: receiving a hard copy of your tax returns
• May 20: filing your tax returns

Not sure if you need to file tax returns in Hungary?

You are required to file tax returns if at any point of the year you were a tax resident in Hungary. This can happen if you had income in Hungary, or if you spend most of your time here. If you are not sure whether you need to file tax returns in Hungary, ask your accountant, or consult an international tax advisor – feel free to ask us about this.

You pay your taxes over the course of the year

In Hungary, filing your tax returns is heavily automatized. In most cases, accountants take care of reporting monthly, so when time comes for filing tax returns in the following year, the Tax Authority already has all your data, and there is very little to adjust or reclaim.

• If you are an employee, your employer is supposed to take care of calculating and paying your taxes. If you are eligible for any tax benefits, you should tell your employer about these so their accountant or payroll specialist can apply them when calculating your taxes and paying you your net salary.
• If you operate a business in Hungary, your accountant is supposed to remind you to pay your personal income tax every month, or every time you take a dividend advance.

Of course, most personal income tax benefits can be applied retroactively too. This means that if for some reason you were not able apply them during the year (e.g. you did not know you were eligible, or forgot to tell your employer), filing your tax returns is the right time to reclaim those taxes.

Another typical example of receiving a refund is being a member of a healthcare or pension fund. 20% of what you paid during the year may be reclaimed when you are filing your tax returns. The refund may be as high as HUF 150,000. Of course, you are allowed to pay more than HUF 750,000 to these funds, you just cannot reclaim more.

Filing your tax returns online and offline

As mentioned above, filing your tax returns is heavily automatized. The Tax Authority will create a draft for you based on the data submitted to them over the course of the year, and you only have to review the draft and make any corrections as necessary. The whole procedure is free of charge.

It is easiest to take care of the procedure online. If you have an Ügyfélkapu or DÁP access, you have access to every electronic administration portal in Hungary, including the one managing personal income tax returns at https://eszja.nav.gov.hu/. Drafts usually become available starting from March 15.

If you don’t have an online access, a draft of your tax returns will be mailed to your Hungarian address. You can also choose to file on paper; in this case, you can ask for a hard copy of your draft by March 17. You can do this online, via phone, in a text message, or in person. Learn more here. You are supposed to receive your package by April 30.

When you review your draft, it is best to have all relevant documents at hand. This includes the M30 document you receive from your employer and any other legal person from which you received an income (e.g. investment funds if you received any interests). You were supposed to receive these by January 31. If you are eligible for tax benefits, your employer was supposed to give you a document verifying that by February 17.

Review and submit your tax returns

The deadline for filing your tax returns in Hungary is May 20. The deadline is the same for both online and offline submission. You should not leave filing to the last minute, because post offices tend to be packed (even though opening hours are traditionally extended to let everyone take care of this), and servers might not be able to deal with the surge of online users.

The earlier you file your tax returns, the earlier you receive any refunds.

Tax returns forms are unfortunately available only in Hungarian. However, every line of the forms is numbered, and the documents you received should indicate which lines they are relevant to. This way you can file your tax returns even with a very limited knowledge of Hungarian.

When you log in to https://eszja.nav.gov.hu/, you will see two forms. The first one is your tax return form, and you will see that most of your data has already been added to it. If you see anything missing, you can add it now. Once you are done, just press Submit, and you are done. It makes sense to save a PDF version for yourself before you quit.

The other form and the 1+1%

On the welcome screen of the online platform, you will see another form next to your tax returns. (If you do your taxes on paper, this is simply a separate form.) This is for redirecting 1% of your personal income tax to a church, and another 1% to an NGO. This procedure is specific to Hungary: you can explicitly tell the government how they should spend a fraction of your taxes.

Redirecting your 1+1% is a great way to support a good cause without actually spending money on it. The 1% may not seem much, but donations add up. This is why you might see more and more billboards go up asking for your 1%, especially from the middle of April. If you need ideas regarding which NGOs to support, you can check out the NGOs chosen by our colleagues during our Christmas Charity Drive.

Helpers is here to help

Here at Helpers we do our best to assist foreigners living, working, and doing business in Hungary. While our main fields of operation are business setup and residency application, we also want to make navigating Hungarian bureaucracy easier for everyone.

Is there anything we can help you with? Reach out and find out.

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