Simplified employment in Hungary: Hiring temporary workers

Temporary and regular tasks around your company

When you set up a company in Hungary, you will most probably have some tasks that require continuous attention, and some where the workload increases regularly, but temporarily. For regular tasks and a stable workload, it is always better to hire someone with a regular contract, even if you need assistance only part-time. With short, “extra” tasks, a temporary worker in simplified employment might be enough.

When to hire a temporary worker?

A typical example is in retail, or in restaurants. If you need just one extra hand for filling up the shelves, waiting on customers on a busy day, or substituting your employee for just one day, hiring a temporary worker might be an ideal solution for you.

You might want to hire a temporary worker in the period when you have just started your business and it is yet to start picking up, but you already have some tasks for an assistant. A typical example is when you need someone to go to the post office, go to the bank, set bank transfers on your company’s behalf, but it is enough to do all this once a week.

When NOT to hire a temporary worker?

There might be tasks around your company which are regular but seem too small, so think it is too complicated to hire someone regularly. These include for example, monitoring incoming mail, and forwarding messages to the right person (in most cases, to the accountant), who can promptly respond. This is included in the virtual office service we offer, and it is often enough for newly formed companies, before the actual operation can start.

Once the actual operation of the company starts, there will be other tasks requiring continuous attention, including responding to customer inquiries, issuing invoices, managing the office, etc. In that case, it is cost-effective to hire an employee with a regular contract, even if you need assistance only part-time.

Simplified employment for simple tasks

In simplified employment, there is no need for a full written labor contract, only an “oral contract” is enough – however, it is strongly advised to have a written, even though simplified employment contract just to keep things transparent. The employer has to be registered with the tax authority before they start working, but if you need someone on the spot, you just make a call to the authority, and they can start working right ahead.

Simplified employed is attractive not only because how straightforward it is, but also because it only comes with a simplified employment tax of HUF 1,000 (ca. EUR 3) / day; otherwise it is tax free up to a certain income. However, it does not come with full social security coverage, which makes it less practical for workers. For the same reason, you are not allowed to employ temporary workers full time: the same person can work for you 15 days / month, or 90 days a year.

Let us help you with recruitment!

If you are not sure what kind of employee you need, just give us a call. Our expert consultants can help you decide what is best for your company and act upon it in a cost-effective way. Once you know what you want, we can help you with both regular and simplified employment.

• To learn about how we do recruitment for you, click here.
• To learn more about how to employ temporary workers, click here.