FAQ for the end of the state of emergency in Hungary

*** There are new regulations in effect as of July 15th, click here to read more!

Who is considered a close family member of a Hungarian or EU citizen?

Spouse and underage children. If you have other relatives who are Hungarian and would like to use this connection as grounds for entering the country, you can give this information in your request for police clearance.

What happens if you are an EU citizen and you have been required to quarantine in the past two weeks?

Unfortunately, you have to fulfill your 14 days in quarantine if you were required to do so before June 17th. There has been information circulating that a negative COVID test may waive your quarantine requirement but sadly this has not been confirmed (we checked with both the police and the corona hotline of the Hungarian state.

What happens if your RP expires after June 18th? Do you still get the automatic extension?

This is still unclear and we will update as soon as we know for sure. The decree is worded very sloppily — there is a 15-day grace period for documents other than immigration documents (so, if these expire during the state of emergency or 15 days after it is lifted, they are automatically extended) but according to the current wording this does not apply to resident or work permits. The immigration office’s position as of today is that these permits will expire on the original expiry date and you need to apply for an extension immediately. Meanwhile the police told us that the 15-day grace period applies to all documents issued by the Hungarian state. While this would be a lot more fair and logical, the main authority in this question is the immigration office, so we advise everyone whose permits expire in the coming days to start their renewal process as soon as possible, just to be safe. For permits expiring after 15 days from yesterday, it is clear that no automatic extension is granted.

Can you travel with an expired but automatically extended permit?

Once again, there is a lot of confusion about this because there is no precedent. Since people to whom this applies need to apply for police clearance to travel anyway, we recommend that you leave it up to the police. When you complete your application for the police permit, you will have to attach your resident permit anyway, so if you get the clearance, our position is that you should be able to reenter without problems.

Can students return to Hungary (with police clearance) if their school is not in session?

Yes, but you need a note from your school. You have to attach this to your police clearance application.

What is the status of UK citizens?

Currently they need police clearance as they are noted as an exception in the clause listing the people who are exempt from the travel ban. To put it less confusingly, all EU and EEA citizens are exempt from the travel ban EXCEPT UK citizens. I know this appeared in English in a confusing translation in various media outlets but we have checked the letter of the decree and this is the situation.

If you need to travel abroad more than once, do you need to apply for clearance each time?

Technically yes. However, in our experience, the police doesn’t always indicate date of travel on the permit (this is very inconsistent) so if you are lucky and you get a permit without a date specified, you can re-use it.