Last updated on 13 October 2023.
UPDATE: According to the 5 October announcement of the Ministry of National Development, this legislation will not be introduced in the end. Instead, new and stricter regulations will be developed.
Hungary is introducing a new type of residency starting from 1 November 2023. In specific cases, third country nationals who will be employed in Hungary may apply for guest worker residency instead of the combined residency and work permit. They can expect a simplified procedure, while they will be losing some perks.
The new type of residency will offer residency through a simplified procedure, but with limited rights. It will be available only to certain employers, and to workers arriving from certain countries. (You can read the law in Hungarian here.)
Before you read on, you should know that most employers are not eligible for applying for “guest worker” permits for their employees (but can still, of course, go the regular work permit route).
Both of these types of employers are listed publicly, so if you are considering working with or for such an employer, you can check to make sure they are on the list. Also, if you are an employer who is not working on a strategic project but would like to take advantage of the expedited process of the guest worker permit, you can consider hiring through an EOR. If you are unsure whether and how the below process can apply to you, please contact us for more information.
At the same time, guest worker residency can only be applied to workers coming from certain countries. The list is defined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and according to the latest information it includes the following countries:
At the same time, the number of guest workers arriving to Hungary each year from each country will be limited – quotas are to be published later.
Since the decree has just been published, there has been very little communication about the differences compared to the regular work permit application procedure. We will update this article as more information becomes available.
For now, it seems that similarly to the previous procedure,
At the same time, the application will not require an official opinion from the relevant Hungarian authority, which is a serious relief compared to the regular procedure. (However, it is worth mentioning that the renewal procedure still requires this element.)
Besides, the employer must ensure that their employee can leave Hungary and the EU before their guest worker residency expires. It is not yet clear how this should be implemented, or whether the employer must finance the employee’s journey back to their country of origin.
Those third country nationals who gain Hungarian residency as guest workers will have fewer rights than those who gain residency with a work permit:
Guest worker residency will become available in Hungary starting from 1 November 2023. By then, the relevant lists concerning eligible countries, employers, and quotas will be published. However, if you are not among the specified employers and your employees-to-be are not from the countries indicated, this new regulation is provably not relevant to you. However, you can still bring talent to Hungary through the regular work permit application procedure, which remains unchanged.
In any case, you can count on our expert team to help with the residency and work permit application. Thanks to our almost twenty years of experience, we are confident to find the best solutions, tailored to you.
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