Starting a business in Hungary
Egyéni vállalkozó in a day for free - the thinking is in the tax regimes, and in what happened to KATA.
Checked against the sources on 2026-08-30
Before anything else
Registering as a Hungarian sole proprietor (egyéni vállalkozó) is free, online via the government portal, and active within a day. The interesting decisions are all tax regimes - and the cautionary tale is KATA, the beloved flat tax that was restricted overnight in 2022 to businesses selling only to private individuals, stranding a hundred thousand B2B freelancers mid-year. Regimes here can change fast; structure accordingly.
The current staple for small business is the alanyi adómentesség - the subjective VAT exemption up to HUF 18 million (raised from 12M in 2025) - combined with either the itemised flat-rate costing (átalányadó) or ordinary bookkeeping.
The legal shell and the regime
Egyéni vállalkozó or Kft.?
Egyéni vállalkozó
The solo default.
Free to register; contributions at least on the minimum wage monthly.
Personal liability, and the regime choice (átalányadó bands, KATA only for B2C) decides the economics more than the status does.
Kft.
Liability or partners. HUF 3,000,000 capital, not all cash up front.
Lawyer-drafted formation, commonly HUF 50,000-150,000 plus duty.
9% corporate tax is Europe’s lowest, but salaries carry heavy social charges, and dividends their own tax - the blended rate is ordinary.
The sequence
Register via the Webes Ügysegéd
Where: magyarorszag.hu, with Client Gate (Ügyfélkapu) credentialsCost: HUF 0Takes: Usually same day
You pick ÖVTJ activity codes and the tax elections - the VAT exemption and átalányadó are chosen here. The tax number arrives with the confirmation.
Understand átalányadó before electing it
The flat-rate regime assumes costs at 40/80/90% by activity and taxes the rest as income, with generous exemptions at the bottom. For most service freelancers under the caps it is the good deal KATA used to be - legitimately, and B2B included.
Invoice through NAV-connected software
Every invoice reports to NAV in real time - online számla is not optional. Any mainstream Hungarian invoicing tool handles it; a foreign template does not.
What it costs to start
| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| Registration | HUF 0 |
| Monthly contributionsUnless also employed full-time elsewhere. | At least on the minimum wage |
| Kft. formation | HUF 50,000-150,000 + duty |
| AccountantStandard practice. | HUF 15,000-40,000/month |
The words on the forms
- Egyéni vállalkozó
- The sole proprietor.
- Ügyfélkapu
- The Client Gate login for everything official.
- NAV
- The tax authority, receiving every invoice in real time.
- Alanyi adómentesség
- The VAT exemption to HUF 18 million.
- Átalányadó
- The flat-rate costing regime that replaced KATA for B2B.
- KATA
- The old flat tax - now B2C-only, and the reason Hungarians diversify regimes.
- Kft.
- The HUF 3M limited company under the 9% corporate rate.
The traps
- Building on any single regime as if it were permanent - KATA is the proof.
- Issuing an invoice outside the NAV-connected system.
- Forgetting minimum-wage-based contributions run monthly even in quiet months.
- Electing átalányadó with the wrong cost band for the activity.
Where to check this yourself
- NAVRegimes, thresholds, online számla.
- Magyarország.huThe registration itself.
This is a map, not legal or tax advice - and an honest one about how it was drawn: the Germany guide was written by a person who walked the route; most other countries were drafted with AI against the official sources and have not yet been walked by someone who did it. Laws change. Every guide carries the date it was last checked and the sources to check it yourself - and if you have been through one of these routes, your corrections are exactly what this handbook wants.