VAT rates in Hungary

Quick overview

Standard Rate	Reduced Rate
27%	18% and 5%

The local name for VAT in Hungary is ”Általános forgalmi adó” (ÁFA)

There are basically 3 VAT rates in Hungary:

• Standard VAT rate is 27%
• Reduced VAT rate is 5 and 18%

Recent developments

COVID-19 measure: Reduced VAT Rate of 5% for New Residential Properties applicable between Jan 1, 2021 and Dec 31, 2022

For more information about (recent) rate change developments in Hungary, please click HERE.

Standard rate: 27%

This rate applies for all transactions that take place in Hungary, unless an exception applies (such as a reduced rate, the zero rate or an exemption, or a reason to treat the transaction as outside scope of VAT).

Zero rate (0%)

No goods and services are subject to specific 0% VAT rate besides the typical ”Exemptions”.

Reduced rate: 5%

• Human medicines and certain medical products
• Books (on paper)
• Live specimens or slaughtered and chopped (to some extent) meat of certain large animals (pigs, cattle, sheep, goats)
• Poultry meat, eggs and milk (i.e., fresh milk and both UHT and ESL)
• Internet services
• Catered meals
• Nonalcoholic beverages made on the spot
• Hotel services
• Sale of immovable property for residual purposes, provided that its size does not exceed 150 square meters in the case of flats, and 300 square meters in the case of detached houses (with effect from 1 January 2021 till Dec 31, 2022)

Reduced rate: 18%

• Certain foodstuffs
• Some takeaway food
• Entrance to certain open-air public music festivals

For a description of how the VAT rates are structured in the European Union, please see here.  The European Commission has also made an EU VAT rate database available where you can find the applicable VAT rate by entering the CN/CPA code of the goods respectively services (you can find more information here).

A global VAT/GST rate overview can be found here (note this is a work in progress).

This post was last updated on 8 April 2021.

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