Buying or selling real estate in Hungary is a private agreement between a seller(s) and a purchaser(s). The process is governed by strict form and content requirements and overlooking them may easily put the entire transaction at risk. Understanding these rules in detail — from formal signatures and escrow arrangements to the special restrictions applying to agricultural land — is the key to ensuring that every property transfer is not only valid on paper, but also secure and enforceable in practice.

The approaching October 20 deadline has been kept the Hungarian business sphere on edge for quite some time. This is the cutoff for submitting the first EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) declarations. While many details are still unresolved, it is already clear that attempting to deceive or withhold information is not worth it.

As part of the implementation of the European Union's waste management directives, Hungary will also need to apply the rules of the ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ (EPR) legislation as from 1 July 2023.

Already last year, it was noticeable that after several years of decline, the Hungarian Tax Authority conducts more and more tax audits. In 2022, the number of tax audits increased by 6.2% compared to the previous year. Experience shows that this trend is expected to continue even more strongly this year. The most commonly audited tax category remains VAT.

From time to time, there’s news of companies introducing four-day work week. Magyar Telekom has been mentioned several times as the first big fish to do so, but Libri, too, has apparently done the same, as have various local subsidiaries of foreign parent companies. The obvious question is whether this option is available to everyone and, if so, at what price.

Whichever product or service you are discussing, there are certain names, images or slogans that immediately come to mind. When setting up a business, it is crucial for any founder that the brand they represent has a distinctive, recognizable, ringing name. Building a solid business reputation is a long and bumpy road, but safeguarding legal protection for a brand name or logo to ensure exclusivity is much easier than many people think: the solution lies in trademark protection.

The yearbook of the Hungarian tax authority summarising the most important tax events and statistics for 2022 has been published. It shows, among other things, the number of fines imposed and the effectiveness with which the tax authority's decisions can be challenged. We have compiled the most important and informative figures from the yearbook.

In 2016, when local authorities had been able to levy municipal taxes for more than a year already, we summarised the lessons that had been learned up to then from this newest genre of local taxes. At the time, we were waiting with bated breath to see what the future would bring, that is; to see just how creative local governments would get in thinking up new taxes. So what did ever happen to the ‘kitsch tax’, the ‘pony tax’ and all those other local levies? Now that a few years have passed, the time has come for us to once again peer into the weird and wonderful world of municipal taxes.