The draft legislation on tightening up Airbnb services in the capital has been presented for public consultation, with two major changes.
First, the annual amount of the lump-sum tax would be 150,000 Hungarian forints (€370) per year in cities and settlements where tourists and other travelers spent at least 2 million guest nights in the previous year. The 38,400 forints fee would remain in the other settlements.
Only Budapest is set to fall into this category, as, according to the latest data cited by Portfolio.hu, it had more than 10 million guest nights spent a year. Siófok is in second place with 1.12 million, Hajdúszoboszló in third place with 1.11 million, and Hévíz in fourth place with 1.07 million guest nights.
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A room suitable for “living” is defined as a room, regardless of its size, in which at least one bed (bed or other furniture used for sleeping) can be placed. The tax is payable for at least one living room per property.
Second, going forward, new accommodations would not be allowed to be registered by Budapest’s commercial authority until Dec. 31, 2026.
In September, one district in Budapest voted to ban all short-term vacation apartments as of Jan. 1, 2026, leading to speculation that an outright ban may be coming on a national level.
According to the Hungarian Tourism Agency, at the end of last year in Budapest, there were nearly 13,000 accommodations in this market, operated by more than 8,200 service providers, with approximately 26,000 rooms and a total of approximately 58,000 beds. This number may rise a bit by the end of this year, but after that, it will not be possible to open a new unit for two years.
