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Flag of Hungary

Hungary

White Card

PR: NoUTC+2

The requirements

Programme status
Open, accepting applications
Minimum monthly income
$3,300 a month
Required savings
$11,000
Annual total
$50,600
Initial duration
1 year, extendable once
Family allowed
No
Apply online
Yes

€3,000/month net for prior 6 months.

How this figure is set: A fixed amount set in law or on the official page. The wording on the source is: 3000. Formula: net 3,000 EUR in each of the 6 months before application (and each month of stay).

Income confidence: high · checked 2026-09-07
Legal basis: Government Decree 35/2024 (II.29.) s.52(4).

Does this lead to permanent residence?

No pathway. Max 2 yrs; White Card holders explicitly barred from Hungary's PR routes by law.

Act XC of 2023 (Hungary's Act on the Admission and Right of Residence of Third-Country Nationals) §62(4) caps the White Card at 1+1 years; §62(5) and (7) bar the holder from applying for any other residence title while holding it, or right after expiry without first leaving Hungary. §83(5)(j) explicitly lists White Card holders as barred from the national long-term residence card (3-year route, §83(1)(a)), and §84(3)(b) explicitly excludes White Card time from that calculation. Read directly from the Act's official text. The site's previously cited legal basis, Government Decree 35/2024 (II.29.) §52(4), is not the operative provision — that section governs proof of sufficient income, not PR eligibility.

Pathway confidence: high · checked 2026-09-07

Where it is

Budapest sits at 47.50° N, 19.04° E.

Hungary picked out on a world map

Open in Google Maps ↗A map of Budapest. This is the only link here that leaves the site.

Your position is worked out on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Time zone

  • UTC+2 Budapest (Europe/Budapest)

The country

Region
Europe · Central Europe
Capital
Budapest
Currency
HUF
Schengen area
Yes

Next door

5 of the 7 countries Hungary shares a land border with are covered here.

Croatia, Romania, Slovenia and Austria are in the Schengen area, as Hungary is. For a visitor that is one clock, not several: the 90 days in any 180 are spent across all of it.

What it costs to live there

$1,135 per person, per month. That is what one resident of Hungary spends in an average month with housing included — not what a newcomer renting at market rates will spend, which is higher, and furthest above it in the cheapest countries.

Budapest
$1,026 / month incl. rent
of which rent $477
Debrecen
$796 / month incl. rent
of which rent $330

City figures are crowdsourced from livingcost.net, not official: one person's monthly spending plus the rent of a one-bedroom flat outside the centre. They are here because a national average cannot show the spread between a capital and the places people actually move to. Checked 2026-09-20.

Cost of living confidence: high · checked 2026-09-20
World Bank national accounts, reference year 2025: households and NPISHs final consumption expenditure (NE.CON.PRVT.CD, current US$) divided by population (SP.POP.TOTL) and by twelve. This is what one resident spends in an average month with housing included, since national accounts count the imputed rent of owner-occupiers. It is an average over the whole population, not a visitor's budget, so a newly arrived remote worker renting at market rates will spend more - see the city figures for what that looks like.

Languages

  • Hungarian official
  • English common in cities
  • German common in cities

Shares of the population from Unicode CLDR: official, then anything spoken by a quarter of the country, an eighth, or a fiftieth. It answers "will I be understood", not "how good is their English".

How to apply

  1. Check you clear the requirements above — $3,300 a month is the figure this row records.
  2. Gather what the official page asks for. Expect proof of income, a passport, health insurance and a criminal-record check as the common core.
  3. Apply online through the official portal.
  4. Sort out where you will stay for the first stretch. Airlines check this at the desk and will not board you without it, whatever your visa says —what counts as proof of accommodation.
  5. Verify every figure on the official page before you spend money. Thresholds are set in local currency and move every year.

Enter Hungary portal ↗

€10,000 savings; family must qualify separately.

A starting point, not advice. Figures are converted to US dollars at open-market rates; official thresholds are set in local currency. Sources: official source ↗. Data checked . Compiled by .