What decides the permit type
Which permit type is open
Immigration first
We are an immigration practice, not a moving company.
Work permits, residence permits and the compliance that follows them are the whole of this service.
Deciding permits inside the Hungarian immigration authority.
Corporate immigration for a global relocation provider.
Handled in our first year of operation.
The main permit types for work-based residence in Hungary.
Nationalities among the people we have moved.
From the first conversation to a permit in hand.
Figures current as of September 2026.
Before you make the offer
The most expensive moment is not the filing. It is the offer letter.
Once you have told a candidate they can work in Hungary, you have made a promise on the authority’s behalf. If the permit type then turns out not to work on the terms you agreed — the salary, the job title, the qualification — the problem is no longer a permit application. It is a withdrawn offer, and a candidate who may already have resigned somewhere else.
The four things that decide it — every one knowable before anyone signs:
01
Where the qualification was earned, and what it is in
02
Who the employer will be, and what the role is
03
What the company pays for that role
04
Whether there is Hungarian or EU family
Send us those four before the offer goes out. It takes one conversation.
Book a call →What changed in 2026
Current as of September 20261 January 2026
EU Blue Card salary thresholds rose
Minimum gross monthly, depending on which paragraph of the governing decree applies to the role:
HUF 1,001,048
HUF 800,838
5 June 2026
The cut-off for cases already under way
Guest worker cases where the procedural fee was paid by this date continue under the previous rules. Existing holders can still apply to extend or have the permit reissued.
6 June 2026
New guest worker permits ended
The residence permit for guest workers still exists in law, but the government has designated no eligible countries — so no new application can be filed.
Ongoing
More change is expected
The government has ordered a full review of the rules on employing third-country nationals.
Existing Blue Card holders are affected too. The rules require salary tracking, so a threshold increase is not only a question for new applications — it reaches the people already on your payroll. The following year’s figures are published each autumn.
6
years deciding these applications inside Hungary’s immigration authority
10
years running corporate immigration for a global provider
We know what the file looks like from the other side
Henrietta spent six years deciding these applications before she ever prepared one. That is why we can tell you what a case officer will question, and what they will accept without asking.
It is also why we say something that surprises people: the authority is not your opponent. Case officers are bound by the law, not hostile to you, and in our experience they would rather have a complete, honest file and a conversation than a clever one.
Which is why the shortcuts do not work. The one we hear most often is that setting up a Hungarian company will solve a residence problem. It will not. The office has seen it before. The permit type you actually qualify for is almost always the better bet — and where a case is genuinely borderline, we ask the authority directly before you commit to anything.
How long it actually takes
4–5 months
from the first conversation to the permit in hand
The authority’s own deadlines are shorter than that — and they are not the number to plan around. Their clock stops every time a document is missing, and it does not start at all until the file is complete. A published deadline and a real timeline are two different things.
The long item is usually not the decision. It is getting a diploma apostilled, which can take weeks and is not in anyone’s control. If several people are moving at once, start earlier.
How a case runs
What it looks like from your side
A name, a phone number and an email address are enough to start. From there, most of it stops being yours.
To your employee
One form to complete and one list of what to send — not instalments. In most cases we call them as well. Not because we need anything, but because someone who knows what is coming stops worrying about it.
To you
The position, what it pays, and a proper description of the role. That is the part only you can answer — and it is what decides which permit type is open.
Both run at the same time. Where they meet, the permit type is decided — not before.
We deal with your employee directly and report to you separately — because most HR teams want the result, not a stream of email to read. If you would rather be copied on everything, say so and we will.
You will not have to ask where we are.
There is no scheduled weekly report, because you should not have to wait for one. You hear from us when something moves, and every message says what we are doing next — so the last email you have is still an accurate answer to “where are we?” Where the volume justifies it, a standing weekly call, at no extra charge.
One person, and a real one.
One person runs the case from beginning to end, and your HR team always speaks to Henrietta. Your employee gets someone they can actually call — in English, on whatever channel works for them: email, phone, Teams, WhatsApp, Viber, or the messaging app they can reach us on from home.
And some of it is not immigration work at all.
There are notifications an employer owes the authority around the day someone starts and the day they leave. They are administrative, they are easy to forget, and forgetting them is not cheap, because the authority can impose a penalty for each missed notification. We remind you every time. You are not paying us to watch that — we watch it anyway.
What we handle
Most of our work is one of six permit types. If you are not sure which one applies, our permit comparison for employers sets the five out side by side.
National Card
EU Blue Card
Hungarian Card
Residence permit for employment
Permits for family members
Intra-corporate transfers (ICT)
Intra-corporate transfers are their own permit type. An employee posted temporarily from a group company outside the EU to the Hungarian entity, for work or for training. Who counts as a manager, a specialist or a trainee is defined narrowly — which is worth establishing before the assignment is announced internally.
Alongside them, the parts that make a permit actually usable:
Coming for a project of under ninety days? That is a different permit type again — see short-term work permits.
Already employ people here and the question is keeping their status current? That is HR support.
Other permit types exist — including medical treatment — and we will tell you if one of them is the answer. Which of these fits is not something to work out from a list. It is the first thing we establish with you.
Where good applications fail
Not on missing paperwork.
Two things account for most of it.
The qualification, the role and the salary have to line up.
Not individually — with each other. A degree that is clearly relevant, a job title that describes the work, and a salary that meets the threshold for the chosen permit type: each can look correct on its own and still not hold together as a case.
The employment relationship has to be the right one.
These are not interchangeable, and the one that suits your internal reasons is not always the one the permit type requires.
Tell us who you are hiring, and we will tell you the permit type, the timeline, and whether the start date is realistic.
Book a call →What it costs
A fixed price per case, agreed before we start
You get the price for your own case before anything is filed. These are the entry prices for the cases we handle most often.
The first call is free. If your case needs a decision on which permit applies before we can quote it, that is a EUR 100 consultation, and it is deducted from your fee if you go ahead. You never pay twice.
All prices are net, excluding VAT and third-party costs such as government fees, certified translation, apostille and courier. What separates a simpler case from a more involved one is the compliance work around the permit — tax number, social security registration and the filings that go with them. Current as of September 2026.
Proof
We have done exactly this
An offer that had already gone out
A multinational made the offer before anyone had looked at the file. When the diploma, the salary and the job classification finally arrived, the permit type they had assumed was not open on those terms — the salary fell short of it, and the qualification did not match the role. It would have cost nothing to know first.
A graduate a restaurant wanted to keep
The employer had the right person, the right role, and a salary that worked. The permit type that fitted was available only to nationals of Georgia, Armenia and the Philippines — not his — and it could not be applied for from inside Hungary, even though he had studied here. We said so, and applied for a job-seeking permit instead, so he had time to find a role for which we could actually apply for a suitable permit.
Ten to fifteen people, one window
National Cards for a whole group at once. Nothing about it was legally difficult — all of it was timing: when each document lands, when each signature happens, when each biometrics appointment can be booked. That is the work.
What we will not do
We are sometimes asked to file a case we already know will be refused — usually because someone would rather not carry that decision internally. We do not. The person on the other end of it pays with time, money and a mark on their record, and it is their life, not a line in a process.
We will tell you what is possible and what is not. And if you would rather not deliver that news alone, we will be on the call with you.
If a case is refused and we believe the decision is wrong, we write the appeal and carry it on. We are not named on these cases, because most clients’ internal policies do not allow it — the work is what it is either way.
~50
permit changes handled last year
~100
cases in the yearly caseload
6 yrs
deciding these files inside the authority
3–4 mo
typical end-to-end timeline
Four people. You will know all of them.
There is no account manager between you and the person doing the work. Meet the team →
Questions HR teams ask before the first call
Can you tell us whether our candidate qualifies before we make an offer?
Yes — and that is the conversation we would rather have. We need four things: where the qualification was earned, who the employer will be and what the role is, what the company pays for that role, and whether there is Hungarian or EU family. One call is usually enough.
Our employee already holds an EU Blue Card. Does the 2026 increase affect us?
Yes. The rules require salary tracking, so a threshold increase is not only a question for new applications. It is worth checking against everyone you already employ on that permit type, not just the next hire.
We were planning to use the guest worker permit. What now?
New applications ended on 6 June 2026. If your people already hold one, extension and reissue are still possible under the previous rules. If not, the answer is a different permit type — and which one depends on the four things above.
How far ahead should we start?
Four to five months for a single case. Earlier if several people are moving together, or if a diploma still needs an apostille.
Can you guarantee the permit?
No — and we would be careful with anyone who does. What we will do is tell you where we see risk and where we do not, before you commit to anything.
Tell us about the case before you make the offer.
Tell us what you know so far. If we cannot help, we will say so.
Book a call →