If a Hungarian client has contracted you, your specialists can work here on a short-term permit — applied for through your client, not a company you have to set up.
No work permit at all — they already have the right to work here. What is required instead: a posting notification before they start, an EU registration card if the stay runs past ninety days, and a labour registration for anyone on a Hungarian employment contract. Missing one of these is the most common mistake, and all of them are avoidable. Health cover for the posting is worth settling at the same time: an A1 certificate is often the answer.
A short-term work permit in Hungary, applied for through your Hungarian client. No corporate group relationship needed, no entity of your own. This is the permit type for subcontractors, installation teams and commissioning engineers — and some companies choose it deliberately, sending people in two waves, because staying under the threshold also keeps the tax position simpler. The employer notification obligations apply here too, and we watch those as well. A short-term work permit starts from EUR 400 net per person, and a business or tourist visa from EUR 450 — the first call is free and you get the price for your own case before anything is filed.
No longer a work permit but a residence permit — an intra-corporate transfer. That permit type requires a corporate group relationship: a foreign and a Hungarian entity under the same group.
If a Hungarian company has contracted you, the permit goes through them. Your people stay on your own payroll.
Your start date is fixed by the contract. We build the timetable back from it, instead of telling you when the paperwork happens to be ready.
We have run these projects with teams in the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia. The time difference has never been the problem.
No. If a Hungarian company has contracted you, the work permit is applied for through them — under Hungarian law the Hungarian host is the relevant employer, and the arrangement is an assignment or a service contract rather than an employment relationship.
Your people stay on your own payroll. This applies to stays under ninety days in any hundred and eighty.
The government office keeps its own deadlines, and they are not fully predictable. That is exactly why we schedule backwards from your start date and begin early enough that the unpredictable part still fits.
Tell us your installation date on the first call and we will tell you honestly whether it is reachable — including when it is not.
More than a signature, but far less than a project. They provide company documents, and they request a workforce demand certificate — the labour market test that establishes the role could not be filled locally. It applies to short and long assignments alike.
There are exceptions in the law, and which ones apply depends on the case. We work that out before anything is filed. Everything else is ours.
A short permit can be extended where the case justifies it: a project that has run a few weeks over with a foreseeable end date is reasonable. Another three months is not.
Beyond ninety days in any hundred and eighty it becomes a residence permit — an intra-corporate transfer, which needs a corporate group relationship. If your timeline is genuinely uncertain, say so on the first call: the two permit types are prepared differently and switching late is expensive.
The sooner we know, the more room there is for the authority’s own deadlines.
A permit is tied to a place.
It is issued for a specific address or town, and your people can only work where it says. If the project moves site, that is a new question — not a detail.
More sites, more exposure.
The labour market test runs in every county involved, so a project spread across three counties has three chances of a Hungarian candidate turning up. We tell you that risk before you commit, not after.
ACCOMMODATION AND TIMING
A project crew is not a permit problem and a housing problem standing side by side. It is one arrival date. The permit application has to start early enough, and the crew needs somewhere to sleep on the night they land — near the site, not near the airport.
We find and book the accommodation, and we schedule it against the permit dates rather than against a booking window. When a filing moves, the arrival moves with it — and so does the accommodation. You hear about it once, from one place.
With two suppliers, someone on your side has to reconcile them. With one, nobody does.
ARE YOU THE HUNGARIAN COMPANY DOING THE CONTRACTING?
Then the permit is applied for in your name — which is why most host companies want to know exactly what they are taking on. In practice: company documents, a signature, and the workforce demand certificate. We prepare all of it and deal with the authority. You are not the one learning immigration law on a deadline.
Not sure which one you are in?
TWO WORLD LEADERS IN SUSTAINABLE LITHIUM EXTRACTION
Specialists brought in from the United States and the United Kingdom as subcontractors to a Hungarian project — installing the technology, with no Hungarian entity behind either company. Two waves arriving one after the other, both timed against a fixed installation deadline and against each other.
A GLOBAL OPTICS AND MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY GROUP
A full caseload running at once, with renewals sliding into the same window and an Asian parent company adding another layer of coordination.
We are not named on these projects, because most clients’ internal policies do not allow it. The work is what it is either way.
Are you the provider bringing the project, not the client? This is how we work behind your name →
Staying longer than 90 days? Read our guide to the ICT permit →
Tell us about the project.
Your start date, how many people, and where they are coming from. We will tell you which permit type applies, then send one document list in plain English with a deadline against each item. A short call, no charge.