A new job, a wedding, the birth of a child: in most people's lives these are natural turning points that involve, at most, a little paperwork. For a third-country national living in Hungary, however, the same moments can often mean extra hurdles. Each time, the purpose of their stay changes as well, and they may need a new residence permit that reflects it. Yet the immigration act in force since 1 January 2024 allows such a switch from within the country only in a narrow set of cases. In most situations, the application has to be filed at the Hungarian consulate in the person's country of origin (or, if there is no Hungarian consulate there, in another country where they are lawfully staying), even if they have lived here for years and hold a valid permit.

In several respects this regime is at odds with EU law, and the issue is drawing growing attention: Hungarian courts keep setting it aside in individual cases, the European Commission sent Hungary a letter of formal notice in July 2026, and the government has ordered a review of the rules, which is still under way.

What the Hungarian rule allows, and what it bars

The current act sets out an exhaustive list of the permits, purposes and circumstances under which a third-country national may apply for a residence permit from within Hungary. Anyone who does not meet these conditions has their application rejected by the immigration authority without any examination of the merits.

Some people, however, can apply for even their first residence permit from within Hungary. Nationals of visa-exempt countries (such as the United States, Japan or Serbia) may, as a rule, apply in Hungary for most types of residence permit. The same goes for family members living here lawfully with them – even if they themselves need a visa – provided that family members are allowed to join the main applicant.

Applications for an EU Blue Card, a research permit or a permit issued in the national interest can also be filed in Hungary, whatever the applicant's nationality. The only condition is a lawful stay, and a valid short-stay visa already meets it. Applications for a guest investor residence permit, in turn, can only be filed in Hungary, by everyone, although nationals of visa-required countries must first obtain a guest investor visa.

The act also provides set pathways: students who successfully complete their studies and researchers who finish their research may switch to a job-seeking or business start-up permit, and from there move on to a Hungarian Card, an EU Blue Card or a guest self-employment permit.

Renewing an existing permit for the same purpose, and applying for a card that grants long-term residence (such as the national residence card), are in any case done in Hungary, at the regional directorate. The law makes two exceptions, which can also be filed at a Hungarian consulate: the "renewal" of a national permanent residence permit issued in the national economic interest (granted under the former, notorious residency bond programme), and a national residence card issued in the national policy interest.

For eleven permit types, though, the act is even stricter than the general rule: holders cannot apply in-country for a permit for any other purpose, either while their permit is valid or after it expires. Besides the guest worker permit, these are the employment, seasonal work, investment-project work, guest self-employment, traineeship, volunteering and medical treatment permits, the temporary residence permit issued to working holiday makers, the White Card and the Corporate Card. The ban also applies to nationals of visa-exempt countries. In practice, however, the authority makes one exception: in light of the EU directive, it accepts in-country EU Blue Card applications even from holders of the permits covered by the ban, although the wording of the act has not changed. In reply to my written enquiry in June 2026, the immigration authority confirmed that such an application can be granted, but did not explain how this squares with the statutory ban.

Before 2024, the previous immigration act allowed anyone who could show exceptional circumstances deserving special consideration (a serious personal or family reason, for example) to file their application in Hungary. These equity-based applications even gave foreign nationals a way to regularise their status after their lawful stay had ended. In these procedures the authority decided only one question: whether the applicant's account justified a departure from the general rules on where to apply. Think of someone who, through no fault of their own, perhaps because of a sudden illness or an accident, could not leave the country while their stay was still lawful.

A wider view: The equity route undoubtedly had its downsides. Rejected applications led to an extraordinary number of court rulings, and many foreign nationals used it to get around the general rules. With an application of this kind, it was possible to "stay" in the country for years, and reform was genuinely needed. There were days at the immigration authority when my colleagues reported that more equity applications had been filed than everything else combined, and I myself took in countless such applications from clients. Well before the new immigration act, in 2016, lawmakers changed these rules because the administrative burden had grown beyond anything imaginable. Until then, a separate decision had to be made on the equity request, and only once that was final could the residence permit application itself be decided, which made no sense. From then on, however, the immigration authority did not even have to examine the conditions of stay until it had accepted the exceptional circumstances as proven.

The new act dropped this option entirely, which is a dramatic change. The legislature's drive to tighten the rules proved so "effective" that Hungary's highest court, the Kúria, confirmed in its order Kfv.IV.37.293/2025/2 of 27 May 2025 that under the new rules the authority has no discretion whatsoever over in-country applications.

Two children, two judgments

The consequences of the change reach far. Below I describe two cases in which a child was born to a Hungarian citizen and a third-country national.

A mother from the Philippines came to Hungary as a guest worker and met her future husband here. In February 2026, while her permit was still valid, she applied for a residence permit for family reunification, and then their child was born. The authority did not examine the application at all: it found that under the rules she would have to travel home and file it there. In the lawsuit against the second-instance decision, which upheld that ruling, the authority also argued that the child could stay behind with his father and that the trip home would only be temporary. At the time of the proceedings the boy was just three months old and breastfed by his mother. In judgment 1.K.700.828/2026/6 of 13 October 2026, the Győr Regional Court annulled the decision: in the court's view, a breastfed baby cannot be separated from his mother, so sending her home would force a Hungarian child to leave the Union as well, which is contrary to EU law.

Another Filipino guest worker was forced onto sick leave by a high-risk pregnancy. Her employment ended, the authority withdrew her residence permit, and barely two months after she gave birth, it ordered her expulsion from Hungary. As a guest worker, she could not switch in-country to a family reunification permit either, even though she had applied for one. In judgment 15.K.703.096/2025/10 of 5 September 2025, the Budapest-Capital Regional Court found that her three-month-old, breastfed Hungarian son depended on her, and that the authority therefore had to provide her with some form of permit entitling her to stay.

Based on these two real cases, I think it is fair to say that the rules, in their current form, cannot be right and need to change. When the new act was drafted, the legislature's stated intention was to make Hungary's rules on foreign nationals strict, as both the preamble of Act XC of 2023 and its explanatory memorandum make clear. The tightening went so far, however, that there is in practice no proper procedure for cases like these, and it falls to the courts to show the way.

A wider view: In both cases, the person affected was the foreign mother of a Hungarian child, holding a guest worker residence permit. So why does this problem hit women hardest? Residence permits are tied to a purpose, and proving that purpose is a basic condition both when the permit is obtained and throughout its validity. For someone holding a permit that entitles them to work, this means in practice that their employment must be continuous. A parent caring for a newborn cannot work, and so cannot prove the original purpose of their stay. Although the law does not reserve staying at home with the baby for mothers, that is what families typically decide. Data from the Hungarian Demographic Research Institute (part of the Central Statistical Office) show that when a child is eighteen months old, barely more than one in ten mothers is working. Even in families where the father claims the childcare benefit, it is usually the mother who stays at home, because the father keeps working alongside it in almost every case. Fathers go back to work after their paternity leave, so their employment continues and, as foreign nationals, they have no need, on this account, to change the purpose of their permit. In my view, this may be why we do not come across fathers' cases among court decisions: both the statistics and my practical experience with the rules point that way.

What is simply a question of dividing family roles in a Hungarian family can affect a third-country national mother's very right to stay: her permit is tied not to her family situation but to her work. That is why it matters so much what the immigration authority treats as fulfilling the purpose of the stay.

Insider tip: For permits that entitle the holder to work, the immigration authority in practice looks not only at whether the employment relationship exists on paper but also at whether the person is actually working. The purpose of the stay is the work itself, not merely the legal existence of an employment relationship. So if someone is not working for an extended period, for example because they are on sick leave or at home after the birth of a child, this can raise questions at renewal or during an inspection even if the employment has not ended, and it can even lead to the withdrawal of the residence permit.

This raises an obvious question: what about people whose family members are not EU citizens, or whose cases never reach a court? For now they cannot count on any exception. If the child is not an EU citizen, the protection of EU citizenship cannot be invoked, and for those who do not go to court, the rejection remains final and, unless they have another valid right to stay, they have to leave the country.

Where the rule collides with EU law

Protection of EU citizenship

EU law does not allow a Union citizen, in this case a Hungarian child, to be forced to leave the European Union because a foreign parent the child cannot be separated from has no right to stay. In Joined Cases C‑420/22 and C‑528/22, decided on 25 April 2024 and both originating in Hungary, the Court of Justice of the EU held that before refusing to issue a residence permit, the authority must assess whether such dependency exists. That obligation applies even if the decision does not order anyone to leave the country. By rejecting an application without examining it, the authority skips precisely that assessment. In judgment 15.K.701.381/2024/15 of 3 March 2025, the Debrecen Regional Court set aside the ban on in-country applications on the basis of another CJEU ruling (C‑1/23): having to appear in person at a distant consulate would have caused the applicant extreme difficulty.

This protection is not automatic, though. In judgment K.700.869/2025/16 of 9 October 2025, the Debrecen Regional Court sided with the authority: in the new procedure, the applicant had not proved sufficient means of subsistence, and EU law offered no protection either, because she depended on her Hungarian spouse rather than the other way round and did not exercise parental custody rights over the spouse's child.

Workers' right to apply in-country

Under the revised EU directive on the single permit, Directive (EU) 2024/1233, Member States had until 21 May 2026 to ensure that anyone already living in their territory on a valid residence permit can apply in-country for a permit that also entitles them to work, issued in the single application procedure. The Hungarian rule is far narrower. Holders of the eleven permit types listed above, including people working on an employment permit, whom the directive expressly protects, cannot apply in-country for any other permit, apart from the EU Blue Card exception that applies in practice. The directive covers permits that entitle the holder to work and are issued in the single application procedure; for family reunification permits, the EU citizenship protection described above applies where a Hungarian family member is involved.

Why the immigration authority cannot solve this

In the Hungarian legal system, the immigration authority applies the law: it has to implement the acts and decrees governing its procedures, and it aligns its practice with case law as far as the wording of the legislation allows, but it cannot take decisions that depart from the rules. Interpreting the law is primarily the task of the courts, so the authority cannot issue binding interpretations; at most, it can provide information. When a court "sets aside" the Hungarian rule in a case because of EU law, the judgment binds the authority in the new procedure, but only in that one case. The next application on similar facts must still be rejected under the act, and the person concerned has to go to court if they disagree.

As early as 1989, in the Costanzo case, the Court of Justice held that administrative authorities are under the same obligation as courts to apply EU law and to disregard conflicting national rules. In Hungarian practice, however, that assessment is made by the courts, while the authority, which the act expressly denies any discretion on this point, applies the act. The EU Blue Card shows that the alternative is not impossible: there, in light of the EU directive, the authority departs in practice from the wording of the act. This rests on administrative practice rather than legislation, however, so it offers no legal certainty. What is more, a successful lawsuit does not guarantee a permit. In the new procedure the authority is still required to check the general conditions of stay, such as sufficient means and accommodation, and if any of them is not met it must reject the application, as happened in the October 2025 Debrecen case described above. It follows that a lasting solution lies with the legislature.

The legislature has been slow to react before

Earlier gaps in the new immigration rules also took months to close, even though the government in charge at the time was the same one that had submitted the bill.

Children born in Hungary

Under the act's original text as promulgated, a child born in Hungary had to be issued a family reunification permit, but only if the parent's permit allowed family members to join them. As a result, children born here to parents holding an employment, guest worker or study residence permit could not obtain a residence permit. Lawmakers closed this gap from 11 May 2024, four months after the act took effect.

Cultural knowledge tests for children

From 1 January 2025, applicants for a national residence card or an EU residence card had to pass a written cultural knowledge test in Hungarian before a government office, and the decree, being general in scope, applied to children too. Understandably, a child under 14 could not pass it, yet in many cases the Government Office of the Capital City Budapest even refused to give out exam dates, without stating any reasons. While I was deputy director, many clients reported this to me. At the time, I was serving at the Central Regional Directorate of Hungary's immigration authority (OIF): in the interim, neither the authority nor the government office received any meaningful guidance on how to handle the issue (which of course does not excuse the office's approach to exam dates). Some cases were rejected, others suspended. The government made no public statement on the problem, and it introduced an exemption for under-14s only from 14 August 2025, by amending the relevant decree.

What the government is doing now

After the change of government, the new cabinet adopted a resolution in May 2026 ordering a full and expedited review of the legislation on employing third-country nationals, together with the preparation of related legislation. As regards the employment of foreign nationals, one step has been taken since then: in June 2026 the government closed the door, by decree, on new guest worker residence permits.

On 15 July 2026, the European Commission sent letters of formal notice to seventeen Member States, Hungary among them, for failing to communicate the transposition of the single permit directive. The Commission's announcement specifically pointed out that under the directive, holders of a valid residence permit may also apply from within the Member State concerned. Member States had two months to reply. Hungary's reply has not been made public: the Commission does not publish Member States' responses, and no Hungarian government statement on it has appeared. No bill has been tabled yet, however, and nothing suggests that the old equity-based applications will return in any form.

What affected families can do in the meantime

Until the law changes, families have to fight for their rights one case at a time. If you live in Hungary on a permit that does not allow you to switch purpose in-country, and you have, or are expecting, a child with Hungarian citizenship, keep the following in mind:

  1. Make a full statement in your application: explain who looks after the child and who supports the family.
  2. Say it explicitly. State in the application that your Hungarian child depends on you and that a trip home would force the child to leave the EU.
  3. Watch the deadlines. A ruling rejecting your application without examination can be appealed within eight days, and the second-instance decision can usually be challenged in court within thirty days. An expulsion order cannot be appealed at all, and the deadline for taking it to court is only eight days. We explain how these deadlines are counted, and the steps of an appeal, in an earlier article.
  4. Line up a lawyer for the court stage in good time. Legal representation is not mandatory before a regional court, but it is advisable. At Horizontes Nova, we can assist you as your authorised representative in the administrative procedure, but we do not represent clients in court.

What is at stake

In the Győr case, eight months passed between the application and the judgment, and even then the outcome was not the issue of a residence permit but a fresh procedure. The authority has to pay HUF 607,500 in legal costs. Until lawmakers settle the question of in-country switching, every family in a similar situation will have to go down the same road, and the state will keep paying the bill case by case.

If you have a question about your own situation, Horizontes Nova will gladly help you find your way.

This article is for general information and reflects the position as of 28 October 2026; it does not constitute individual legal advice. For guidance tailored to your situation, please get in touch!

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