Hungary · Residency by investment
Residence Permit for Guest Investor (Guest Investor Programme)
In force since 1 July 2024. The EUR 500,000 direct residential real estate purchase route was repealed by an amendment published in Magyar Kozlony on 20 December 2024, before it ever opened to applicants. It had been scheduled to become available on 1 January 2025. Only two routes remain: the EUR 250,000 real estate fund route and the EUR 1,000,000 higher education donation route.
This is the only golden visa to launch in the EU at a time when every other country was closing its programme. At ten years, renewable to twenty, it also carries the longest validity in Europe. But it is a residence and Schengen access product, not a citizenship product. The very feature that makes it attractive, zero physical presence, is the same feature that guarantees it never converts into a Hungarian passport.
Qualifying routes
Investment certificates in a fund regulated by the Hungarian National Bank, with at least 40% of its net asset value held in Hungarian residential real estate. The certificates must be held for at least five years.
Non-refundable, made to an institution maintained by a public-interest asset management foundation, for education, scientific research or artistic creation.
This route was repealed before it opened. It was announced as ending on 20 December 2024 and was never available to applicants. Do not rely on any advisor still marketing it.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €250k
- Total landed cost
- For a family of four, the fund route runs to a EUR 250k subscription plus roughly EUR 15-30k in government, legal and fund subscription fees. The donation route means EUR 1m sunk, plus similar fees.
- Route type
- Residency by investment
- Timeline
- 4–10 months (The guest investor D visa is issued first, with a maximum validity of 6 months and no option to extend. The residence permit application must follow within 30 days of entry, and the investment itself must be completed and evidenced within roughly three months of the visa being issued.)
- Physical presence
- There is no minimum stay requirement. The official FAQ confirms there is no rule on how long a holder must spend in the country under the guest investor residence permit.
- Family
- SpouseMinor childrenIn practice, dependent children under 25 and dependent parents can qualify too, through parallel family reunification applications. Each case should be confirmed individually
- Permanent residency
- A National Card, which carries permanent-type status, becomes available after 3 years of actual residence in Hungary. Holding the guest investor permit alone does not lead here. It only counts if the holder genuinely lives in the country.
- Citizenship
- Citizenship requires 8 years of legal and physical residence combined. Because this permit is built around zero physical presence, a non-resident investor never actually starts that clock.
- Language test
- Applicants sit a constitutional knowledge exam in Hungarian, made up of 40 multiple-choice questions, with 28 correct answers needed to pass. No formal language certificate is required, but in practice roughly B2 conversational Hungarian is necessary to get through it.
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- Non-EU/EEA national aged 18 or over.A clean criminal record and no threat to national security, with approval required from the Constitution Protection Office.A documented, lawful source of funds.Valid health insurance and accommodation in Hungary.Investors must hold the fund units for at least five years to keep the permit renewable.
- Only about two funds have been approved by the Hungarian National Bank to date. That means the EUR 250,000 route carries real concentration and manager risk. You are underwriting a single illiquid Hungarian residential fund for five years, with no meaningful secondary market and no track record.
- Henley & Partners has publicly said the programme is currently stalled and poses several risks, and it does not recommend applying. Hungary publishes no approval statistics, so uptake cannot be independently verified. Treat any advisor's claim about approval rates as unevidenced.
- Zero physical presence means zero progress toward permanent residence or citizenship. Advisors who market this as a path to an EU passport are misrepresenting it.
- Hungary's predecessor residency bond programme (2013-2017) collapsed amid corruption findings. Offshore intermediaries collected roughly USD 600m in fees across eight opaque companies, and the programme left a documented net loss to the Hungarian budget. The political and reputational risk of a repeat is not zero, and the European Commission is watching this programme closely.
- The EUR 1m donation route is non-refundable. The money goes to public-interest asset management foundations, the same foundation structures that are themselves the subject of EU rule-of-law disputes and frozen EU funds.
- The Schengen benefit is 90 days in any 180. This permit does not give unlimited EU-wide residence rights.
- Hungary's rule-of-law standoff with Brussels is still live. A hostile Commission opinion on investor residence, or an EU-level ban on such schemes, remains a live policy risk over a ten-year holding period.