Car and driving licence in Hungary: registration tax without relocation exemption, and sixty days

With Poland and Czechia the car comes along without excise duty. Hungary is different, and the difference can be hundreds to thousands of euros.

The registration tax, without relocation exemption

Every car that goes on plates in Hungary pays the regisztrációs adó, the NAV's registration tax. There is no exemption for relocation goods from another EU country; the exemptions that exist apply to whoever comes from a third country, and to electric cars.

Since 1 March 2025 the amount depends on three things: the power in kilowatts, the environmental class, and the age of the car. The tax tapers off as the car gets older — a ten-year-old car pays about half of new. An electric or zero-emission car pays nothing. The NAV publishes a calculator sheet; work it out before you leave, because for an older car with a large engine selling in the Netherlands can be cheaper than bringing it.

The clock: sixty days, and no driving on foreign plates

Whoever has a residence in Hungary may not drive around there in a car with foreign plates. The exceptions are narrow: a car borrowed from a foreign owner for at most sixty days in half a year, or a car from a foreign employer, each time with a written authorisation.

For your own car the rule is: within sixty days you start the origin check and the registration. Whoever is stopped after that loses plates and registration certificate on the spot and gets a fine of 400,000 forint, or 800,000 forint for an engine above two litres. The police also report it to the tax authority.

The four counters

The registration runs past four counters, in this order:

1. The transport authority. If your Dutch inspection still holds, the honosítás suffices: a visual check without inspection, in which the Dutch validity is taken over. If the inspection has expired or is about to, a full inspection before registration. The authority names 8,000 forint for the honosítás and 22,800 for the individual registration, plus the inspection itself.
2. The NAV. With the technical data sheet from the authority you have the registration tax assessed and pay it.
3. The insurer. Hungarian third-party insurance, because without a policy no car is registered.
4. The kormányablak. Plates, registration certificate and the registration sticker for the windscreen; the title document, the törzskönyv, comes later by post. The office can prescribe an origin check and an authenticity check.

The driving licence: nothing to exchange

A valid driving licence from an EEA country doesn't need exchanging; it stays valid in Hungary. Two rules going round online don't apply to you: the one-year deadline is for licences from outside the EEA, and the two-year deadline only applies to an EEA licence without an expiry date — and a Dutch licence has one.

If you want to exchange anyway, for instance because your licence is about to expire, you can at the kormányablak without an exam: identity document, address card, the licence itself, and 4,000 forint in fees, or 1,500 forint after pension age.