Hungary · Digital nomad
White Card — Residence Permit for Digital Nomads
Open
Last verified July 2026
Introduced in 2022 and still open. NOTE: the 'White Card' is Hungary's digital nomad permit and is a completely separate instrument from the Guest Investor Programme — the two are frequently and wrongly conflated, including by advisors.
At EUR 3,000 a month this is one of the cheapest entry tickets to legal residence in the EU — but it is engineered as a cul-de-sac. Two years maximum, no family, no permanent residence, and withdrawal if you touch the Hungarian economy. It is a place to sit, not a place to land.
Qualifying routes
€3k
Remote employment for a non-Hungarian employer
Net monthly income of at least EUR 3,000 for the 6 months before entry and throughout the stay
€3k
Ownership of a profitable non-Hungarian company managed remotely
Same income test; profits must be demonstrable
The facts
- Qualifying figure
- €3k
- Total landed cost
- Roughly EUR 150-300 in government fees plus translation and insurance costs; no investment required
- Timeline
- 1–3 months — Applied for at a consulate or, in limited cases, in Hungary
- Physical presence
- At least 90 days in any 180-day period is required to qualify for the single extension
- Family
- none — family reunification is expressly not available to White Card holders, save for children born in Hungary during the stay
- Permanent residency
- None. The law expressly bars White Card holders from being granted a national residence card.
- Citizenship
- None via this permit
- Language test
- n/a
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- third-country national pursuing no gainful activity in Hungary and holding no share in a Hungarian companynet income of at least EUR 3,000 per month, evidenced over 6 monthsaccommodation in Hungary and health insuranceclean criminal record
What can go wrong
- Hard two-year ceiling: one year, extendable once, then you must leave. There is no renewal beyond that and no conversion into any other status.
- Family reunification is expressly prohibited. A spouse or existing children cannot join you — this alone disqualifies it for most families.
- It cannot lead to permanent residence by statute, so none of the time counts toward anything.
- The permit is withdrawn if you work for a Hungarian employer or acquire any share in a Hungarian company. That is a real constraint on entrepreneurs.
- The widely repeated claim that digital nomads 'pay no income tax if under 183 days' is dangerously simplistic — the 90-day-per-180 presence needed for extension pushes you toward Hungarian tax residency, and the permanent-home and centre-of-vital-interests tests can make you resident well short of 183 days.