|Published on: 26th May 2026|Categories: News|
The updated AIDA Country Report on Hungary provides a detailed overview on legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum applicants and content of international protection in 2025. It is accompanied by an annex which provides an overview of temporary protection and responses from Hungarian authorities.
A number of key developments drawn from the overview of the main changes that have taken place since the publication of the update on 2024 are set out below.
(A) International protection
National context
- State of crisis: The “state of crisis due to mass migration” was still in effect in 2025 and had transitioned into a quasi-permanent legal regime. It was used as a pretext to diverge from EU asylum standards and to suspend key provisions of the Asylum Act. As a result, authorities retained the power to conduct nationwide pushbacks without legal procedures or avenues for appeal.
- Embassy procedure: The embassy procedure, which was introduced in May 2020, remained in force in 2025. However, some new exceptions to its mandatory use were introduced, including enabling unaccompanied children who were residing in Hungary to apply for asylum.
- Pact implementation: The Hungarian government maintained its stance against the implementation of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum throughout 2025.
Asylum procedure
- Statistics: 5,580 pushbacks were recorded in Hungary in 2025. This represented a decrease from the previous year (5,713), primarily due to intensified police operations in Northern Serbia, which restricted people’s access to the Hungary-Serbia border. There were 113 asylum applications in 2025 compared to 29 in the previous year. In addition, authorities did not issue any recommendations for entry under the embassy procedure and consistently rejected asylum applications from people who were already in the country regularly. Only 72 outgoing Dublin transfers were carried out in 2025.
- Asylum interviews: Inadequate interview conditions persisted throughout 2025. In January 2026, the National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing (NDGAP) revised its interviewing protocol to introduce an extensive list of additional questions. As a result, the average interview in the regular procedure now lasts five hours.
Reception conditions
- Occupancy: Reception centres in Hungary had very low occupancy throughout 2025.
- Access for third parties: The Hungarian Helsinki Committee continued to be prevented from accessing reception facilities in 2025.
Detention of asylum applicants
- Statistics: There was an 11.9% increase in the use of asylum detention in 2025 compared to the previous year. In addition, 104 people were detained in Hungary while awaiting a Dublin transfer (83 in 2024).
- Access to detention facilities: Although the Hungarian Helsinki Committee was prevented from accessing detention facilities in 2025, in November, Menedék – Hungarian Association for Migrants managed to secure access for its social worker.
- Court judgments: The European Court of Human Rights issued an additional three judgments in 2025 in which it found breaches of the European convention on Human Rights in relation to the detention in transit zones of people seeking asylum.
Content of international protection
- Citizenship: The number of beneficiaries of international protection whose applications for citizenship were rejected doubled in 2025 compared to the previous year.
- Withdrawal of international protection: The NDGAP withdrew 187 statuses in 2025 (50 in 2024).
- Returning beneficiaries: People who had been granted international protection in Hungary and returned from another EU member state faced particular difficulties in accessing housing and identity documents in 2025.
- Inclusion: The absence of state-funded integration support continued to pose serious problems for beneficiaries of international protection in 2025.
(B) Temporary protection
Temporary protection procedure
- Statistics: There were 43,300 registered temporary protection beneficiaries as of 31 December 2025. 6,091 people registered for temporary protection in 2025 (8,070 in 2024).
- Preliminary reference: Under Hungarian national legislation implementing EU rules on temporary protection, third country nationals who had permanent residence in Ukraine were not eligible for temporary or any other adequate protection in Hungary. The asylum procedure was also inaccessible to people who were not apply for temporary protection. The Szeged Court has submitted a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the EU to request clarification regarding its compatibility with the EU Temporary Protection Directive (TPD).
- Post-TPD solutions: There were no plans to prepare for the end of the TPD regime.
Content of temporary protection
- Accommodation: Since August 2024, only people from “war-affected areas” of Ukraine have been entitled to state-subsidised accommodation in Hungary. There are, however, no clearly stated criteria for determining when an area should be regarded as “war-affected”. As a result of this measure, many families were forced to move repeatedly in 2025. This hindered their access to education and employment and, in some cases, forced people to take up exploitative employment for which they received accommodation instead of a salary.
- Healthcare and education: Temporary protection beneficiaries continued to face difficulties accessing healthcare and education in 2025. A lack of interpretation and insufficient knowledge of the relevant regulations by the institutions were also commonplace.
The full report is available here, the annex on temporary protection is available here and the responses from Hungarian authorities are available here.
For more information about the AIDA database or to read other AIDA reports, please visit the AIDA website.
