Make sure to donate your 1% this year too
How can you donate your personal income tax?
Hungary has a unique system that lets you directly influence how your taxes are spent. When you submit your tax returns every year, you can indicate one church and one non-governmental organization to receive 1% of your personal income tax. While 1% does not seem much, the cumulative sum can have a massive impact.
You can find the form for redirecting your 1+1% right next to your tax returns when you log in to https://eszja.nav.gov.hu/. If you are filing your tax returns on paper, this part will be on separate forms you received in the package. Churches and NGOs are treated separately, so make sure to fill out both sections.
If you are filing online, you can search for churches and NGOs directly on the forms. You can search by name or by tax number (or, in the case of churches, by technical number, since they don’t have a tax number). If you are filing on paper, it is easiest to look up the data of your preferred recipients online.
Donation or direct action?
Since the recipients are often involved in charitable activities, redirecting your taxes this way is normally considered a form of donation in Hungary. And sure enough, you have probably seen many of the billboards that started going up mid-April to ask for your 1%.
While it is true that recipients will receive money without rendering a service to you, they do render services to the community, and this does not cost you any money. “Donating” part of your personal income tax is in fact a way to explicitly tell the government how they should spend your tax money. This is a unique opportunity, since otherwise you have mostly indirect tools for this, e.g. during elections.
Personal income tax in action
Personal income tax in Hungary is 15%. It covers around 10% of total government income. By donating your 1+1%, you can directly decide about ca. 0.2% of the government budget. Of course, if you do not take this chance for direct action, there will be no repercussions; the government will simply use your 1+1% alongside the rest of your personal income tax.
In 2023, more than HUF 17 billion (ca. EUR 43 million) was redirected towards almost 30,000 NGOs by almost 1.8 million Hungarian taxpayers. The 10 most prominent recipients were as follows:
| Name | Taxes donated (HUF) | Number of donors |
| Partizán Rendszerkritikus Tartalomelőállításért Alapítvány (Foundation for creating content scrutinizing the regime) | 416,389,329 | 36,978 |
| Heim Pál Gyermekkórház Fejlesztéséért Alapítvány (Foundation for the development of Heim Pál Children’s Hospital) | 331,680,587 | 32,384 |
| Országos Mentőszolgálat Alapítvány (Foundation for the National Ambulance Service) | 328,179,504 | 34,436 |
| Bátor Tábor Alapítvány (Foundation supporting the therapeutic recreation of chronically ill children and children with cancer) | 210,105,364 | 19,488 |
| Daganatos.hu Alapítvány (Foundation for supporting children who have cancer) | 196,968,010 | 25,246 |
| Bethesda Kórház Alapítvány (Foundation for the development of Bethesda Children’s Hospital) | 195,905,694 | 17,966 |
| Szent Márton Gyermekmentő Szolgálat Közhasznú Alapítvány (Foundation supporting an ambulance service specialized in helping children) | 157,700,597 | 17,321 |
| Magyar Gyermekmentő Alapítvány (Foundation for the Children’s Ambulance Service) | 120,943,500 | 12,222 |
| Kutya-segélyszolgálat Alapítvány (Foundation supporting injured or chronically ill shelter dogs) | 113,378,729 | 15,394 |
| Madárkórház Alapítvány (Foundation for the development of the Bird Hospital) | 113,119,425 | 11,460 |
In 2023, over 160 churches or similar organizations received donations from the 1% personal income tax of more than 2 million taxpayers, with a value of almost HUF 18.6 billion (ca. EUR 46.7 million). The 10 most prominent receivers were as follows:
| Name | Taxes donated (HUF) | Number of donors |
| Magyar Katolikus Egyház (Catholic Church in Hungary) | 6,962,729,257 | 778,391 |
| Magyarországi Református Egyház (Reformed Church in Hungary) | 2,949,851,941 | 329,943 |
| Nemzeti Tehetség Program feladatai (Hungarian Genius Program)* | 2,542,318,061 | 271,860 |
| Magyarországi Evangéliumi Testvérközösség (Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship) | 1,041,746,434 | 92,963 |
| Magyarországi Krisna-tudatú Hívők Közössége (Hungarian Society for Krishna Consciousness) | 906,773,924 | 93,621 |
| Magyarországi Evangélikus Egyház (Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Hungary) | 904,743,441 | 93,895 |
| Magyarországi Baptista Egyház (Baptist Church of Hungary) | 544,794,983 | 56,627 |
| A Tan Kapuja Buddhista Egyház (Dharma Gate Buddhist Church) | 374,410,416 | 36,166 |
| Gyémánt Út Buddhista Közösség (Diamond Way Buddhist Community) | 279,257,176 | 28,006 |
| Hit Gyülekezete (Faith Church) | 196,088,240 | 33,928 |
*Please note: the Hungarian Genius Program is obviously not a church. It is a government institution aiming to support talent in Hungary. It is listed among churches because it doesn’t have a tax number like NGOs, only a technical number like churches.
You can check out the statistics here.
Interested in last year’s top lists? Click here.
Make the most of your Hungarian tax residency
You can participate only if you pay personal income tax in Hungary. Those who are exempt have nothing to redirect. If you have the right to decide how part of your personal income tax will be used, you should take this unique opportunity to make a difference!
If you are not sure which organizations to choose, take a look at the full list here, or take a look at the charities the Helpers Team supported throughout the years.
Make a choice, and submit your 1+1% donation forms by May 20, 2025.
About Helpers
At Helpers we are committed to supporting foreigners living, working, and doing business in Hungary. We focus on business setup and residency applications, but we do our best to make navigating Hungarian bureaucracy easier for everyone. We are also regularly involved in charity projects.
The post Make sure to donate your 1% this year too appeared first on Helpers Hungary.
