Hungary ERP and accounting: Online Számla, RTIR, eÁFA

Hungarian compliance in one view

Hungary does not require structured e-invoices between businesses, but it does require every invoice to be reported to the tax authority in real time. Keeping the books of a Hungarian business means reporting each invoice to NAV's Online Számla system as it is issued, filing VAT returns that NAV can pre-fill from that data, bookkeeping in Hungarian and keeping records for eight years.

Tax administration is national. NAV, the National Tax and Customs Administration, collects VAT, corporate tax, personal income tax and social contributions, and runs Online Számla, the e-VAT system (eÁFA) and the monitoring of online cash registers. Local governments levy local business tax through their own tax offices, which is the main place where location matters.

This page explains why Hungary built real-time invoice reporting, how it works day to day, every dated step as of September 2026, and what Skyline Nexus ERP does for a Hungarian business.

• Tax authority: NAV, through Online Számla, eÁFA and ÁNYK filing
• Currency: Hungarian forint (HUF); standard VAT rate 27%
• Real-time invoice reporting: all invoices since 4 January 2021
• Accounts: Hungarian Accounting Act, with an IFRS option
• Retention: at least eight years

Why Hungary moved to real-time invoice reporting

Hungary's reform started from the VAT gap: the difference between the VAT a country should collect and what it actually collects, which the European Commission estimates every year for each member state. With the highest standard rate in the EU, the reward for invoice fraud, fictitious purchases and unreported sales is high, and periodic returns showed the tax authority the problem only after the money was gone.

Real-time invoice reporting turns that around. Because every invoice reaches NAV within moments of being issued, the authority can match a supplier's reported sale with the customer's claimed deduction almost immediately, spot invoices that were never reported, and focus audits on the businesses whose data does not fit. The same data now feeds the e-VAT system, which drafts the VAT return for the taxpayer to review, so the reporting obligation also removes work: a business using e-VAT no longer lists its purchase invoices on the return's M sheets.

Hungary chose reporting rather than a clearance model. The invoice itself can still be a PDF or paper document exchanged in whatever way the parties agree; it is the data that must go to NAV. That is why Hungary counts as a real-time reporting market even though it has no general B2B e-invoicing mandate.

How Online Számla works day to day

An invoicing program registers with NAV through a technical user, and from then on it sends each invoice, modification and cancellation to Online Számla as XML over NAV's machine-to-machine interface, immediately and without human intervention. NAV acknowledges each submission, and a rejected submission has to be corrected and resent, because a rejected invoice counts as an unreported one.

Invoices issued on printed forms are reported by hand on NAV's web interface within four days of issue, or within one day where the VAT reaches 500,000 forints. Consumer sales at a counter are recorded on online cash registers, which report to NAV through a communication device, so retail and invoicing each have their own data stream.

On the buying side, NAV's system also shows each business the invoices its suppliers have reported to it. Reconciling those against the purchase ledger is the quickest way to find a missing invoice, a wrong tax number or a supplier who never reported, before it turns into a disallowed deduction.

• Scope: all invoices under the VAT Act, B2B, B2C, intra-EU and export
• Channel: XML via the NAV Online Számla machine-to-machine interface
• Timing: immediately for software invoices; 4 days (1 day above 500,000 forints of VAT) for printed invoices
• Also reported: invoice modifications and cancellations
• Buyer side: purchase invoices visible in Online Számla for reconciliation

Deadlines: every dated step as of September 2026

Hungary built its system in stages over several years. The dates below come from NAV's own guidance and the European Commission's country page and describe the position as of September 2026. No general B2B e-invoicing mandate has been legislated; the next fixed date for all businesses is the EU's cross-border regime in 2030.

• 1 July 2018: real-time invoice reporting starts for domestic B2B invoices with at least 100,000 forints of VAT
• 1 November 2019: public bodies must be able to receive EN 16931 e-invoices in public procurement
• 4 January 2021: reporting extended to all invoices, including B2C, intra-EU supplies and exports
• Since then: e-VAT (eÁFA) offers draft VAT returns compiled from NAV's data
• 1 July 2025: structured B2B e-invoicing required for electricity and natural gas suppliers to non-private customers
• 20th of each month: VAT return and payment for monthly filers
• 12th of each month: 2608 payroll return and payment
• 1 July 2030: EU-wide e-invoicing and digital reporting for intra-EU B2B supplies under ViDA

VAT rates, exemption limits and filing frequency

The standard rate is 27%. The 5% rate covers goods listed by customs tariff code, such as books, sheet music, magazines and newspapers published at least once a year, certain healthcare products and therapeutic appliances, and some pork, beef, sheep, goat, poultry, egg and milk products and fish, together with services such as district heating, internet services, meals prepared on site in restaurants with non-alcoholic drinks, and commercial accommodation. The 18% rate applies to certain other foods and to admission to occasional outdoor events. Daily newspapers published at least four times a week are zero-rated.

Small businesses can opt for individual tax exemption (alanyi adómentesség) if their annual supplies stay within 20 million forints, as NAV's January 2026 guidance states. They charge no VAT but must still issue invoices and report them to Online Számla. Cash accounting is available to businesses below 125 million forints of annual supplies.

Filing frequency depends on size. A business files monthly if its net VAT payable two years earlier was at least one million forints, and in its year of registration and the following year; otherwise it files quarterly, or annually if it meets the annual thresholds and has no EU tax number. Monthly and quarterly returns are due by the 20th of the following month, annual ones by 25 February.

• 27% standard rate
• 18% and 5% reduced rates; 0% for daily newspapers
• Individual exemption up to 20 million forints of supplies
• Corporate tax 9%; local business tax up to 2%

Accounting in Hungarian: the Accounting Act, IFRS and retention

Hungarian accounting is governed by Act C of 2000 on Accounting and the Hungarian accounting standards issued under it. Businesses keep double-entry books unless the Act allows single entry for the simplest forms, and bookkeeping may be done only in Hungarian. Companies that prepare their annual accounts under IFRS, as the Act permits, follow IFRS instead of the Hungarian measurement rules, and EU-listed groups prepare consolidated accounts under IFRS as adopted in the EU.

Section 169 of the Act sets retention. The annual accounts, the business report and the inventory, valuation, general ledger extract and journal behind them must be kept in legible form for at least eight years, as must the accounting documents that directly or indirectly support the entries, including general ledger accounts and analytical records. They must be retrievable through the references in the accounting records.

Corporate tax is 9% of the positive tax base, and the tax year normally follows the calendar year. Returns are filed by the last day of the fifth month after the year end.

Payroll: the 2608 return and social contribution tax

Employers are paying agents for every tax and contribution on wages. The monthly 2608 return, filed electronically by the 12th of the month following the reference month, reports each employee's income tax, contributions and related data, and the amounts are paid by the same date.

The employee's social security contribution is 18.5% of the contribution base, withheld from pay, and from 1 January 2026 it is due on at least the minimum wage of 322,800 forints a month, or 373,200 forints where the job requires at least secondary qualifications. The employer pays social contribution tax of 13% on the same wage base.

For the ledger, that means a payroll journal each month with separate liabilities for income tax, social security contribution and social contribution tax, reconciled to the 2608 return and to the tax account statement NAV keeps for every taxpayer.

Cities and regions: where the rules differ

VAT, corporate tax, payroll and Online Számla are national, so a business in Budapest, Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs, Győr, Nyíregyháza, Kecskemét, Székesfehérvár or Szombathely reports invoices and files returns under the same rules.

What differs is local business tax (helyi iparűzési adó). Local governments levy it on business activity carried out on a permanent basis, at a maximum rate of 2%, and it is collected by each local government's own tax office, not by NAV. A company with premises in Budapest and Győr may owe local business tax in both, apportioned between them, so it needs its revenue and costs available by location.

Building tax and land tax are also local taxes payable to the local government where the property sits. Otherwise there is nothing regional to plan for: the same forms, rates and deadlines apply across the country.

• Local business tax: up to 2%, set and collected by each local government
• Building and land tax: local, by property location
• VAT, RTIR, payroll and corporate tax: identical nationwide

How Skyline Nexus ERP handles Hungarian requirements

Skyline Nexus ERP is a cloud ERP with a double-entry general ledger under Fiscal Authority. With the auto-post switches on, final sales, purchases, payments, expenses and depreciation post balanced journals in the background, and output VAT is computed per line on the same basis as the tax report, so 27%, 18% and 5% lines each post correctly. The VAT Return screen prefills tax-exclusive sales and purchase bases and VAT for a date range and location, which the finance team compares with NAV's e-VAT draft before approving it. Posted journals are corrected by reversal, sales returns are recorded as credit notes, fiscal periods can be soft-closed or locked, and the Accounting Audit Trail records every change with old and new values.

For local business tax, business locations carry their own invoice numbering, stock and a branch-filtered trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet, so revenue and costs can be read by site. The Audit Pack exports a year's chart of accounts, ledger, journals, sales, purchases and VAT summary to one Excel workbook for the eight-year archive, and the chart of accounts can be imported from CSV or Excel to load a Hungarian chart.

National e-invoicing and reporting connectors are being rolled out market by market, and Online Számla is part of that programme: tell us your country and we will confirm your go-live date. Until the connector is live for your company, a partner-led integration can read sales and sales returns through the Skyline Nexus ERP Connector REST API and carry the invoice data to NAV. Hungarian payroll and the 2608 return run in local payroll software or through a payroll partner, with the payroll journal posted to the ledger each month.

Rates, regimes and deadlines in this summary change, and many countries are actively legislating on e-invoicing. This is general information, not tax or legal advice — confirm the current position with the authority named above or with your tax adviser before you rely on it.